From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
Kathryn Porter mentioned claims that renewables were now supplying more electricity than coal on a worldwide basis.
As she pointed out, the claim originated with Ember, the renewable lobby outfit who claimed that Labour’s energy plans would reduce bills by £300! Hardly trustworthy then!
And quite why they are making their claim half way through the year, instead of waiting till the end, is highly suspicious.
Nevertheless, if you include hydro and burning trees in “renewables”, renewable and coal generation have been neck and neck for a while:
BP Energy Review 2024
The trouble is that no reputable organisation classifies hydro in renewables.
Naturally the renewable lobby has jumped on these claims to pretend that the world is rapidly moving to wind and solar power – one contact saw Justin Rowlatt making deceptive claims on the BBC News last night.
The reality is of course much different. Wind and solar only contributed 15% of the world’s electricity last year, and it is unlikely to go much higher this year.
Justin Rowlatt claimed that the world’s energy system is being transformed by “cheap” solar power. That is an outright lie. Solar’s contribution rose from 5.6% in 2023 to 6.7% last year – hardly transformative!
Faithfully parroted here.
Coincidentally, coal is critical as a chemical feedstock and provides energy for the production of solar panels, and without “fossil fuels” wind turbines grind to a halt.
So you’re saying coal is a solar ‘forcing’. I hope we don’t get ‘runaway solar’.
Ember features on its board one Bryony Worthington, quelle surprise…
Baroness Bryony Worthington is our founder and Chair of the board. – Ember
What a vicious circle – Miliband, Worthington and the Climate Change Committee. It’s easy to see what’s going on here and it’s what I call narrative-firming; attempting to shore up a losing cause. Did Spain not boast of having 100% renewable?
Spain hits first weekday of 100% renewable power on national grid – PV Magazine
And then the lights went out for at least 10 hours across the whole Iberian peninsula. And people died as a result in good weather, too. This latest from Ember, The Grauniad and obviously Miliband’s department, is pure propaganda with no real basis in fact and meant for mass consumption…
a historic first, according to new data from the global energy think tank Ember. – BBC
Justin Rowlatt and the gang will have to come up with something else:
The current trajectory of the energy transition means natural gas demand could hit 4,806 billion cubic metres a year in 2050, BP said, up 1.6% from its previous estimate of 4,729 billion cubic metres. – The Guardian
I’ll go with BP on this one.
CV watch: Bryony Worthington, English literature, Cambridge.
Cambridge: Alma mater of the traitors.
English literature: Alma mater of Virginia Woolf and Sting.
Sting? A schoolteacher?
Yes, but also lead singer of The Police, then solo vocalist! I hope nobody defunds him.
I am intrigued by the reluctance of the Climate Alarmists to put hydro into the renewables category.
What could possibly be more renewable than weather dependent filled reservoirs feeding into the hydro systems.
If hydro isn’t renewable, then neither is solar which is completely weather dependent and only for half a day at that!.
I vividly remember Baroness Bryony Worthington being invited by Kirk Sorenson to join him and his team on a visit to Oakridge to champion the potential of molten salt thorium reactors as an alternative to conventional uranium fueled systems.
He was confused and amazed the greens which Worthington sided with, were not all over his enthusiasm for the safe clean nuclear technology and its potential.
She could clearly see, if she endorsed research into thorium it would compromise her preferred anti nuclear supporters position.
I believe the greens also want to destroy the hydro industry too. They are just anti energy.
On a more basic point.
Is the claim renewables are now the dominant energy sector, or are they simply saying it is dominant/almost in the electricity generation sector which is only around 20% of energy use anyway.
Please correct my perception if I am wrong.
“If hydro isn’t renewable, then neither is solar “
Indeed, water flows night and day….
Actually, water flow is seasonal. In the Pacific Northwest there is very little river flow in winter. That is why huge reservoirs are needed. Run of river plants are next to useless.
Environmental activists want to “rewild” the rivers. Remove all the dams.
Many hydro systems are used as rapid “on-demand” systems and require the water to be pumped back up to the reservoir overnight ready for the next day. What is powering the pumps?
How many is many? and are any of the many from before 1990?
I had a hard time answering online:
“National Inventory of Dams – FEMA.gov
May 9, 2025 · Today, the database contains information for more than 91,000 dams that meet the following criteria: Dams where downstream flooding would likely result in loss of human life …”
So there are 91k dams, but that does not aways mean hydro, and hydro ?how often? means pumped storage.
