10 February 2026 11:37 pm
Why renewable energy in MENA depends more on economic stability

Why renewable energy in MENA depends more on economic stability

Feb 10, 2026

A scenic view of wind turbines in a desert, symbolising clean, renewable energy technology.  By Kindel Media via pexels

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Why renewable energy in MENA depends more on economic stability than resources

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CO-EDP Technology

CO-EDP, VisionRI

Updated: 10-02-2026 12:24 IST | Created: 10-02-2026 12:24 IST

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Why renewable energy in MENA depends more on economic stability than resources

Credit: ChatGPT

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Rising inflation and economic instability are the critical obstacles to renewable energy growth across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), according to new academic research. While the region has invested heavily in solar and wind capacity, long-term deployment remains vulnerable to shifting macroeconomic conditions. The study finds that economic fundamentals now play a decisive role in determining whether renewable energy projects advance or stall.

Published in Economies, the study Macroeconomic Determinants of Renewable Energy Deployment: The Role of Inflation, Fiscal Policy, and Economic Volatility in MENA Countries (2000–2023), the research examines data from 16 MENA economies and shows that inflation and volatility consistently undermine renewable energy security, while targeted fiscal policy supports sustained deployment

Inflation and volatility undermine long-term energy investment

Inflation acts as a persistent brake on renewable energy deployment across the MENA region. Renewable energy projects are capital-intensive by nature, with long payback periods and returns that depend heavily on stable financial conditions. When inflation rises, the real value of future revenues falls, financing costs increase, and investor confidence weakens. The study finds that higher inflation rates are associated with a statistically significant decline in the share of renewable electricity in total power generation, both in the short term and over the long run.

This link matters deeply for MENA economies, where inflationary episodes have often coincided with global commodity price shocks, currency pressures, and domestic fiscal stress. In such environments, renewable energy investments become less attractive relative to short-term spending priorities or conventional energy projects backed by existing infrastructure. The research shows that inflation does not merely slow renewable growth temporarily, but systematically erodes the conditions needed for sustained deployment.

Economic volatility aggravates this problem. The study demonstrates that higher levels of macroeconomic instability significantly reduce renewable energy security across the region. Volatility increases uncertainty around future demand, regulatory frameworks, exchange rates, and financing conditions, all of which are critical for projects that require long planning horizons. In volatile economies, investors tend to delay or cancel irreversible investments, and renewable energy projects are often among the first to be postponed.

This finding is particularly relevant in the MENA context, where economic cycles are closely tied to fluctuations in oil and gas revenues. When hydrocarbon prices fall, fiscal balances weaken and uncertainty rises, even as diversification into renewable energy becomes more urgent. The study shows that this contradiction creates a structural challenge: the same economic instability that makes renewable energy diversification necessary also undermines the conditions required to carry it out.

Importantly, the negative effects of inflation and volatility are not limited to long-term trends. The research finds that short-term shocks in both variables have immediate adverse impacts on renewable energy deployment. While these effects are smaller in magnitude than long-run impacts, they demonstrate how sensitive renewable energy investment decisions are to changing macroeconomic signals.

Fiscal policy plays a decisive enabling role

The study finds that government spending directed toward energy infrastructure, renewable subsidies, and capital investment has a statistically significant and durable positive effect on renewable energy security. Unlike inflation and volatility, which discourage private investment, targeted fiscal action can reduce risk, lower costs, and crowd in private capital.

The research notes that not all public spending is equally effective. What matters is fiscal policy that directly supports renewable energy development, such as investment in grid infrastructure, financial incentives for renewable projects, and public participation in early-stage market development. These measures help overcome market failures that often prevent private investors from entering renewable sectors in emerging or transitional economies.

The positive impact of fiscal policy holds in both the short run and the long run. In the short term, increased government spending can stimulate immediate activity by improving project bankability and signaling policy commitment. Over time, sustained fiscal support helps build institutional capacity, reduce financing costs, and accelerate learning effects that make renewable energy more competitive.

