Let's clarify that China, Germany and Japan are consuming more coal per dollar of GDP than the US is. Those are the #2, #3, and #4 economies. Coal dominates both German and Chinese energy. The US coal industry has been contracting rapidly, falling back to 1985 levels, losing about 1/3 of output. China on the other hand, is still consuming as much coal as the rest of the world combined and four times that of the US.
Japan for its part, plans to open four dozen new coal plants in the next decade.
> The US could have been at the forefront of solar and wind power
The US invented modern solar and is at the forefront. As of early 2017, the US was still getting more of its energy from solar than China (not growing nearly as fast however). The US is adding dramatically more solar capacity than anybody else not named China. Capacity equivalent to four or five nuclear power plants, every year. In 2016 the US added 10 times as much solar capacity as what Germany did (an early leader), and nearly twice that of Japan.
The US is #2 in wind power globally and will remain there indefinitely. It's also at the forefront there. It's adding the equivalent of two or three nuclear power plants worth of wind energy capacity per year, while US energy consumption is flat.
The US has 30 times the installed wind energy generation capacity vs Japan for example.
Currently there are only three major players in wind energy. China, the US, Germany. Germany is starting to fall far behind the US just due to economic size variance.
