Huge News in Renewable Energy

This is awesome.

A new report put out by the International Energy Agency shows that renewable electricity capacity growth reached an all-time high in 2015, hitting the 153 gigawatt (GW) mark. That’s a 15 percent increase from 2014.  . . . Incredibly, about half a million solar panels were installed each day around the world last year.

The lion’s share of this growth (about three-quarters worth) came in the form of new onshore wind and solar power plants. The IEA says that, for the first time, “renewables accounted for more than half of net annual additions to power capacity and overtook coal in terms of cumulative installed capacity in the world.”
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That last point bears repeating. Renewables in the form of solar and wind now account for more installed capacity than any other form of electricity, including coal.  Link

One of the reasons for this growth is recent sharp reductions in costs for both solar and wind power. It should be noted that today in the United States there are more than twice as many people employed in the solar industry, than in the coal industry.

So let's contrast that good news with a nuanced take on renewable energy.

Our energy companies are a disaster right now. Coal. The coal business is – you know, there is such a thing as clean coal. Our miners are out of work–now they’re just attacking energy companies like I’ve never seen them attack anything before. 

They want everything to be wind and solar. Unfortunately, it’s not working on large-scale. It’s just not working. Solar is very, very expensive. Wind is very, very expensive, and it only works when it’s windy.  Link

Guess who? Yes, Trump, the would-be President, knows squat about the actual reality of energy in the United States and the world. What a shock. (But not a shock from wind power, it's not windy right now.)

Oh, and by the way, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CLEAN COAL.  Get over it.