The study also highlights important regional differences. While fiscal policy has a positive effect across the MENA region as a whole, its effectiveness varies between hydrocarbon-exporting and hydrocarbon-importing countries. In non-oil economies, fiscal support tends to have a stronger marginal impact on renewable deployment, reflecting greater reliance on public intervention to attract private investment. In oil-rich countries, fiscal policy remains important but must compete with entrenched fossil fuel interests and revenue structures.

According to the research, fiscal policy cannot operate in isolation. Expansionary spending loses much of its effectiveness in environments marked by high inflation or persistent economic volatility. Without macroeconomic stability, even well-designed fiscal incentives struggle to deliver lasting results. This finding reinforces the study’s central message that renewable energy policy and macroeconomic policy are deeply interconnected.

Energy transition depends on economic stability, not resources alone

Renewable energy security is measured not by installed capacity or policy targets, but by the actual share of renewable electricity integrated into national power systems. This focus captures whether renewable energy has moved beyond pilot projects and announcements into reliable, system-level deployment.

The research finds strong evidence of a stable long-run relationship between renewable energy security and macroeconomic conditions across MENA countries. Deviations from this equilibrium do occur during economic shocks, but the system shows a meaningful capacity to adjust. Approximately 42 percent of any short-term deviation from the long-run path is corrected within a year, indicating a moderate but significant adjustment speed. This suggests that while macroeconomic shocks disrupt renewable deployment, the underlying relationship between stability and energy transition remains intact.

The study’s findings challenge the assumption that renewable energy deployment in MENA is primarily constrained by institutional inertia or political resistance. Instead, they point to economic fundamentals as a critical bottleneck. Countries with abundant renewable resources but unstable macroeconomic environments struggle to convert potential into actual energy security. Conversely, those that maintain price stability and predictable fiscal frameworks are better positioned to sustain renewable growth, even amid global uncertainty.

The research links energy transition to key economic policy objectives. Monetary policy aimed at price stability becomes not just a macroeconomic goal but an energy security tool. Fiscal discipline and counter-cyclical spending emerge as mechanisms to protect long-term energy investments from short-term economic shocks.

The study also highlights the risks of stop-and-go policy approaches. Inconsistent fiscal commitment, particularly during downturns, can derail renewable momentum and increase long-term costs. The findings suggest that insulating renewable energy investment from political and economic cycles may be essential for achieving durable energy transitions in the region.

FIRST PUBLISHED ON: Devdiscourse
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Here’s how to avoid another mountain of waste

Here’s how to avoid another mountain of waste

Jan 14, 2026

Stunning view of the Atacama Desert with rolling dunes and mountains under clear blue skies. By Marek Piwnicki via pexels

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The solar boom has a dirty secret. Here’s how to avoid another mountain of waste that can’t be recycled

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By Rabia Charef, Lancaster University

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RenNeo / shutterstock

 

Solar power has a dark side: panels are still built to be thrown away, and we risk creating a mountain of waste that locks away valuable minerals.

The world already faces up to 250 million tonnes of solar waste by 2050, as panels installed during the solar boom of the 2000s and 2010s reach the end of their service life.

These panels were not designed to be repaired, refurbished, or disassembled. Indeed, current recycling processes mainly extract glass and aluminium, while the materials that carry the highest economic and strategic value such as silver, copper and high-grade silicon are generally lost in the process.

The industry now faces a narrow window to rethink. Without a shift in design, the energy transition could end up shifting environmental pressures rather than reducing them. Building low-carbon technology is essential, but low-carbon does not inherently mean sustainable.

A booming industry designed for the dump

The average lifespan of solar modules is about 25 to 30 years. This means a massive wave of installations from the early 2000s is now reaching the end of its life cycle. Countries with mature solar markets like Germany, Australia, Japan and the US are already seeing a sharp increase in the number of panels being taken out of service.

The challenge lies not only in the scale of the waste but also in the very design of the panels. To survive decades of weather, solar panels are built by stacking layers of glass, cells and plastic, then bonding them together so tightly with strong adhesives that they become a single, inseparable unit.

diagram of a solar panel
You can think of a solar panel like an industrial-strength sandwich.
VectorMine / shutterstock

But this durability has a downside. Because the layers are so tightly bonded, they are exceptionally difficult to peel apart, effectively preventing us from fixing the panels when they break or recovering materials when they are thrown away (those materials could generate US$15 billion (£11 billion) in economic value by 2050).

