Even in the Trump era. Climate progress is actually good business. Vox Umair Irfan, Benji Jones, Adam Clark Estes, and Sam Delgado Data visualization by Gabrielle Merite Apr 21, 2025 Technologies that can power our lives and jobs while doing less harm to the global climate — wind, solar, batteries, etc. — are getting cheaper, more efficient, and more abundant. The pace of progress on price, scale, and performance has been so extraordinary that even the most optimistic forecasts about green tech in the past have turned out to be too pessimistic. Clean energy isn’t just powering our devices, tools, and luxuries — it’s growing the global economy, creating a whole suite of new jobs, and reshaping trade. And despite what headlines may say, there’s no sign these trends will reverse. Political and economic turmoil may slow down clean energy, but the sector has built up so much momentum that it’s become nigh unstoppable.
Take a look at Texas: The largest oil- and gas-producing state in the US is also the largest in wind energy, and it’s installing more solar than any other. Texas utilities have come to realize that investing in clean energy is not just good for the environment; it’s good business. And even without subsidies and preferential treatment, the benefits of clean technologies — in clean air, scalability, distribution, and cost — have become impossible to ignore. And there’s only more room to grow. The world is still in the early stages of this revolution as market forces become the driver rather than environmental worries. In some US markets, installing new renewable energy is cheaper than running existing coal plants. Last year, the US produced more electricity from wind and solar power than from coal for the first time. If these energy trends persist, the US economy will see its greenhouse gas emissions diminish faster, reducing its contribution to climate change. The US needs to effectively zero out its carbon dioxide emissions by the middle of the century in order to keep the worst damages of climate change in check. Now, just a few months into Trump’s second presidency, it’s still an open question just how fragile the country’s progress on clean energy and climate will be. But the data is clear: There is tremendous potential for economic growth and environmental benefits if the country makes the right moves at this key inflection point. Certainly incentives like tax credits, business loans, and research and development funding could accelerate decarbonization. On the other hand, pulling back — as the Trump administration wants to do — would slow down clean energy in the US, though it wouldn’t stop it. But the rest of the world isn’t sitting idle, and if the US decides to slow its head start, its competitors may take the lead in a massive, rocketing industry. —Umair Irfan, Vox climate correspondent
Solar.......It’s hard to think of a natural wonder more unstoppable than the sun, and harnessing its energy has proven just as formidable. The United States last year saw a record amount of clean energy power up, with solar leading the way. Over the past decade, solar power capacity in the US has risen eightfold.Why? Solar has just gotten way, way, way cheaper, even more than wind. The main technology for turning sunlight into electricity, the single-junction photovoltaic panel, has drastically increased the efficiency by which it turns a ray of sunlight into a moving electron. This lets the same-size panel convert more light into electricity. Since the device itself is a printed semiconductor, it has benefited from many of the manufacturing improvements that have come with recent advances in computer chip production. Solar has also benefited from economies of scale, particularly as China has invested heavily in its production. This has translated into cheaper solar panels around the world, including the US. And since solar panels are modular, small gains in efficiency and cost reduction quickly add up, boosting the business case........more
Wind.....President Donald Trump does not like wind energy — apparently, in part, because he thinks turbines are ugly. “We’re not going to do the wind thing,” Trump said after his inauguration during a rally. “Big, ugly windmills, they ruin your neighborhood.”He’s put some power behind those feelings. Within mere hours of stepping into office, Trump signed an executive order that hamstrung both onshore and offshore wind energy developments, even as he has claimed that the US faces an energy crisis......more
Our energy grid......While wind and solar energy have soared upward for more than a decade, storing electricity on the grid with batteries is just taking off. Grid-scale battery capacity suddenly launched upward around 2020 and has about doubled every year since. That’s good news for intermittent power sources, such as wind and solar: Energy storage is the booster rocket for renewables and one of the key tools for addressing the stubborn duck curve that plagues solar power.Batteries for the grid aren’t that far removed from those that power phones and computers, so they’ve benefited from cost and performance improvements in consumer batteries. And they still have room to get cheaper........more
The electric vehicle transition.....Transportation is the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Fossil fuels currently account for nearly 90 percent of the energy consumption in the transportation sector, which makes it an obvious target for decarbonization. And while it will take some time to figure out how to electrify planes, trains, and container ships, the growth of EVs, including passenger cars and trucks, has reached a tipping point.The price of a new EV is nearly equivalent to a new gas-powered car, when you include state and federal subsidies. And the US charging infrastructure is getting better by the day: With over 200,000 chargers currently online, the number is growing......more
Jobs......For any of these clean energy sectors to reach their highest potential, there’s an essential requirement they all share: a robust, skilled workforce. The good news for the clean energy industry is that data show the jobs are rolling in. The 2024 Clean Jobs America report by E2, a national group focused on climate solutions across industries, paints a positive picture for clean jobs. Renewable energy jobs increased by 14 percent from 2020 to 2023 — a surge boosted by the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) climate-focused policies. Jobs in the solar sector have grown by 15 percent in that same period, with 12 percent growth for wind and 11 percent growth for geothermal......more
Geothermal......While President Trump has largely been hostile to renewable energy, there’s one clean energy source that the administration actually supports: geothermal.Geothermal has long lived in the shadows of other renewables — especially as wind and solar have surged. But geothermal’s potential may be greater than any of those, and ironically, being in Trump’s good graces may give this sector the final boost it needs. If you know President Trump’s motto of “drill, baby, drill,” this might not come as a surprise. Geothermal energy is tapped by drilling into the ground and extracting heat from the earth, and it uses similar technology to the oil and gas industry. US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has long praised geothermal, and the fracking company he oversaw prior to joining the Trump administration invested in Fervo Energy, a company that specializes in geothermal technologies.Despite the fact that the first geothermal plant was built in 1904 in Italy, the energy source is still in its infancy. Then there’s the issue of cost. Compared to solar and wind development and operations, building geothermal plants and drilling is much more expensive. And it currently costs more per megawatt hour than solar and wind......more