ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM), which has been around in one form or another since 1870, has been one of the world's largest energy companies by market cap for the past 20 years. But last Friday, ExxonMobil was lapped by NextEra Energy Inc. (NEE), an energy company barely 20 years old that gets most of its capacity from renewable sources, such as solar, wind, and nuclear.

NextEra is now the largest electric utility holding company by market cap – king of the energy hill. The writing's been on the wall for a long time. The days when you had to fork over nearly $150 for a barrel of crude are long gone. In the COVID-19 era, that same barrel will cost you less than $40. ExxonMobil itself was bumped off the Dow Jones Industrial last month.

The Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLE), which holds the world's biggest, most powerful oil and gas companies – Chevron Corp. (CVX), Schlumberger Ltd. (SLB), BP Plc. (BP), and so on – hasn't traded above $100 in more than six years, since it topped out at $100.02 intraday on June 27, 2014, two weeks before ExxonMobil peaked at $101.74.

Recently, XLE has been going for less than $31 a share; XOM has been less than $35.

Meanwhile, NextEra and its sector cohorts are absolutely surging. NextEra itself is hitting all-time highs. The iShares Global Clean Energy ETF (ICLN) has been blowing past all-time highs. In fact, most of the big renewable ETFs, like Invesco Solar ETF (TAN) and Invesco Wilderhill Clean Energy ETF (PBW) have been doing that, too – setting profit records.

There's nowhere to go but up. So ExxonMobil is a dinosaur, and fossil fuels as a whole are falling out of favor in the market. That's great news for our trading, because we can make even more trading on renewables than we could ever make trading on oil. Today, we're going long.

Renewable Energy Is a High-Profit Hotbed

NextEra Energy has doubled in the three years since 2017 – even when you figure in the Coronavirus Crash. The wider ICLN ETF, which tracks a big basket of renewable stocks, has doubled in a little over a year. Some of its biggest holdings, like Vestas Wind Systems (VWDRY) and Renewable Energy Group Inc. (REGI), are hitting all-time or at least multi-year highs.

That says to me that this growing segment is the way to profit on energy from here on out. The next few years could see even more explosive growth. It's not hard to see why.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that, any day now, renewable electricity generation will clobber coal, and even nuclear energy. When they look out toward 2050, most of America will get its electricity from renewable sources. NextEra slashed its generation costs by 50% by expanding natural gas capacity, but its wind and solar capacity grow faster than any other source.

I actually called NEE's big move a few weeks back, and the way I see it, its moonshot past Exxon is evidence I was right on the money. If its bullish trend continues, as it should, NextEra will be not just the largest electric utility, but the largest energy company in the United States, period. It's padded its market cap by more than $8 billion in less than two months.

Now, buying and holding NextEra, Vestas, or ICLN is a great way to get exposure to the surging renewables sector. But that's when those all-time highs start to look like a double-edged sword.

The leader of the pack, NextEra, is currently trading at nearly $303 a share – great news if you got in at March 2020 lows, but grabbing 100 shares right now would cost you a whopping $303,000. No two ways about it: Options make the most sense here. Trading this stock using a little leverage over the long run will bring even bigger profits than the big pile buy-and-hold investors are sitting on.

Now, I've recently illustrated how to profit on these companies with shorter-term options, but I think the renewables "long game" is going to be incredibly profitable. And I'm not just talking about pure profits here; right off the bat, this trade is going to cost a lot, lot less, just because of the way the market values these options.

I'm talking about LEAPs – long-term equity anticipation securities. These allow you to control shares of stock for up to three years at a fraction of the price of the shares. By using LEAPs, you could buy a January 20, 2023 $300 call for less than $49 per share. You get three years of breathing room and, at the end of it, you're likely to make a bucket of money.

If you don't want to wait three years, or you're feeling a little more aggressive, and you own the stock, you can consider writing out-of-the-money (OTM) calls each month and collect some "rent" on your stock. Just pick a strike price one or two pegs higher than the current share price.

Renewable energy's performance over the past few months has left me absolutely convinced that it's got a bright future; it's the perfect sector for short-term trades and longer-term LEAPs.