The limits of recycling

In any case, recycling should be a last resort because it destroys much of the embedded value. That’s because current processes are crude, mostly shredding panels to recover cheap aluminium and glass while losing high value metals.

For instance, while silver represents only 0.14% of a solar panel’s mass, it accounts for over 40% of its material value and about 10% of its total cost. Yet it is rarely recovered when recycling. During standard recycling, solar panels are crushed. The silver is pulverised into microscopic particles that become mixed with glass, silicon and plastic residues, making it too difficult and expensive to separate.

That’s why strategies that aim to extend the life of solar panels – such as repair and reuse – are vastly superior to recycling. They preserve the value of these products, and avoid the massive energy cost of industrial shredding. They keep valuable materials in circulation and reduce the need to extract new raw materials. They can even generate new revenue for owners. But this circular vision is only viable if solar panels are designed to be taken apart and repaired.

Designing panels for a circular future

Moving towards such an approach means redesigning panels so they can be repaired, upgraded and ultimately disassembled without damaging or destroying the components inside. The idea of designing for disassembly, common in other sectors, is increasingly essential for solar too.

Instead of permanent adhesives and fully laminated layers, panels can be built using modular designs and reversible connections. Components such as frames, junction boxes and connectors should be removable, while mechanical fixings or smart adhesives that release only at high temperatures can allow glass and cells to be separated more easily.

Standardising components and improving documentation would further support repairers, refurbishers and recyclers throughout a panel’s life cycle. In short, the next generation of solar panels must be designed to last longer, be repairable, and use fewer critical materials — not simply to maximise short-term energy output.

Digital tools can help

If you want to repair or recycle a panel years from now, you’ll need to know what materials it contains, what adhesives were used and how it was assembled. Digital tools can help here by storing information, essentially acting like a car’s logbook or a patient’s medical record.

One promising example is the EU’s new Digital Product Passport. These passports will include guidance on repair options, disassembly, hazardous substances, lifecycle history and end-of-life handling. They will be introduced progressively for priority product groups from 2027, with further expansion to many other products, expected towards around 2030.

The Digital Product Passport acts as a static “ingredients list” for a solar panel. It shows what a panel is made of and how it should be handled. Digital twins, by contrast, function more like a real-time monitoring system.

Continuously updated with performance data, they can signal when a panel is under-performing, has become too dusty, or needs repairing. Used together, these tools can help technicians identify which parts can be be repaired or reused and ensure solar panels are safely dismantled at the end of their life.

However, even the best digital twin isn’t much use if the panel itself is glued shut and designed for the dump. Without panels that are built to be repaired or taken apart, digitalisation will offer only marginal benefits.

Digital tools also have their own environmental footprint, from sensors to data storage, which makes it even more important that they support genuinely repairable designs rather than compensate for poor ones. We must rethink how we design solar panels right now, before today’s solar boom locks in tomorrow’s waste problem.The Conversation

Rabia Charef, Senior Research Associate in Circular Economy & Digitalisation, Lancaster University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Conversation*


 

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With Chinese investment, Egypt turns to Solar Panel Manufacturing

With Chinese investment, Egypt turns to Solar Panel Manufacturing

Jan 7, 2026

Benban Solar Farm, courtesy Ecohz
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Vietnam on the Nile? With Chinese investment, Egypt turns to Solar Panel Manufacturing

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Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A new $210 million facility is being built in Egypt to produce 4 gigwatts of solar components annually.

These numbers are not world shaking, but this development is. Egypt has enormous industrial potential. It has as many as 2.5 million workers in various sectors of the textile industry and 33 million over all, and the country’s literacy rate is now on the order of 75%. Literate workers are valuable because they are able to read and follow instructions.

If Egypt becomes a hub for producing solar cells, panels and arrays, it could be an engine for economic growth and also for the production of inexpensive energy in the country, which also acts as a fillip to economic growth.

