Middle East tensions locked oil and gas behind the Strait of Hormuz. Prices spiked. Governments scrambled. Headlines screamed coal’s revival. But data tells another story. Global fossil fuel power generation dropped in the war’s first month, per analysis from the Fortune. Gas output fell 4% year-on-year. Coal stayed flat worldwide—and excluding China, it plunged 3.5%. Solar jumped 14%. Wind climbed 8%.
Lauri Myllyvirta, cofounder of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), cut through the noise. “The government statements used to create a ‘back to coal’ narrative range from meaningless to inconsequential,” he wrote. “There has been no increase in coal capacity so far.” His team’s March report, detailed here, confirmed it: no new plants online, no retirements delayed enough to matter. Plants already hummed at full tilt.
Short-term bumps happened. India and East Asia fired up existing coal to offset LNG shortages. Europe eyed stockpiles. Sushmita Vazirani at Wood Mackenzie called coal a “critical fallback” in shocks. Yet limits loomed. For every $10 rise in oil prices, coal costs $1 to $3 more per tonne—mining and transport tie it to crude. And with grids straining, that fallback couldn’t scale.
Renewables stepped in. A 2025 IRENA report found 91% of new projects cheaper than fossils, as noted in Fortune. South Korea delayed two plant closures by nine months but pushed harder on clean energy. President Lee Jae Myung warned: “Our future will be at serious risk if we continue to rely on fossil fuels.” EV sales boomed across Asia-Pacific amid fuel fears, per Reuters.
Numbers Bury the Revival Talk
Zoom out. Renewables overtook coal as the world’s top electricity source in early 2025, Ember data shows in its mid-year insights. Solar and wind covered all demand growth—306 TWh from solar alone, up 31%. Coal dipped 0.6%. By mid-2026 at latest, IEA’s Electricity 2026 projects renewables at 36% of global power, coal at 32%—its lowest in a century. Coal-fired output contracts 0.9% annually through 2030.
Capacity tells the tale. 2025 saw 692 GW of renewables added worldwide, IRENA reports—85.6% of all new power. Solar: 510 GW. Wind: 159 GW. Renewables hit 49% of installed capacity by year-end. Coal? U.S. retirements slowed to 2.6 GW, a 15-year low per EIA, but global trends point down. China added 78 GW coal capacity last year, yet utilization sagged as clean energy met demand growth, CREA-GEM analysis notes.
Pipeline power. Global wind and solar projects hit 4.9 TW in 2025, up 11%, Global Energy Monitor says. Under construction: 758 GW, half in China. IEA forecasts 4,600 GW renewables added 2025-2030—double the prior five years. Solar PV drives half that generation surge.
U.S. mirrors it, policy headwinds aside. Solar and wind hit 17% of electricity in 2025, EIA data. Solar generation: up 34% to 296,000 GWh. Wind: 3% to 464,000 GWh. 2026 adds 55+ GW solar, wind, storage—fossils net under 1 GW. By 2027, solar passes wind and coal in capacity.
But. China dominates coal—over half global use. Its solar capacity nears coal’s 1,333 GW this year, per China Electricity Council via LA Times. India builds coal but renewables lead additions. Europe cuts coal; U.S. delays some shutdowns for data centers, Canary Media tracks.
Shocks Accelerate the Pivot
Hormuz proved the point. Clean flexibility—solar, wind, hydro, batteries—offset gas drops. Outside China, fossils fell; renewables rose. CleanTechnica’s take: annual clean adds now dwarf LNG equivalents from chokepoints. Systems with stacks win.
Costs seal it. Utility solar: 4-8 cents/kWh unsubsidized. With storage: 5-13 cents. Gas: 13.8-26 cents. Coal higher, per Lazard via Yale Climate Connections. Demand surges—data centers, EVs—favor cheap, scalable options.
Policy fights back. Trump orders kept U.S. plants open; Indiana eyes extensions. Yet economics bite. RFF’s Global Energy Outlook 2026 sees coal declining all scenarios by 2050—median 48%. Wind, solar hit over half generation.
Coal’s not dead. Shocks revive it regionally. But the narrative? Overblown. Renewables fill gaps, cut costs, scale fast. Crises like Hormuz don’t rewind the clock. They fast-forward the shift.
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