{"id":455643,"date":"2026-05-23T04:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T04:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/455643\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T04:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T04:26:11","slug":"another-first-for-renewables-wind-and-solar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/455643\/","title":{"rendered":"Another first for renewables: Wind and solar\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">It\u2019s the first month when wind and solar combined to produce more electricity than natural gas did, per new global data from energy think tank <a href=\"https:\/\/ember-energy.org\/latest-updates\/for-the-first-time-wind-and-solar-generated-more-electricity-than-gas-worldwide-in-april-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ember<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Just five years ago, the gap between what those renewable resources and gas generated was huge. Even in the best month for renewables, gas plants churned out about twice as much power. Now, the picture is very different: Wind and solar generated about 532\u00a0terawatt-hours of electricity worldwide last month, while gas contributed just 477\u00a0TWh.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">This won\u2019t be the first time wind and solar outcompete gas on the global stage.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Last year, the world <a href=\"https:\/\/ember-energy.org\/latest-insights\/global-electricity-review-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">met 75% of its new electricity demand with solar<\/a> alone, and the remainder with other forms of carbon-free energy. The result? Fossil-fuel power generation declined \u2014 very slightly \u2014 even though the world consumed more electricity.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Meanwhile, the ongoing war in the Middle East bolsters the case for renewable energy. Iran\u2019s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and its retaliatory strikes on Qatar forced one-fifth of the global liquefied natural gas export capacity offline earlier this year, causing supply shortages and price spikes for the many countries that depend on imported, rather than domestic, natural gas.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The caveats of the April milestone must be mentioned. It\u2019s just one month \u2014 and occurred during the shoulder season, the best time of the year for renewables, as breezes pick up and days get sunnier.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Then there\u2019s King Coal, which still produces far more electricity worldwide than wind and solar. But it\u2019s clear where we\u2019re headed. The share of coal-fired electricity actually fell by half a\u00a0percentage point from 2024 to 2025, marking the first annual drop since Covid and the first time in history that the dirty fuel produced less than a\u00a0third of the world\u2019s power.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">In other words, coal should watch its back: It\u2019s only a\u00a0matter of time before wind and solar come for its crown, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s the first month when wind and solar combined to produce more electricity than natural gas did, per&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-455643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}