renewable sources produced 33.8 percent of the world’s electricity last year, compared to 33 percent for coal.
I mean, I’m all in for renewable energy and this does seem like an alright milestone, but that’s comparing one source (Coal) to at least two sources (Solar and Wind*).
If we’re going to do that then I’d be more comfy when renewables cross the mark and beat out ALL fossil fuels generation and/or when one of Wind or Solar beats Coal.
Also a little bothered that they don’t enumerate the remaining ~33% of power generation. It seems fair to assume its mostly other fossil fuels with a small but not quite negligible chunk for Nuclear?
* = I assumed they would lump Hydro + Geothermal into “renewable”, but they only explicitly mention wind and solar
Wind is just solar with extra steps.
Technically so are fossil fuels.
…lots and lots of extra steps.
That’s all just nuclear fission with more steps.
Are there perhaps only two primary power sources: fission (in stars for now) and fusion (on Earth)?
Other way around. Stars produce energy through nuclear fusion, nuclear reactors produce energy through fission.
5 years later… Bro, you can’t ignore the huge 10% gap represented by oil…
They also don’t show the actual numbers, so we don’t know if coal production had any reduction, or if renewables just grew faster. The rest of the article makes it seem like the latter
Actual numbers are in this report
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-review-2026/
Thank you. It says there was a small reduction globally of 38 TWh (-0.2%) in 2025
Yeah, with the anticipated electrical demand of the near future, I don’t see coal generation decreasing substantially soon.
Does make me wish we’d come harder on nuclear over the last 4-5 decades. I know nuclear isn’t perfect, but its a good deal better than fossil fuels.
In a more just reality this would be being celebrated right now in a massive wrestling showdown show called COAL SMACKDOWN that brought together activists, scientists and of course pro wrestlers.
