A decade ago, Google came out with its RE<C initiative. That formula:
Renewable Energy less than Coal
In short, an announced plan to invest to spark innovation and deployment of clean energy systems that would be less expensive than coal in traditional economic terms — without requiring inclusion of the substantial externality costs from exploiting coal for electricity.
Less than five years later, Google abandoned RE<C with a rather confused explanation that achieving that, alone, wouldn’t solve climate change challenges. Was this simply mistaken ‘silver bullet reasoning’ or a Google implicit acknowledgment that renewable energy prices would plunge without Google needing to play a leading role in their development or …? Uncertain.
A bit more than a decade after that original announcement, there is a simple reality: in economic transaction after transaction, in locality after locality around the globe, RE<C is a marketplace reality.
From Texas, for example,
“This was first and foremost a business decision and if you win the business argument, then you’re gonna win the environmental argument,” Republican Georgetown, Texas, Mayor Dale Ross said.
“It’s a totally different landscape out there, … in the state of Texas, since January 1, four coal plants have closed. This is the economics of the matter. You buy wind and solar for, say, $18 a megawatt. You buy coal for $25. You have that choice. Which one are you gonna buy?”
Georgetown, Texas, is far from isolated in this “choice”. While Donald Trump seeks to impose regulations that will boost US electricity prices, boost electricity pollutions, and hurt employment and hurt the economy, via protecting coal from market conditions, the market is speaking and coal plants are retiring, coal plants’ utilization rates are dropping, and utilities are dropping plans to build new coal-fired electricity plants — around the world.
Whether you are a mayor, a business owner, or a homeowner, clean energy is coming out on top in terms of new generating capacity.
You have that choice. Which one are you gonna buy?
Simply put, we have reached (passed) the point where going clean is the best choice for the pocket book, for employment, for the economy, for human health, and the planetary climate system.
These economics are the main reason why Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s latest outlook concludes
Coal is the biggest loser in this outlook.
Coal will shrink to just 11% of global electricity generation by 2050, from 38% currently.
NOTE: In all seriousness, a post like this could have 1000s of citations. However, one of the first things that crossed the inbox after posting this: In the Great Plains, wind energy is cheap. Crazy cheap
With the lowest levelized costs approaching $10 per megawatt-hour and thousands of megawatts being procured for under $20 per megawatt-hour, PPAs for new wind farms cost less than just the fuel required to run existing coal or natural gas plants.