- Start
- Dec 31, 202925% CONFIDENCELow confidencefrom the source
- End
- Jan 2, 203025% CONFIDENCELow confidencefrom the source
US energy analysis sees renewable electricity passing coal by 2030
And the report is probably unrealistically conservative about wind power.
- Ars Technica (6 January 2017) reported the US EIA's 2017 Annual Energy Outlook, which projects coal keeps declining, natural gas becomes the dominant energy source and natural gas and renewables pass coal for electricity in the 2030s[1]
- Renewables become the largest electricity source in the 2030s if gas extraction hits hiccups[1]
- The author calls EIA reports 'notoriously conservative' and says this one assumes wind installation essentially stops once tax incentives expire in the early 2020s, while being optimistic about solar[1]
- EIA's later AEO2020 (30 January 2020) projected renewable generation passing nuclear and coal by 2021, with renewables reaching 38 percent of US generation by 2050[2]
References 380% CONFIDENCE
The first entry is always the pin's source. Overall confidence is a weighted average of how firmly each reference supports the start and end times used above; a reference counts half as much for every 180 days older than the newest.
- [1]25%arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/us-energy-analysis-sees-renewable-electricity-passing-coal-by-2030arstechnica.com· Posted Jun 21, 2017· Starts Dec 31, 2029 ✓· Ends Jan 2, 2030 ✓· 0% of score
No wording about the date found on arstechnica.com; treat it as unverified.
- [2]88%EIA expects U.S. electricity generation from renewables to soon surpass nuclear and coaleia.gov· Added Sep 15, 2026· 50% of score
The U.S. Energy Information Administration's own analysis independently corroborates the pin's claim that renewable electricity generation is on track to overtake coal, consistent with the pin's stored ~2030 timeframe.[1]
- [3]71%Analysis: Solar surge will send coal power tumbling by 2030, IEA data revealscarbonbrief.org· Added Sep 14, 2026· 50% of score
Carbon Brief's 2024 analysis of the IEA's World Energy Outlook is only tangentially related - it finds coal is not surpassed by renewables until later, projecting solar alone becomes the world's top electricity source by 2033 while coal declines just 13% by 2030, a softer and later claim than the pin's title that renewables would pass coal "by 2030."
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