Green Building Africa reports that “The $210 million Atum Solar project is being developed in the TEDA industrial zone in Sokhna and will have an annual production capacity of 2 GW of solar cells and 2 GW of solar modules.” The investors include JA Solar, a Chinese solar panel manufacturer, as well as concerns in the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt itself. The UAE and Bahrain have substantial investment capital lying about from oil sales, but small domestic populations and lack what economists call absorptive capacity. Egypt is a promising investment field for them as a fellow Arab country with a big workforce.

The plant will create over 800 direct jobs, and likely many more indirect ones.

The solar cells will be exported to the United States. Note that this facility is a way for JA Solar to sidestep the stiff US tariffs on Chinese solar cells, since the units will come from Egypt. The panels will be sold inside Egypt and also to other African countries.

The energy consultancy Ember reported last summer that there are now the first signs of large-scale African adoption of solar panels.

I commented about a year ago on a report that Sweden’s Sunshine Pro has partnered with Egyptian institutions to establish a solar panel manufacturing facility with a capacity to produce 1 gigawatt of solar panels annually.

Egypt is, of course, creating large solar farms for electricity generation, and so will have a use for these domestically produced panels. By the start of 2024, the Egyptians had installed 1.8 gigawatts of solar, most of it at the Benban Solar Park some 400 miles south of Cairo in the Aswan Governorate. It now, at the beginning of 2026, has about 2.8 gigawatts of solar capacity, with plans for a rapid build out the rest of this year. Cairo is hoping for 12 gigawatts of sustainables by the end of 2026.

As Chinese labor costs have risen, Chinese companies have been moving to other countries for some manufacturing purposes, benefiting from their cheaper labor costs. It is even government policy, with the slogan “Go out!” attached to it. Since China is the preeminent leader in greentech, it is natural that some of the expansion of Chinese investments in factories abroad would be in sustainables.

One advantage for Chinese firms of investing in a facility abroad is that they can often lower their tariff costs. For instance, the African Union has low tariffs for member states, so a factory that is partially Chinese-owned established in an African country can export cheaply throughout the continent. That role seems to be envisioned for the panels produced at the Atum plant, while the solar cells (the basic component of the panels) will be sent to the US.

If Egyptians manage their affairs well, they could become the Vietnam of the Middle East with regard to solar panel production. Vietnam now produces 18 gigawatts of solar panels annually and is the fourth-largest panel exporter, having 12% of the world market, up from almost nothing a decade ago.

The race for renewables in the Middle East and North Africa

The race for renewables in the Middle East and North Africa

Dec 15, 2025

Dramatic sunset view of the iconic Giza Pyramids in Egypt, highlighting their ancient architecture.  By Thais Cordeiro via Pexels

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The race for renewables in the Middle East and North Africa

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By Ellen Clarke, Research Analyst for the Middle East Programme

In the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)

15 December 2025

Behind the rush in the MENA region to develop renewable-energy capacity is the continued exploitation of fossil fuels to achieve economic growth amid worsening climate pressures on agriculture and water. Economic security, not reduction of emissions, is at the core of this expansion of states’ energy supplies.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is finally waking up to the imperative of renewable energy. Although the region has lagged behind the rest of the world in developing its infrastructure, surging investments in renewables will see over four times the existing capacity installed in the MENA by 2030. Nevertheless, not all countries are equally equipped to diversify and secure their energy supply to meet the soaring demand driven by rising temperatures. While Saudi Arabia has set itself the target of adding 20 gigawatts (GW) of renewable-energy capacity annually and of reaching 130 GW by 2030, other countries beset by conflict, political instability, or corruption are struggling to keep pace and adapt to climate pressures.

The economic incentives behind renewable-energy strategies

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has increased its forecast for renewable-capacity growth in the MENA by 25% over the next five years, the largest regional upgrade globally. But the year-to-year uptick in projects reflects incentives for diversification that go beyond carbon-emission concerns. The effects of climate change on MENA soil and water systems pose an acute threat to the region’s agriculture, food security, and, therefore, economies. In this context, renewables are better seen as an adaptation tool to provide the additional energy security needed to maintain agricultural production and water supplies, rather than as a system-wide energy transition away from polluting fuels.

