10 charts prove that clean energy is winning — even in the Trump era

At every light switch, power socket, and on the road, an unstoppable revolution is already underway. 

Technologies that can power our lives and jobs while doing less harm to the global climate — wind, solar, batteries, etc. — are getting cheaper, more efficient, and more abundant. The pace of progress on price, scale, and performance has been so extraordinary that even the most optimistic forecasts about green tech in the past have turned out to be too pessimistic. Clean energy isn’t just powering our devices, tools, and luxuries — it’s growing the global economy, creating a whole suite of new jobs, and reshaping trade.

And despite what headlines may say, there’s no sign these trends will reverse. Political and economic turmoil may slow down clean energy, but the sector has built up so much momentum that it’s become nigh unstoppable. 

Take a look at Texas: The largest oil- and gas-producing state in the US is also the largest in wind energy, and it’s installing more solar than any other. Texas utilities have come to realize that investing in clean energy is not just good for the environment; it’s good business. And even without subsidies and preferential treatment, the benefits of clean technologies — in clean air, scalability, distribution, and cost — have become impossible to ignore.

And there’s only more room to grow. The world is still in the early stages of this revolution as market forces become the driver rather than environmental worries. In some US markets, installing new renewable energy is cheaper than running existing coal plants. Last year, the US produced more electricity from wind and solar power than from coal for the first time.  

If these energy trends persist, the US economy will see its greenhouse gas emissions diminish faster, reducing its contribution to climate change. The US needs to effectively zero out its carbon dioxide emissions by the middle of the century in order to keep the worst damages of climate change in check. 

Now, just a few months into Trump’s second presidency, it’s still an open question just how fragile the country’s progress on clean energy and climate will be. But the data is clear: There is tremendous potential for economic growth and environmental benefits if the country makes the right moves at this key inflection point. 

Certainly incentives like tax credits, business loans, and research and development funding could accelerate decarbonization. On the other hand, pulling back — as the Trump administration wants to do — would slow down clean energy in the US, though it wouldn’t stop it. 

But the rest of the world isn’t sitting idle, and if the US decides to slow its head start, its competitors may take the lead in a massive, rocketing industry. —Umair Irfan, Vox climate correspondent

Wind

President Donald Trump does not like wind energy — apparently, in part, because he thinks turbines are ugly. “We’re not going to do the wind thing,” Trump said after his inauguration during a rally. “Big, ugly windmills, they ruin your neighborhood.” 

He’s put some power behind those feelings. Within mere hours of stepping into office, Trump signed an executive order that hamstrung both onshore and offshore wind energy developments, even as he has claimed that the US faces an energy crisis. The order directed federal agencies to temporarily stop issuing approvals for both onshore and offshore wind projects and pause leasing for offshore projects in federal waters.

Policies like this will harm the wind industry, analysts say, as will existing and potential future tariffs, which will likely make turbines more expensive. Those policies could also pose a serious threat to offshore developments. But the sector overall simply has too much inertia to be derailed, according to Eric Larson, a senior research engineer at Princeton University who studies clean energy. 

“Because costs have been coming down so dramatically in the last decade, there is a certain momentum there that’s going to carry through,” Larson said.

Since 2010, US wind capacity has more than tripled, spurred by federal tax incentives. But even without those incentives — which Congress may eventually try to cut — onshore wind turbines are the cheapest source of new energy, according to the research firm Lazard. In 2023, the average cost of new onshore wind projects was two-thirds lower than a typical fossil fuel alternative, per a report by the International Renewable Energy Agency.

In fact, wind energy might be the best example of how politics have had little bearing on the growth of renewable energy. Texas, which overwhelmingly supported Trump in the recent election, generates more wind energy than any other state, by far. The next three top states for wind energy production — Iowa, Oklahoma, and Kansas — all swung for Trump in the last election, too. These states are particularly windy, but they’ve also adopted policies, including tax incentives, that have helped build out their wind-energy sectors. 

“It’s just a way to make money,” Larson said of wind. “It has nothing to do with the political position on whether climate change is real or not. People continue to get paid to put up wind turbines, and that’s enough for them to do it.” 

