this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2025
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Based on current deployment rates, it is likely that solar will surpass wind as the third-largest source of electricity. And solar may soon topple coal in the number two spot.

Looking ahead, through July 2028, FERC expects no new coal capacity to come online based on its “high probability additions” forecast. Meanwhile 63 coal plants are expected to be retired, subtracting 25 GW from the 198 GW total, and landing at about 173 GW of coal capacity by 2028. Meanwhile, FERC forecasts 92.6 GW of “high probability additions” solar will come online through July 2028.

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[–] SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world 111 points 6 days ago (6 children)

I've already passed wind in 2025.

[–] Vandals_handle@lemmy.world 41 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Would that be considered breaking news?

[–] Godnroc@lemmy.world 31 points 6 days ago

No, but it is breaking wind.

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[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 14 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Are you a renewable resource?

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[–] Hux@lemmy.ml 12 points 6 days ago

Username checks out.

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[–] SethTaylor@lemmy.world 45 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

"Will pass wind"

Haha

Cool

[–] Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone 8 points 5 days ago

Yeah haha I came here to laugh too. And leave coal sounds funny too

[–] answersplease77@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago

my dylexic brain read it as "US soldier will pass wind in 2025 and leaves coal dust soon after.."

holycrap wtf did they feed them as part of military experiment or wtf is going on???

[–] betanumerus@lemmy.ca 20 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Solar may pass wind, but gas and burning gas are actual stinking farts.

[–] LordCrom@lemmy.world 25 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Hell. In Florida, FPL is the electric provider, and they are fighting tooth and nail to keep people from installing solar on houses.... In Florida, we would have almost free electric for everyone if all houses could install panels....

But FPL lobbied our GOP legislature and force anyone with solar to have a million dollar insurance policy payable to FPL in case something happens. Also got regulations passed to bar home windstorm insurance if any panels are bolted to the roof. So if you have panels, no hurricane insurance for you....and the mortgage holder gets to put their expensive policy on your home.

Fuck FPL

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 5 points 5 days ago (2 children)

To be fair, Florida building codes are pretty much static electricity holding cardboard together.

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[–] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 4 points 6 days ago (8 children)

You couldn’t just have “free electricity for everyone” by having solar panels on your houses lol. Where’s the power being stored?

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[–] aBundleOfFerrets@sh.itjust.works 39 points 6 days ago (18 children)

Even with an admin as renewable-hostile as the current one, you just can’t beat cheap, I guess.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 25 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (5 children)

That's been the joke of Solar for a while. Engineers could have told you all the way back in the 1970s (really, the 1910s) that it costs less money to leave a big plate out in the bright sun than to drill a giant hole and hope there's enough spicy rocks at the bottom of it to justify the expense.

We should have crested this hill a lot sooner, but the heavy emphasis on subsidized fossil fuels during the 80s, 90s, and 00s kept these fuels artificially cheap. Meanwhile, fossil fuel firms actually did invest in Green Energy R&D but only for the purpose of erecting "patent thickets" that would hinder competitive growth of these alternatives.

This “patent thicket” can create barriers to innovative low-carbon technologies, particularly in markets requiring expensive licensing fees or with complex patent litigation (Cannuscio 2008). A strengthened IPRP can increase market concentration and reduce competition (Liu et al. 2018), with large corporations able to maintain market control in such environments through patents on key technologies. This control not only restricts the entry of emerging low-carbon technologies into the market but also perpetuates the reliance on existing high-carbon technologies.

This has lead to big surges in the development and deployment of Green Energy grids outside of the countries doing most of the cutting edge research. Americans are only now catching up.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago (4 children)

You're really discounting that fossil fuels have hella bang for the buck, loads of power per gallon. tl;dr: Energy dense

I can run my little generator at camp all night long if there's as little as 3 gallons in there. Space heater or AC unit, lights, all that. I'd have to have many panels and batteries to compare to that output. My best battery is a huge LIPO4, trolling motor can't kill it, not even close. But leaving the LED lights on for a little over a day drained it dry.

We need way more solar infrastructure to get where we're going, and I'm all about it. But since since the GOP has decided to go back in time, China is going to smoke America, both in renewables and the associated economic benefits.

Did not know about the patent thing! Know any examples?

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[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 5 days ago

The current regime could not less about cost. They will probably stamp this out.

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[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 23 points 6 days ago (2 children)
[–] AmidFuror@fedia.io 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Would have been better as "blow past wind" to match the sentiment of the "coal in the dust" joke.

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[–] epicstove@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 days ago

They knew what they were doing with that title.

[–] frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 6 days ago (6 children)

That's actually a problem.

All realistic plans for 100% renewable (or even 95% renewable, which is substantially easier) rely on a multipronged approach of wind, water, solar, and grid upgrades. Each one has upsides and downsides, but you can use the upsides of one to cover the downsides of another. Combined, you get a reliable grid based on intermittent but cheap sources.

Capitalism sees this plan and decides to deploy the one with the best immediate ROI. Which happens to be solar. Problem is that you can't just rely on solar. The grid is hitting limits where electrical production is sending prices to basically zero at certain times, but not able to provide enough the rest of the time. That will shift the economic incentives. Eventually.

It'll figure out what researchers have already written down, but it'll take too long to get there.

[–] Fairgreen@lemmy.world 11 points 6 days ago (15 children)
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[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

SoCal has a huge amount of wind and solar right now. Utility sized battery installations are going in to deal with the times those two aren't producing.

[–] IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (4 children)

Even home battery solutions. We have solar panels & a Powerwall. Were part of a Virtual Power Plant along with around 1500 other Powerwall owners in the region. During peak usage in the summer all our PowerWalls feed back to the grid so that our utility provider doesn’t have to spin up expensive (and dirty) peaker plants. We get paid a premium for the power we provide during these events.

I saw articles here on Lemmy just a month or two ago that Tesla successfully tested a VPP in California that consisted of 100,000 PowerWalls.

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[–] jaykrown@lemmy.world 9 points 5 days ago

Sodium-ion batteries are becoming more viable, which will be necessary to buffer the solar energy surge during the day and lack of energy production at night.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 8 points 6 days ago (3 children)

You guys still burning coal? We dumped that ages ago.

[–] BanMe@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

See, you can build coal plants in poor/black areas, so you don't have to see the pollution, nor your kids have to get cancer like those silly poors. And then you don't have to put up with woke shit like windmills. Sigh.

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[–] selkiesidhe@sh.itjust.works 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Preznit Numbnuts will be sure to start closing wind farms then, forcing us all back into using coal so he can slurp up lobby $$

[–] crystalmerchant@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Lol they've already announced funding (or intent to fund?) for reviving coal mining

[–] SethTaylor@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago

The Republicans. They yearn for the mines.

[–] tomkatt@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago
[–] jmsy@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

A recent article about the state of the coal industry in the usa....

Fossil Fuels and Fossilized Minds - Paul Krugman https://share.google/9gGFCB2MFShNzGJrp

[–] VeryVito@lemmy.ml 6 points 6 days ago

Heh heh. Heh heh.

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