Saudi Arabia’s ambition to finance gigawatt-scale scale renewable projects to achieve 50% renewable-energy generation by 2030 exemplifies the wider petrostate strategy of using revenues from fossil-fuel exports to secure domestic energy supply for future growth. The success of its broader technology-driven modernisation strategy, including the ambitious development of energy- and water-intensive data centres, is underpinned by energy expansion. Renewable investments are necessary to prevent potential resource constraints on other critical sectors as a consequence of this modernisation, such as Saudi Arabia’s efforts to create a self-sufficient agri-food industry. Current rates of worsening water scarcity anticipate the kingdom will face a 65% reduction in agricultural production from today’s levels by 2050, the most significant projected losses in the region, followed by Yemen (35%) and Syria (13%). As of 2023, public energy was used for irrigation in 44.7% of Saudi Arabia’s agricultural land, 98% of which was powered by water-intensive diesel. In addition to other technological industrial advancements, a shift towards renewable-powered groundwater pumping, desalination, or wastewater treatment, as well as still-necessary large-scale food imports, will all require extensive funding. Maximising hydrocarbon export revenue by reducing domestic energy usage is a key component of Saudi Arabia’s strategic growth.
As a non-hydrocarbon economy and net energy importer, Morocco’s Green Generation 2020-2030 initiative is rooted in an understanding of the urgent economic vulnerabilities of the food–water–energy nexus. Given that the agricultural sector employs roughly 40% of the country’s workforce, Morocco’s nearly 24 GW renewable-energy development pipeline sits alongside a US$45 billion National Water Plan 2020–-2050 to ensure food-system resilience through renewable-powered desalination plants. Moreover, the National Office of Electricity and Drinking Water has sought to integrate its fertiliser-manufacturing value chain with green hydrogen production and expand renewable-pumped hydropower storage, decreasing its vulnerability to supply-chain volatility.

Political obstacles to renewables in the region

For others in the region, conflict, political instability, and financial mismanagement have prevented foreign investment and the development of utility-scale renewable energy projects. In Iraq, the severe summer temperatures directly resulting from global warming, and the accompanying need for air-conditioning, regularly cause complete grid failure. Yet corruption, protracted negotiations and lack of political will have prevented financial investment into renewable-energy projects and grid storage. In Lebanon, finding investors for the Akkar wind farms has also been obstructed for years due to debt defaults and a lack of economic reform. To cope with daily power shortages, household installations of off-grid, rooftop solar panels have proliferated.
Egypt has made material steps to overcome such barriers, as it also deals with temperature-induced blackouts. Subsidy reforms and foreign-debt repayments have strengthened its exchange rate and begun to rehabilitate Egypt’s investor climate, prompting a series of announcements over the last year regarding renewable-energy expansion and grid rehabilitation. But for other countries, ongoing violence derails the development of renewables despite available international funding. Palestinian renewable-energy projects have long been undermined by Israel’s systematic denial of infrastructure permits in the West Bank in favour of illegal settlements. As Israel is geographically limited in developing sufficient landmass of its own for energy diversification at scale, it has gone as far as destroying and confiscating solar panels (part of projects funded by the European Union) in Area C. This is the only land available for Palestinian utility infrastructure, and thereby sustains Palestinian dependency on Israeli gas.