In Iowa, for example, wind energy has drawn at least $22 billion in capital investment and has helped lower the cost of electricity. In 2023, wind generated about 60 percent of the state’s energy — more than double any other source, like coal or natural gas.

The wind sector is not without its challenges. In the last two years the cost of wind energy has gone up, due in part to inflation and permitting delays — which raised the costs of other energy sources, too. Construction of new wind farms had begun slowing even before Trump took office. Dozens of counties across the US, in places like Ohio and Virginia, have also successfully blocked or delayed wind projects, citing a range of concerns like noise and impact on property values. Offshore wind, which is far costlier, faces even more opposition. Opponents similarly worry that they’ll affect coastal property values and harm marine life. 

Yet ultimately these hurdles will only delay what is likely inevitable, analysts say: a future powered in large part by wind. —Benji Jones, Vox environmental correspondent

Solar

It’s hard to think of a natural wonder more unstoppable than the sun, and harnessing its energy has proven just as formidable. The United States last year saw a record amount of clean energy power up, with solar leading the way. Over the past decade, solar power capacity in the US has risen eightfold. 

Why? Solar has just gotten way, way, way cheaper, even more than wind. 

The main technology for turning sunlight into electricity, the single-junction photovoltaic panel, has drastically increased the efficiency by which it turns a ray of sunlight into a moving electron. This lets the same-size panel convert more light into electricity. Since the device itself is a printed semiconductor, it has benefited from many of the manufacturing improvements that have come with recent advances in computer chip production. 

Solar has also benefited from economies of scale, particularly as China has invested heavily in its production. This has translated into cheaper solar panels around the world, including the US. And since solar panels are modular, small gains in efficiency and cost reduction quickly add up, boosting the business case.

There are some clouds on the horizon, however. The single-junction PV panel may be closing in on its practical efficiency limit. Solar energy is variable, and some power grid operators have struggled to manage the spike in solar production midday and sudden drop-off in the evening, creating the infamous “duck curve” graph of energy demand that shows how fast other generators have to ramp up. 

Still, solar energy provides less than 4 percent of electricity in the US, so there is immense room to grow. Overall costs continue to decline, and new technologies are emerging that can get around the constraints imposed by conventional panels. Across the US and around the world, the sun has a long way to rise. —Umair Irfan

Our energy grid

While wind and solar energy have soared upward for more than a decade, storing electricity on the grid with batteries is just taking off. 

Grid-scale battery capacity suddenly launched upward around 2020 and has about doubled every year since. That’s good news for intermittent power sources, such as wind and solar: Energy storage is the booster rocket for renewables and one of the key tools for addressing the stubborn duck curve that plagues solar power. 

Batteries for the grid aren’t that far removed from those that power phones and computers, so they’ve benefited from cost and performance improvements in consumer batteries. And they still have room to get cheaper.

On the power grid, batteries do a number of jobs that help improve efficiency and cut greenhouse gas emissions. The obvious one is compensating for the capriciousness of wind and solar power: As the sun sets and the wind calms, demand rises, and grid operators can tap into their power reserves to keep the lights on. The specific combination of solar-plus-storage is still a small share of utility-scale projects, but it’s gaining ground in the residential market as these systems get cheaper.

Batteries also help grid operators cope with demand peaks: They can bank power when it’s cheap and sell those electrons when electricity is more expensive. They also maintain grid stability and provide the juice to restart power generators after outages or maintenance. That means there’s a huge demand for grid batteries beyond backing up renewables. 

Right now, the main way the US saves electricity on the grid is pumped hydropower, which currently provides about 96 percent of utility-scale storage. Water is pumped uphill into a reservoir when power is cheap and then runs downhill through turbines when it’s needed. This method tends to lose a lot of energy in the process and is limited to landscapes with the ideal terrain to move water up and down. 

Batteries get around these hurdles with higher efficiencies, scalability, and modularity. And since they stay parked in one place, energy density and portability don’t matter as much on the grid as they would in a car or a phone. That opens up several more options. Car batteries that have lost too much capacity to be worthwhile in a vehicle can get a second life on the power grid. Designs like flow batteries that store energy by the megawatt-hour and molten salt batteries that stash power for months could outperform the reigning lithium-ion battery. —Umair Irfan

The electric vehicle transition 

Transportation is the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Fossil fuels currently account for nearly 90 percent of the energy consumption in the transportation sector, which makes it an obvious target for decarbonization. And while it will take some time to figure out how to electrify planes, trains, and container ships, the growth of EVs, including passenger cars and trucks, has reached a tipping point.

