The editorial board of the New York Times wrote an excellent commentary outlining Five Climate Truths That Trump Doesn’t Understand. For all of us who have spent the past years following the growth in renewables, the prices and how the new energy economy is slowly shifting away from fossil fuels, these five facts come as no surprise.
“Trump Digs Coal” read the signs during the campaign, and Donald Trump promised he would be “an unbelievable positive” for the miners. Now he’s trying to deliver by repealing the Obama-era Clean Power Plan and proposing to subsidize coal-fired power plants. These moves are, in fact, unbelievable: Not only are they a setback in the fight against climate change, but they also make no economic sense, since the cost of renewable energy is falling sharply.”
To quickly summarize, coal is not coming back unless it is force fed and propped up by more subsidies, coal use in general has been falling in part because renewables are cheaper (great), but also because natural gas has been replacing it (not great). Renewable energy is getting much cheaper, the average contract prices of wind and solar are getting cheaper and technology, particularly in batteries is getting better.
The NY Times editorial board is collectively much better at writing than we are and they have some very nice graphs and charts which are great for visualization. Feel free to read the full commentary.