Supply-chain threats to renewable-energy security

The race to develop renewables infrastructure, including necessary power-grid rehabilitation and battery technologies, is now under pressure from rapidly depleting resources of required critical minerals within the supply chain, such as copper and lithium. The vulnerability of the MENA’s slow start to diversification contrasts with China’s first-mover advantage, with Chinese-dominated value chains now factored into national renewable-energy-development strategies in the region. China is the largest manufacturer and market for renewables, and will account for up to 60% of global deployment over the next ten years. Critically, China is the dominant refiner for 19 out of 20 energy-related strategic minerals, with an average market share of around 70%. Given the IEA estimates that, even in the highest production scenarios, the world will face a 30% supply shortfall for copper by 2035 if all national climate commitments are met, states with structural barriers to diversification risk being left behind.
Tightening Chinese export controls, including on the use of renewable technology, is leading states with sufficient capital to invest in localising segments of their value chains. Essential technologies for baseload electricity supply, such as the mega-capacity battery energy-storage systems (BESS) at Egypt’s Red Sea wind farm and Abydos II solar plants, are predominantly electrochemical, using lithium. In December 2024, Saudi Arabia announced its first successful extraction from oilfield brine, with plans to begin producing lithium by 2027. Similarly, multiple countries in the region are in severe need of electrical-grid rehabilitation. Jordan had implemented a ban on new utility-scale renewable-energy developments between 2019 and 2024 due to grid limitations. Since lifting the ban, the government has faced heightened pressure to restart mining limited copper reserves within a protected nature reserve, despite the country’s severe water scarcity and issues of wastewater pollution.

The vicious cycle of continued fossil-fuel dependency

The underlying approach to developing renewable-energy capacity in the region is ultimately geopolitical and economic, not environmental. With over 30% of the world’s oil supplied by the region, energy has always determined the geopolitical leverage, regional influence, and political economy of MENA states. They are set to protect this global posture, as reflected by the energy-security strategies set out in the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), held in November. Although supply chain security was high on the conference’s agenda, MENA states resisted the phasing out of fossil fuels. Natural gas and oil still comprised 90% of electricity generation in the MENA in 2024. Alongside 50% growth in forecasted electricity demand by 2035, the rapid expansion of renewable-energy capacity in the region and proportional electricity-generation targets do not necessarily equal a reduction in fossil-fuel production.
The race to diversify energy is generating unsustainable pressure on the supply chains of critical minerals. These rates of resource consumption risk leaving behind states in the region with insufficient political and financial capital to invest in future-proof energy infrastructure. Depleted water and food systems, resulting from continued dependency on fossil fuels, will exacerbate energy demand and limit the capacity of MENA economies to adapt to an increasingly uninhabitable region. Although scaling renewable-energy capacity is necessary, it will be insufficient without a shift in focus towards mitigation and a full energy transition to exit this vicious cycle.
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Have we Reached Peak Fossil Fuels?

Have we Reached Peak Fossil Fuels?

Dec 3, 2025

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Have we Reached Peak Fossil Fuels? Wind & Solar met all New Energy Demand in Q1-Q3 ’25

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Richard Black and other analysts at the Ember energy consultancy find that all new electricity demand in the first three quarters of 2025 was met by solar and wind, mainly solar. That statistic requires us to conclude that there was no growth in fossil fuels globally during that period. Ember anticipates that Q4 will show the same result.

Fossil fuel growth hasn’t been flat in any year since the COVID pandemic hit in 2020, when the world’s economy shrank 3% to 3.4%. Our current year, 2025, however, has seen growth. Admittedly it is weak growth, projected at 2.3% by the World Bank, largely because of Trump tariffs and the president’s unpredictable and vacillating economic decisions, which have introduced severe uncertainty.

Still, if electricity demand kept pace with economic growth and if fossil fuels were still the primary means of generating electricity, then we should have seen a 2.3% growth rate in coal and fossil gas. We’re not seeing that. They are flat.

They are flat because solar and wind, but mainly solar, have taken up all the air in this room.

Ember finds that solar power-generating capacity grew Q1-Q3 ’25 by an unprecedented 31% over the same three quarters in 2024. In absolute terms, it grew by a whopping 498 Terawatt hours. Solar has never before in history grown that fast and that much. Solar panels around the world made more electricity in the first three quarters of this year than they did in all of 2024.

Wind power generating capacity also grew this year by 7.6% over the same three quarters in 2024, or 137 Terawatt hours. That is, wind grew three times more than the economy as a whole did.

In the first three quarters of 2025, electricity demand grew worldwide by 603 terawatt hours, some 2.7%.

Since total wind and solar growth equaled 603 Terawatt hours Q1-Q3 of this year, solar and wind met all of it with a little left over to spare.