They love to claim hydro’s energy as “renewable” to pad the numbers while fighting new dam construction and actually trying to remove existing dams.
High as puck on pixie dust and rainbow farts while riding a unicorn…other reasonable explanation?
Just saw this story on local morning news, presented as fact to the viewing public. Promoters of wind and solar predicted that the renewables revolution would overtake sources of energy that work, so now the numbers will be tortured until the media can report nature’s “confession.” Doesn’t matter how absurd it is, the prols will believe numbers. Pure propaganda.
“presented as fact”
These people have studied their Goebbels
If you repeat a lie often enough it becomes accepted as truth.
And…
We shall reach our goal, when we have the power to laugh as we destroy, as we smash, whatever was sacred to us as tradition, as education, and as human affection.
Could be Ed Miliband…
Greentards are very AC-DC with Hydro power. When it suits them to pump renewables are doing well they will include them but if it means that wealth redistribution agenda is affected them they don’t. I think the official current greentard view is that it’s not a clean energy rather than not being renewable.
To my eye it looks like fossil fuels satisfy about 80% of consumption, of which coal is 26%. Even including hydo, renewables make up about 16%.
Energy consumption by source, World
quelgeek:
Nice graphic! [” pictures are worth a 1000 words” and I like the Ourworldindata.org site ]
But how did you add it to your comment? There used to be a button to add graphics…
Thanks in advance!
Bottom right hand corner of the reply box
Way, way off topic but very funny.
Spitting Image (a satirical puppet show) is being sued by Paddington Bear.
Paddington creators sue after Spitting Image depicts him as crude podcast host – BBC
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yykqgS6-oNo
I like how they try to pretend the War on Coal never happened, as if this all happened organically, due to free markets. Do they think people were born yesterday?
Born yesterday? Perhaps. Dumb? Certainly.
This nonsense article put out by woke folks should be ignored
Solar and wind are far from cheap
Offshore wind is sold to the utility at 15 c/keh, after 50% subsidies, plus about 11 c/kWh is required to deal with wind and solar on the grid and disposal in hazardous waste landfills
New coal can be sold to utilities at 8 c/kWh, without any subsidies, plus minimal costs are required to deal with coal on the grid and disposal in hazardous waste landfills, plus the CO2 is beneficial for increasing green plant growth and increasing fauna and increasing crop yields to better feed 8 billion people.
NEW COAL ELECTRICITY LESS COSTLY, AVAILABLE NOW, NOT PIE IN THE SKY, LIKE EXPENSIVE FUSION AND SMALL MODULAR NUCLEAR
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/coal-electricity-less-costly-available-now-not-pie-in-the-sky
By Willem Post
It is very easy for coal to compete with wind and solar
In the US, Utilities are forced to buy offshore wind electricity for about 15 cents/kWh.
That price would have been 30 cents/kWh, if no 50% subsidies.
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Offshore wind full cost of electricity FCOE = 30 c/kWh + 11 c/kWh = 41 c/kWh, no subsidies
Offshore wind full cost of electricity FCOE = 15 c/kWh + 11 c/kWh = 26 c/kWh, 50% subsidies
The 11 c/kWh is for various measures required by wind and solar; power plant-to-landfill cost basis.
This compares with 7 c/kWh + 2 c/kWh = 9 c/kWh from gas, coal, nuclear, large reservoir hydro plants.
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Coal gets very little direct subsidies in the US.
Here is an example of the lifetime cost of a coal plant.
The key is running steadily at 90% output for 50 years, on average
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Assume mine-mouth coal plant in Wyoming; 1800 MW (three x 600 MW); turnkey-cost $10 b; life 50 y; CF 0.9; no direct subsidies.
Payments to bank, $5 b at 6% for 50 y; $316 million/y x 50 = $15.8 b
Payments to Owner, $5 b at 10% for 50 y; $504 million/y x 50 = $21.2 b
Lifetime production, base-loaded, 1800 x 8766 x 0.9 x 50 = 710,046,000 MWh
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Wyoming coal, low-sulfur, no CO2 scrubbers needed, at mine-mouth $15/US ton, 8600 Btu/lb, plant efficiency 40%, Btu/ton = 2000 x 8600 = 17.2 million
Lifetime coal use = 710,046,000,000 kWh/y x (3412 Btu/kWh/0.4)/17,200,000 Btu/US ton = 353 million US ton
Lifetime coal cost = $5.3 billion
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The Owner can deduct interest on borrowed money, and can depreciate the entire plant over 50 y, or less, which helps him achieve his 10% return on investment.
