Forty four years ago, on the first Earth Day, we were only using solar cells on satellites. NASA was still four years away from launching the program that would give birth to the modern wind turbine.
Fast forward to the present and renewable energy is beating fossil fuels on every front. Every day seems to bring more news of another city or company that has blown past its clean energy targets, or another region where solar and wind power are now cheaper than coal and gas.
The chart below is a snapshot of life on the cusp of a new energy era. Between October 2013 and March 2014, 80% of the new electricity installed in the United States was renewable energy. In California, they installed more solar in 2013 than in the previous 30 years combined.
For three of the last six months, 100% of all of the new electricity added to the US grid was renewable energy. That’s 80% renewables in total — and over half of that was solar. Natural gas made up the remainder, and conventional oil was a mere .02%. This is what the future of energy looks like.
The question is no longer if we can create an economy powered by 100% clean energy, but how fast we can do it and who will own it?
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