There was no demand for new fossil fuel power generation. None. Nada. Zilch. Rien. Nichts.

Hence, peak fossil fuels.

The decline in the use of fossil fuels was most pronounced in China and India, Asia’s great powers. Europe resorted to fossil fuels where hydroelectric generation fell or winds weren’t strong. Only in the US was there still a healthy appetite for dirty energy.

Of course, 2025 is special because former President Joe Biden’s pro-renewables energy policies were still in effect in the US, and those have been knee-capped by the Republican budget bill and by President Trump’s refusal to spend money appropriated and dedicated to these purposes. Solar and wind in the United States may only grow at half the rate earlier projected in 2026-2030 because of these pro-carbon, earth-destroying policies.

Still, the US only generates 15% of the world’s electricity and if China, India and Europe, not to mention the Global South, stick to their guns on their commitment to renewables, peak fossil fuels are still in our near future even if ExxonMobil — I mean the Republican Party — there, I’ve been redundant — even if they put that milestone off a tiny bit.

The other thing to say is that the cost of solar electricity generation is falling rapidly. It is harder for coal and gas to compete with it in 2025 than it had been in 2019. It will be still harder in the coming years.

Around the world, Solar Tech Online points out, 4/5s of renewable energy installations make electricity more cheaply than coal and gas. Globally, solar photovoltaic power costs 4.4 cents per kilowatt-hour. That is the cost to keep 10 hundred-watt light bulbs burning for an hour. Onshore wind can keep the ten hundred-watt light bulbs in your house burning for an hour for only 3.3 cents.

And in some climes, these renewables are even less expensive. In the Middle East, solar panels can make electricity for 2.4 cents per kilowatt hour. That is dirt cheap.

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Fossil fuels? They cost on average 10 cents per kilowatt hour. Why would you pay that? If someone offered you a nice piece of clothing for $100, but you found you could get the same item for $44 or even $33 elsewhere, would you be pigheaded and demand to pay the $100? That is how the Republican Party is acting, which helps explain why the economy crashes every time Americans go crazy and elect them.

So in the world of energy there were two reasons for preferring fossil fuels. One was intermittency. The wind doesn’t blow all the time, and the sun doesn’t shine at night. That problem has been solved, as in California, by battery storage, which has plummeted in price. Solar plus battery and wind plus battery are regularly providing California with all or most of its electricity for most days each year.

Renewables are the future, because they will go on declining in price and rising in efficiency. Solar Tech Online gives these scientific estimates:

Solar PV: Additional 60% cost reduction by 2060
Onshore Wind: 42% further reduction expected by 2060
Battery Storage: 50-70% cost decline anticipated by 2030

My title plays on the notion of “peak oil,” which the International Energy Agency predicts will be reached in 2030. In some countries, like China, 2025 may be the year of peak oil. That is, China will never again use as much petroleum as it does this year, and the amount used will decline steadily in the coming years. In the early twenty-first century there were worries about running out of petroleum. Those were always silly, since the world’s petroleum reserves are vast– though irrational US economic sanctions do put some of those fields off the world market. A quarter way into the present century, a new reason for peak oil has emerged, in the form of electric vehicles. Most petroleum is used for transportation. A tiny bit is used for power generation, and demand for it in that capacity is plummeting because of the rise of wind and solar farms. Peak oil is coming not because of its paucity but because it is unnecessarily expensive and is a planet-wrecking source of deadly greenhouse gases.

The year 2025 may only be a harbinger of peak fossil fuels and demand for them may be made artificially to rise by the Trump administration again next year. But dirty energy is facing a price tsunami from competitors that will only strengthen over time, and it is facing a moral reckoning as the disastrous effects of burning fossil fuels become more and more apparent to the public. Already, the cost of climate disasters in 2025 is projected at $145 billion by the World Economic Forum. These catastrophes are becoming more intense, more destructive and more costly, and there are more of them every year because of burning fossil fuels and putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

America’s dirty-energy aristocracy should read about what happened to the aristocrats in France once the ordinary folk, the ones whose pants didn’t even have cuffs, made a revolution because they were tired of policies that made them poor and miserable.

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About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page