Here comes the sun: Wind, solar power account for record 13% of U.S. energy in 2021

Here comes the sun: Wind, solar power account for record 13% of U.S. energy in 2021

Solar and wind energy last year grew at the fastest rate in U.S. history and now account for a record 13% of the nation’s power generation, according to a report released Thursday.

Coming on the heels of Monday’s grim United Nations report warning that humanity must act now to curb rising temperatures caused by the burning of fossil fuels, the new Sustainable Energy in America Factbook offered some good news about what already is being done.

“It was not that long ago that critics of clean energy would snicker and say that its contributions amounted to a rounding error compared to total generation,” said Ethan Zindler, head of the Americas for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a research company that has been producing the report annually for the past 10 years. “That’s definitely no longer the case. Anyone who still calls clean energy ‘alternative energy’ is just so, so 2009.”