The price of a new EV is nearly equivalent to a new gas-powered car, when you include state and federal subsidies. And the US charging infrastructure is getting better by the day: With over 200,000 chargers currently online, the number is growing. Even though the Trump administration has effectively waged war on the EV transition by pulling funding for charging infrastructure expansion and threatening to end subsidies for new EV purchases, at best those moves may slow a largely unstoppable EV transition in the long term. The automotive industry is all in on the electric transition. Buoyed by strong and growing EV sales trends in China and increasing EV offerings, global demand is growing.

There are signs, however, that the number of people buying EVs in the US and Europe is slowing, even as subsidies remain available. Experts say this is likely due, in part, to more consumer choice, as the number of EV offerings, including off-road trucks and minivans, continues to grow. But even here we see encouraging signs: As more EVs have come to market, more plug-in hybrid models have also appeared. And plug-in hybrids tend to be slightly cheaper and help people deal with range anxiety, the umbrella term for the fear of not being able to find a charger, while still reducing emissions.

“The early adopters who are just all in on that EV tech, they’ve adopted it,” Nicole Wakelin, editor at large of CarBuzz, told Vox in January. “So now it’s up to everybody else to dip their toes in that water.”

Around the world, cheap EVs are surging in popularity. Prices of EV batteries, the most expensive component of the vehicle, are dropping globally even as their capacity grows. That trend is leading to more and more inexpensive EV models hitting the market. China, once again, is leading the charge here. The cheapest model from Chinese front-runner BYD now costs less than $10,000, and by 2027, Volkswagen promises it will sell a cheap EV in Europe for about $20,000. Meanwhile, in the US, the average price for a used EV in mid-2024 was $33,000, compared to $27,000 for an internal combustion engine vehicle. Those Chinese EVs aren’t currently available in the US.

It remains to be seen how far Trump will go to keep America hooked on fossil fuels. It’s clear, however, that more and more people want EVs and are buying them, charging them, and quite frankly, loving them.  —Adam Clark Estes, Vox senior technology correspondent

Jobs

For any of these clean energy sectors to reach their highest potential, there’s an essential requirement they all share: a robust, skilled workforce. The good news for the clean energy industry is that data show the jobs are rolling in.

The 2024 Clean Jobs America report by E2, a national group focused on climate solutions across industries, paints a positive picture for clean jobs. Renewable energy jobs increased by 14 percent from 2020 to 2023 — a surge boosted by the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) climate-focused policies. Jobs in the solar sector have grown by 15 percent in that same period, with 12 percent growth for wind and 11 percent growth for geothermal. In just 2023 alone, 150,000 jobs in the clean energy industry were added. All together, clean energy outpaced economy-wide employment growth for the last five years.

And while the Trump administration has targeted the wind industry, rolled back some climate-friendly policies, and griped about solar, the administration’s policies have yet to put a dent on positive job growth in clean jobs.

“I expect [the administration] will go after some provisions, but there is quite a bit in the IRA that will be very difficult to repeal since large-scale clean energy investments have been made, and a majority of those in red states whose politicians will not want to give them up,” one former US official told Heatmap News. Republican districts have benefited far more than progressive ones from clean tech manufacturing investments to the tune of over $161 billion, Bloomberg reported. Going after clean jobs would mean stalling economic growth in communities that helped deliver Trump a second term — a move that most would call politically unwise.

The clean industry is growing beyond the United States. Globally, clean energy sectors added over 4.7 million jobs to a total of 35 million from 2019 to 2022 — exceeding the amount of fossil fuel jobs internationally.

While the data bodes well for the industry, there are concerns from workers, unions, and communities that the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy may leave many skilled employees behind. One paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that fewer than 1 percent of fossil fuel workers have transitioned to green jobs, citing a lack of translatable skills — operating an oil derrick isn’t as applicable to installing solar panels, for example. Another paper from Nature found that while some fossil fuel workers might have the right skills for clean energy jobs, the location of green jobs often aren’t where fossil fuel workers are based. 