Those are general government subsidies, indirectly charged to taxpayers and/or added to government debt.
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Other costs:
Fixed O&M (labor, maintenance, insurance, taxes, land lease)
Variable O&M (water, chemicals, lubricants, waste disposal)
Fixed + Variable, newer plants 2 c/kWh, older plants up to 4 c/kWh
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Year 1 O&M cost = $0.02/kWh x 710,046,000 MWh/50 y x 1000 kWh/MWh = $0.284 b
Year I Coal cost = $15/US ton x 353 million US ton/50 y = 0.106 b
Year 1 Bank/Owner cost = (15.8, Bank + 21.2, Owner)/50 y= 0.740 b
Year 1 Total cost = 1.130 b
Year 1 Revenue = $0.08/kWh x 710,046,000 MWh/50 x 1000 kWh/MWh = $1.136 b
Total revenue equals total cost at 8 c/kWh
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For lower electricity cost/kWh, borrow more money, say 70%
Traditional Nuclear has similar economics; life 60 to 80 y; CF 0.9 in the US.
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For perspective, China used 2204.62/2000 x 4300 = 4740 million US ton in 2024.
China and Germany have multiple ultra-super-critical, USC, coal plants with efficiencies of 45% (LHV), 42% (HHV)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/ultrasupercritical-plant
HIGH COST/kWh OF W/S SYSTEMS FOISTED ONTO A BRAINWASHED PUBLIC
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/high-cost-kwh-of-w-s-systems-foisted-onto-a-brainwashed-public-1
What is generally not known, the more weather-dependent W/S systems, the less efficient the traditional generators, as they inefficiently (more CO2/kWh) counteract the increasingly larger ups and downs of W/S output. See URL
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/fuel-and-co2-reductions-due-to-wind-energy-less-than-claimed
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W/S systems add great cost to the overall delivery of electricity to users; the more W/S systems, the higher the cost/kWh, as proven by the UK and Germany, with the highest electricity rates in Europe, and near-zero, real-growth GDP.
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At about 30% W/S, the entire system hits an increasingly thicker concrete wall, operationally and cost wise.
The UK and Germany are hitting the wall, more and more hours each day.
The cost of electricity delivered to users increased with each additional W/S/B system
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Nuclear, gas, coal and reservoir hydro plants are the only rational way forward.
Ignore CO2, because greater CO2 ppm in atmosphere is essential for: 1) increased green flora to increase fauna all over the world, and 2) increased crop yields to better feed 8 billion people.
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Net-zero by 2050 to-reduce CO2 is a super-expensive suicide pact, to increase command/control by governments, and enable the moneyed elites to get richer, at the expense of all others, by using the foghorn of the government-subsidized/controlled Corporate Media to spread scare-mongering slogans and brainwash people.
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Subsidies shift costs from project Owners to ratepayers, taxpayers, government debt:
1) Federal and state tax credits, up to 50% (Community tax credit 10%; Federal tax credit of 30%; State tax credit; other incentives up to 10%);
2) 5-y Accelerated Depreciation to write off of the entire project;
3) Loan interest deduction
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Utilities forced to pay:
At least 15 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from fixedoffshore wind systems
At least 18 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from floating offshore wind
At least 12 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from largersolar systems
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Excluded costs, at a future 30% W/S annual penetration on the grid, based on UK and German experience:
– Onshore grid expansion/reinforcement to connect far-flung W/S systems, about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to quickly counteract W/S variable output, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, which means more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to provide electricity during 1) low-wind periods, 2) high-wind periods, when rotors are locked in place, and 3) low solar periods during mornings, evenings, at night, snow/ice on panels, which means more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– Pay W/S system Owners for electricity they could have produced, if not curtailed, about 1 c/kWh
– Importing electricity at high prices, when W/S output is low, 1 c/kWh
– Exporting electricity at low prices, when W/S output is high, 1 c/kWh
– Disassembly on land and at sea, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites, about 2 c/kWh
Total ADDER 2 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 = 11 c/kWh
Some of these values exponentially increase as more W/S systems are added to the grid
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Offshore wind full cost of electricity FCOE = 30 c/kWh + 11 c/kWh = 41 c/kWh, no subsidies
Offshore wind full cost of electricity FCOE = 15 c/kWh + 11 c/kWh = 26 c/kWh, 50% subsidies
The 11 c/kWh is for various measures required by wind and solar; power plant-to-landfill cost basis.
