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A comment on A Year of Clean Energy Milestones.

Re:A Year of Clean Energy Milestones by bwestergard on Monday January 05, 2026 @05:11PM (#46505745)
This post says: "For the first time, wind and solar supplied more power than coal worldwide, while plug-in vehicles accounted for more than a quarter of new car sales."

This does not mean that wind and solar are replacing coal, oil, or wood, all of which were produced and used in greater volumes in 2025, so far as I can tell.

https://www.coalage.com/departments/closing-notes/global-coa...

All past price declines in energy commodities have lead to increased consumption of other energy (and raw materials) commodities. The production of whale oil declined, but only due to environmental regulation. For more, see: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/464145/more-and-more-and-mor...

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Re:A Year of Clean Energy Milestones by burkaman on Monday January 05, 2026 @06:01PM (#46506366)
You're right about coal and oil, but wood seems like it's been declining since 2000: https://ourworldindata.org/energy-mix.

On coal, from the report they're citing:

> For 2025, global coal demand is projected to reach 8 845 Mt, setting a new record. The increase of around 40 Mt compared with 2024 is very similar to the forecast we made last year. While there were some unusual regional trends, they had the effect of cancelling each other out. The United States posted the largest absolute gain of about 37 Mt, supported by policy measures and higher gas prices.

So nearly the entire 2025 increase came from the US, where the federal government is ordering retiring coal plants to stay open and aggressively blocking all non fossil fuel development. Without this artificial and very temporary boost, I'm not convinced coal demand would have risen last year.

> The production of whale oil declined, but only due to environmental regulation.

I don't think this is an exception, it's an example of what needs to happen. Fossil fuels are bad for the environment and need to be regulated, just like whale oil.

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Re:A Year of Clean Energy Milestones by bwestergard on Monday January 05, 2026 @06:39PM (#46506770)
RE: The total mass of wood burned by humans annually continued climbing through 2023. Not sure how to square that with the figures on your link for "traditional biomass".

See: https://jkempenergy.com/2024/12/11/rising-wood-fuel-consumpt...

RE: Whales. I'm all for regulation.

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Re:A Year of Clean Energy Milestones by burkaman on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @02:39PM (#46517464)
That article says it was higher in 2023 compared to past years like 1961 and 1900, not that it as increased continuously during that time. See page 4 of the PDF at the bottom where "traditional biomass" ("wood, charcoal, agricultural residues and/or animal dung" - https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6...) has been falling since 2000.

It does also say that forestry production, charcoal, and wood pellets have been rising, so I guess I don't know, this is difficult to measure and different sources disagree.

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Re:A Year of Clean Energy Milestones by pfdietz on Monday January 05, 2026 @05:30PM (#46506004)
It means the replacement process is moving well along, though. Coal is persisting mostly because of the installed base, but new capacity is overwhelmingly renewables.
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Re:A Year of Clean Energy Milestones by bwestergard on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @01:24PM (#46516357)
The rate of growth of coal has declined, but growth continues.

https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/global-coal-plant-t...

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