Several policy routes can be taken to create a more equitable transition for these workers, such as funding early retirement programs for fossil fuel workers who lose their jobs or heavily investing in fossil fuel communities where there is potential for creating renewable energy hubs. 

Clean energy jobs are growing, and it doesn’t have to be at the cost of the 1.7 million workers in the US with fossil fuel occupations. —Sam Delgado

Geothermal

While President Trump has largely been hostile to renewable energy, there’s one clean energy source that the administration actually supports: geothermal. 

Geothermal has long lived in the shadows of other renewables — especially as wind and solar have surged. But geothermal’s potential may be greater than any of those, and ironically, being in Trump’s good graces may give this sector the final boost it needs. 

If you know President Trump’s motto of “drill, baby, drill,” this might not come as a surprise. Geothermal energy is tapped by drilling into the ground and extracting heat from the earth, and it uses similar technology to the oil and gas industry. US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has long praised geothermal, and the fracking company he oversaw prior to joining the Trump administration invested in Fervo Energy, a company that specializes in geothermal technologies. 

Despite the fact that the first geothermal plant was built in 1904 in Italy, the energy source is still in its infancy. In 2023, geothermal energy produced less than half a percent of total US utility-scale electricity generation, far behind other renewables like solar and wind. 

Historically, developing geothermal energy has been constrained by geography and relatively few have been built. Most geothermal production happens in the western United States because of the region’s access to underground hot water that can drive turbines isn’t too far from the surface. California dominates the geothermal landscape, with 67 percent of US geothermal electricity generation coming from the state — the outcome of state policy priorities and the right geologic conditions. The regional specificity has been a big barrier to geothermal taking off more broadly.

Then there’s the issue of cost. Compared to solar and wind development and operations, building geothermal plants and drilling is much more expensive. And it currently costs more per megawatt hour than solar and wind. 

But these geographic and financial barriers could be broken down. Geothermal companies have been exploring enhanced geothermal, a method that could make it possible to drill for geothermal energy everywhere. Coupling enhanced geothermal with drilling technology and techniques from the oil and gas industry can also help with efficiency and bring down costs — a parallel to how advances in fracking in the early 2000s helped supercharge the US oil and gas industry.

What geothermal lacks in current scale, it makes up for in future potential. Because it’s not intermittent and doesn’t rely on specific weather conditions (the way that solar, wind, and hydropower do) geothermal has a capacity advantage over other renewables. In 2023, geothermal had a capacity factor, or how often an energy source is running at maximum power, of 69 percent, compared to 33 percent and 23 percent for wind and solar, respectively — meaning it’s more capable of producing reliable power. 

That advantage could be critical for US decarbonization goals. According to the Department of Energy (DOE), enhanced geothermal has the potential to power more than 65 million homes and businesses in the US. 

Right now, stakeholders from energy policymakers to climate scientists to geothermal company executives, are determined to turn potential into reality. 

In March 2024, the DOE released a lengthy report on the necessary steps to unlocking enhanced geothermal’s full potential on a commercial scale. In October of last year, the federal government approved a massive geothermal project in Utah that plans to provide power for more than 2 million homes and aims to be operational by 2026. The company behind the project and one of the leading enhanced geothermal startups, Fervo Energy, secured $255 million in funding from investors just before the year came to a close.

Geothermal also has bipartisan support (and is perhaps one of the few issues that the Biden and Trump administration would share similar views on). And because it’s borrowing technology from the gas and oil industry, it can tap into former fossil fuel workers to staff these plants. 

But it’s key to note that getting to take off will be really, really expensive — the DOE projects that it will take $20 billion to $25 billion to get geothermal ready for a commercial breakout by 2030. Geothermal’s breakthrough isn’t assured, but it’s on the cusp of takeoff. If the necessary financial investments are made, and companies can show that advances in technology can be scaled up beyond the western US, it could usher in the age of a geothermal energy revolution.  —Sam Delgado, former Future Perfect fellow