We Finally Did It: Renewables Overtake Coal (And It's About Bloody Time)
The news hit my feed this morning while scrolling through the usual mix of DevOps drama and climate updates: renewables have officially overtaken coal as the world’s biggest source of electricity generation. My first reaction? Finally. My second reaction? Why the hell did it take us this long?
I’ve been watching this transition unfold for years now, through countless online discussions and debates. The technical arguments, the political posturing, the fossil fuel industry’s last-ditch efforts to maintain relevance. What strikes me most about this milestone isn’t just that we’ve reached it, but the sheer variety of reactions it’s generating.
There’s the celebration camp - people genuinely excited about this shift towards cleaner energy. Then there’s the skeptics pointing out that much of this renewable capacity is actually decades-old hydroelectric infrastructure, not the shiny new solar panels we might imagine. Fair point, but progress is progress. Someone noted that coal has been declining for years anyway, so this was somewhat inevitable. True, but inevitability doesn’t diminish the significance.
What really gets under my skin, though, are the technical naysayers still banging on about grid stability and intermittency as if it’s 2010. The reality is that these challenges have largely been solved or are rapidly being addressed. European countries ran almost entirely on solar and wind over summer, and battery storage technology is advancing faster than my teenage daughter’s mood swings.
The frustration is particularly acute when you consider the decades of delay caused by vested interests and short-sighted politics. We could have been having this conversation in the 1990s if we’d had the political will. Instead, we’ve watched extreme weather events become increasingly common while coal companies fought tooth and nail to maintain their market share.
Here in Australia, we’ve had our own frustrating dance with renewable energy policy. Remember the political circus around carbon pricing? The endless debates about “baseload power” while other countries were already demonstrating that modern grids can handle high renewable penetration just fine? It’s maddening when you work in tech and see how quickly we can solve complex problems when there’s genuine commitment to finding solutions.
The environmental implications are staggering when you really think about it. Every kilowatt-hour generated by wind or solar instead of coal is a small victory for air quality, public health, and climate stability. The person who pointed out that coal consumption has real negative health impacts was spot on - this isn’t just about carbon emissions, it’s about the particulate matter that’s been shortening lives for generations.
What gives me hope, despite the frustration, is the economic reality that’s now driving this transition. Renewables are simply cheaper in most markets, even without subsidies. Market forces are finally aligned with environmental necessity. When a technology becomes both the right thing to do and the profitable thing to do, adoption accelerates rapidly.
The challenge now isn’t whether renewables will continue to grow - they will. The challenge is whether we can scale up fast enough to make a meaningful difference to our climate trajectory. Storage technology needs to keep improving, grid infrastructure needs upgrading, and we need political leaders who understand that this transition is happening with or without them.
Looking at my daughter’s generation, I’m cautiously optimistic. They’re inheriting a world where renewable energy is becoming the norm, not the exception. They won’t have to fight the same battles we’ve fought over the basic viability of clean energy. Their battles will be about optimizing, scaling, and perfecting these technologies.
This milestone feels like closing a chapter on an unnecessarily long and frustrating period of human history. We’ve finally proven that we can generate electricity without destroying the planet in the process. Now we just need to do it faster, better, and everywhere. The technology is there, the economics work, and the momentum is building. About bloody time.