China has beaten us on many business fronts lately, but none more so than in the renewable energy market — from solar to wind to battery storage. In 2024, largely thanks to the Chinese, energy from renewable sources became cheaper than any of the nonrenewable fossil fuels — oil, gas and even coal. 

President Trump’s backwardness in this area has conceded U.S. defeat in this critical energy transition. He is in service to the old oil, coal and gas businesses and their investors who paid his corrupt demand for $1 billion in campaign funds. They now own him, and no one in government is fighting for the right of U.S. citizens to have clean, cheap energy from renewable energy sources.

As always with Trump, when he announces his facts, one never can tell whether he is deliberately lying or if his aging mind is simply spouting information he learned in the 1980s. His pronouncement that wind energy is the most expensive energy in the world is factually wrong. Solar is now cheapest followed by wind, then fossil fuels. If we add in the costs of damage to the environment, there is not even a close contest. 

Luckily, most of the world has more sense on this topic than Trump. I recommend Bill McKibben’s book, “Here Comes the Sun,” for a clear, concise discussion of the state of the global renewable energy market and America’s losing policy position in this area.

Judy McGeorge
Ellsworth