This compares with 7 c/kWh + 2 c/kWh = 9 c/kWh from existing gas, coal, nuclear, large reservoir hydro plants.
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The economic/financial insanity and environmental damage is off the charts.
No wonder Europe’s near-zero, real-growth GDP is in de-growth mode.
That economy has been tied into knots by inane people.
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Remove your subsidy dollars using your vote, none of these projects would be built, your electric bills would be lower.
Ban Corrupt Mail-in Ballots and corruptible Voting Machines; No Valid ID, No Vote; Paper ballots and hand counting only.
Fusion power isn’t just expensive … it is NONEXISTENT.
The massively expensive experiments have only just achieved break-even. there remains ~ 100 years, or more, of difficult engineering work to get to a fusion power plant generating useful power. I hope they succeed but your entire posting is damaged in the first sentence with such nonsense.
What annoys me is the sloppy way the MSM often substitutes ‘energy’ for ‘electricity generation’ when reporting this Ember story and similar data. Even the weather women on the local news. Replacing all global energy use is a completely different proposition.
The chief takeaway is that electricity generation from fossil fuel dropped 0.3%. At that rate the glorious renewables revolution is going to be a long time coming.
“What annoys me is the sloppy way the MSM often substitutes “ fiction for fact.
And sloppy is the word. Non-islamic faiths flock together – it is a religion after all…
Pope Leo XIV has hit out at those who minimise the “increasingly evident” impact of rising temperatures in his first major statement on climate change. – BBC
Pope Leo XIV Blesses a Block of Ice in Bizarre Protest – An arm of the MSM
May your god be with you….
I have noticed that my iPhone now “optimizes” its overnight charging schedule to use “clean energy” for charging. Given what I know about the grid that supplies my electricity, I am wondering what Apple’s definition of clean energy is. Even on the sunniest days, windiest nights, and mildest temperatures there is still coal and natural gas being burned.
‘Kathryn Porter mentioned claims that renewables were now supplying more electricity than coal on a worldwide basis.’
Paul, who is Kathryn Porter? If it’s this person, I wouldn’t lend any credence to anything she says:
https://x.com/i/status/1975646137882423327
Did you not read “This Isn’t Science, It’s Ideology” by Kathryn Porter on this website a week ago? Clearly this Kathryn Porter bears no resemblance to the Kathryn Porter, the Californian politician who is known as Katie Porter, who is an intellectual numbskull, unlike the Kathryn Porter who is well informed on climate matters. Perhaps you were trying to get a dig at the woman who aspires to fill the shoes of Governor Newsom and continue his loony climate policies?
‘Did you not read “This Isn’t Science, It’s Ideology” by Kathryn Porter on this website a week ago?’
No, I didn’t, which is why it is helpful for authors to provide some reference / context when throwing out names. You are correct, however, that ‘…Kathryn Porter, the Californian politician who is known as Katie Porter…is an intellectual numbskull…’, which makes it highly plausible that she could have ‘mentioned claims that renewables were now supplying more electricity than coal on a worldwide basis’.
Lol
What are you on?
That is not ‘the’ Kathryn Porter.
Nothing. You’re just jealous because UK Labor has no MPs that are anywhere near as awful as Katie Porter, D-CA.
She is energy consult for industry and commerce. Her website is:
https://www.watt-logic.com
A UK-based person whose media interviews are often reposted on Paul Homewood’s website.
For example, the following (just under 9 minutes long) video was posted just yesterday :
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2025/10/08/net-zero-lies-exposed-keir-starmers-promises-undermined/
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PS : The WUWT repost referred to by “Michael in Dublin” consists of a rather longer … just under 90 (!) minutes long … video (which is too long for my attention span) :
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/09/28/this-isnt-science-its-ideology-kathryn-porter/
The unwelcome truth:
“Solar’s contribution rose from 5.6% in 2023 to 6.7% last year” despite massive subsidies.
Solar drops off quite a bit in winter months in Northern Hemisphere. Wind doesn’t make up the balance.
True, but it is a function of several things like latitude and cloud cover. There is more day length than the equator if you don’t mind less electricity.
Hydro – same reliably flat 5-15% for the past 50 years. Nuclear too, though no green group is claiming it.
Yet a bazillionth case of a word losing contact with its definition. What is a ‘renewable’? How does eg solar fit the actual definition of the word? If the users just went with the obvious “non-carbon” or “non burning sh–” then they’d get that unwanted nuclear in their category.
