It’s actually funny if you don’t think about it too hard. The U.S. president is trying to make us more reliant on fossil fuels, while starting a war in Iran that’s led to the global fossil fuel market to be negatively impacted, forcing most Americans to pay more for fossil fuels. Who could have seen that coming? We’re doing great!
the biggest producer of renewables is Texas, by a longshot. and the state of california just created insane NEM laws that favor the pockets of pg&e (and are shit for the environment) and as a result solar home installations have cratered.
I think NEM 3.0 incentivises storage now? Which seems to be what the (California) grid is looking for.
That doesn't refute the point at all.
Yes. But administration opposition can change that math, as they have with the tariffs.
So you could flip the stat and say they produce more fossil energy than any other state.
I can't quickly find 2025 stats but in recent years they've been 50% higher than the next state in both coal and gas fired electricity (in absolute terms).
Wikipedia has tables sortable by column by source by total and percentage from 2022 to get a rough idea:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_electri...
Texas was 33% or so wind plus solar last year. There are 6 states who had a higher percentage just from wind 3 years ago.
Just my opinion.
At the end of the day, the best case scenario is large scale renewable / battery storage to bring costs down as much as possible, and for those of us who want battery backup / solar can choose to invest in it, but it shouldn't be "the" solution.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/climate/offshore-wind-gas...
or delaying standard approvals
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/climate/wind-solar-projec...
Versus 35% YOY in China.
China gets it, the USA doesn't.
The best is to hope that this is an unstoppable trend
The trend is the USA choosing politics over reality as China becomes unstoppable.
https://carboncredits.com/china-adds-power-7x-more-than-the-...
It's "choosing" short term profits because its leadership (and its voters) have given up on long term stable trade and planning, and instead embraced oligarchy and rentier capitalism.
You can't parasitize solar and wind. There's few to no middlemen. No way to monopolize it. So it must be discouraged while you extract the last few years of wealth out of the assets you already control.
Compare generation stats for yesterday between 2021 and 2026 on the Texas grid (ERCOT)
* 2021 - https://www.gridstatus.io/live/ercot?date=2021-06-03
* 2026 - https://www.gridstatus.io/live/ercot?date=2026-06-03
Also, the Californian grid (CAISO) shows where everyone is headed with a huge deployment of batteries:
* 2021 - https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso?date=2021-06-03
* 2026 - https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso?date=2026-06-03
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-...
> As of April 1, 2026, renewable energy’s share of total US utility-scale (>1 MW) generating capacity was 33.6%. EIA projects this to grow to 36.6% by March 31, 2027. Utility-scale solar will add 42,626.1 MW, expanding its share from 12.8% to 15.7%, while wind will grow by 14,157.4 MW (including 4,155.0 MW of offshore wind), increasing from 13.0% to 13.6%. The mix of other renewables (hydropower, biomass, and geothermal) will add 297.1 MW.
> The capacity of battery storage was 42 GW at the end of 2025 and is expected to double and reach 85 GW by the end of 2027.
In terms of the general population or politicians, some more than others. This is also with an administration that is irrationally hostile to renewables.
1. https://electrek.co/2026/05/26/renewables-installed-capacity...
US manufacturers and consumers just love the added cost --- aka, inflation.
https://www.steel.org/2026/03/steel-imports-up-4-6-in-januar...
And while the extreme right wing propaganda claims that Germany is doomed because of the Energiewende for the last 20 years or so, it is somehow still the third largest economy.
China is moving very fast on clean power. But total energy is still very fossil-heavy, about 78%: 51.4% coal, about 26.9% other fossil fuels, calculated as the remaining share after coal and non-fossil, and 21.7% non-fossil in 2025, based on official Chinese figures.
The U.S. is about 82% fossil overall, so roughly comparable to China’s ~78%, just in a different way. Much less coal now, around 8%, but a lot of oil and gas: petroleum about 38%, natural gas about 36%, according to EIA’s 2024 summary.
For electricity, China was around 11% solar and 11% wind in 2025, according to China’s 2025 Statistical Communiqué. The U.S. was around 9% solar, including rooftop and other small-scale solar, and around 10% wind in 2025, according to EIA.
Nuclear is a major difference in the electricity mix: about 18% of U.S. electricity generation versus roughly 5% in China, based on EIA and China’s 2025 Statistical Communiqué.
And yes, EIA is not a typo for IEA EIA is the U.S. Energy Information Administration, whereas IEA is the International Energy Agency.
China gets it, the USA doesn't.