Solar and wind made up more than half of all new US electricity capacity in 2014. Adding other renewable sources (such as hydro, geothermal, waste heat, and biomass), nearly 56 percent of new energy came from renewables last year, according to new estimates from CleanTechnica.
Natural gas was the single largest source of new electricity, at 43 percent, but the trend toward renewables is clear. Coal accounted for only six-tenths of one percent of new generating capacity.
“I see the early stages of what I consider an inevitable transition away from traditional energy sources, largely fossil fuel sources but also including nuclear to some extent, to an increasing reliance on renewable energy in the form of wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and eventually ocean energy as well,” says Dr. Allan Hoffman, the former Department of Energy official who has been pushing renewable energy since the Carter administration.