The greens need a word that includes all “non burning sh–” -except- nuclear, then they can sound smart in writing.
According to the Oxford Dictionary:
Renewable
“(of a natural resource or source of energy) not depleted when used.”
By that definition nothing is renewable energy.
Solar – photons are depleted
Wind – Air movement is depleted
Hydro – Water volume is depleted
Nuclear – The fuel isotope is depleted
That is the problem with dictionaries on a complex definition it misses.
Just this morning I was listening to my local news station to get the weather and traffic before I got up. They reported on an announcement of several new roof top solar projects, each of which will supply enough electricity to power “up to” 700 homes. Most people listening will think wow – 700 homes, not realizing that is nameplate capacity, meaning it will average 100 homes, and almost nothing in our Canadian winters.
How many homes have to be covered in order to get enough power to power “700 homes”.
Way more than 700, especially for places that require AC or heat.
Once it is printed by the media, such claims take on lives of their own, are repeated countless times and, as a result, become “truth.”
And the internet made such publishing such claims much easier. There was a protest here in Edmonton about teachers salaries this week. Thousands came out to wave placards at government buildings where there were no politicians. Not long ago nobody could have afforded the time to lick the invitation stamps nor phone their buddies. Today you can pay $20 for a targeted e-mail-out. It can be fixed if emails and their social media equivalents are the same price as old fashioned postage stamps….
In any case, none of this wind and solar energy is produced in response to demand. It is effectively useless to a utility. It just disrupts dispatch-able sources.
From the above article:
Yet, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) at https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php states the following:
“The three major categories of energy for electricity generation are fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and petroleum), nuclear energy, and renewable energy.”
And the reason that hydropower is most ofter cited to be a “renewable energy” source is given here:
https://maweb.org/is-hydropower-energy-renewable-or-nonrenewable
However, the critical decline in the water level in the reservoir (Lake Mead) behind Hoover Dam over the last 20 years gives good argument that nature may not “renew” resources at the magnitude and speed that many humans expect.
I appreciate Paul flagging this. However, I would like to see a much more detailed take down of the Ember report. It is simply dishonest propaganda that has been parroted by almost every major news outlet. It’s in serious need of “fact checking”.
I am a “data-centric” person whose particular version of OCD leads me to try and track down the original source data for lurid graphs presented in media articles.
Justin Rowlatt (or his editor ?) “forgot” to include an actual link to the Ember report in the BBC article, an “oversight” that is rectified below :
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-mid-year-insights-2025/
NB : The PDF file linked to by the (green rectangular) “Download PDF” button near the top of that webpage contains information required to complete my version of a “data recovery process”.
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Data from January 2019 to May 2025 can be downloaded from the following webpage :
https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/
Select “Display : separated” and “Reported by : month“, then click on the “Download data” button at the bottom-right of the graph (below the “dates selection” slider).
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The PDF file contains some absolute numbers for “1H 2025” — Coal = 4896 TWh, Solar = 1303 TWh, Wind = 1365 TWh and “Renewables” = 5072 TWh –but most have to be calculated using “changes from 1H 2024” statements instead.
NB : There are some minor differences between my spreadsheet formulae results and the PDF file … e.g. “Renewables” for 1H2025 = 5077.46 TWh instead of 5072 — but they’re all “close enough for government work”, as the saying goes.
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The results of my initial “try to reproduce the graph” for the figure on page 15 of Ember’s PDF file is attached below.
Having taken the time and effort needed to get “the original / raw Ember dataset”, an alternative perspective of the numbers.
NB : Everybody has biases, both conscious and sub-conscious. The attached graphs are almost certainly just as biased as those of both Ember and all of the media outlets that “reported” on it, they just happen to be “biased” in a different direction.
If the other side didn’t lie they wouldn’t have anything to say.
That and every energy intense economy except China and India have their foot on the throat of coal.
The cyclical outlook by the Guest Blogger seems bit uninformed:
1) “Renewables have overtaken coal to become the world’s leading source of electricity for the first six months of this year in a “historic first”. The analysis, from the think tank Ember, found the world generated “almost a third” more solar power in the first half of the year, compared with the same period in 2024, while wind power grew by “just over 7%,” and,
2) According to the report, China and India were “largely responsible for the surge in renewables”, while the US and Europe “relied more heavily on fossil fuels,”. China built more renewables than every other country combined in the first half of this year.