You are aware that this is over 5 years old data (2017!) for the German electricity mix, right?
Please don't get me wrong, the scale up of renewable energy sources is certainly not going fast enough in Germany (thanks to our conservative government that ruled the country for 16 years until 2021!), but please argue this position using the real data for 2023 (57.7% renewables in the German electricity mix)!
This is for sure fantastic, don't get me wrong, but Europe has also exported some of its most polluting industries abroad. And then we also wag our finger at places like China and India.
Lots of coal burning leads to a powerful coal lobby leads to lots of coal burning, it's the circle of life. All that's missing is coal entering the food chain, IMO we should bring back coal butter, so the country can depend on coal even more and the coal lobby can make even more profits.
Meanwhile here next door in the Netherlands, we have wind farms and solar all over, and we sell our energy to the UK...meanwhile we have some of the highest consumer energy costs in the EU.
Since it says "right now", I doubt this listing is qualified for discussing the general state of the energy transition in these countries.
Edit: I checked it. Spain's gas share (as a random example) was significantly higher than 17% all over 2023 when summed up monthwise with wind contributing up to 30%.
Edit2: correct data for Germany for the same time mark: 52% fossil free (38% wind)
It's very a good sign, but I do have doubts about those figures. It's all too easy to look at total demand and total renewable generation, while ignoring the fact that the country is a net exporter and thus produces more than 100% of its demand - with the remaining uncounted percentage not being green.
"Fossil free" isn't exactly a recognised term, either, in which case fossil free =/= net zero =/= completely green.
we may all say a big "THANK YOU!" to Philipp Rösler (FDP) and Peter Altmaier (CDU) for both destroying the German PV-industry, establishing the "Solar-Ausbaudeckel" and the CDU/CSU as a whole to block and hinder wind power for over a decade very effectively.
And their very hard work to make Germany overly dependent on fossil fuels, to keep it that way and therefore blow ALL climate goals appears to be a success model, as the CDU/CSU are currently winning the public opinion with that intend, whilst those trying to follow the steps of our european neighors are slammed into the ground (just as our PV industry).
In other words: Germans don't want clean air. They don't want a future.
I'm Portuguese and as much as I'd love to run on 96% green energy I can't believe it...
Last time I checked (it was quite a while ago I'll give them that) we imported a lot of nuclear energy from France. So unless France is 100% green and still has a green energy surplus (which it isn't/doesn't) we're just transfering our carbon footprint...
We do have a lot of wind turbines so maybe we don't import as much anymore but still...
Rational governments get that fossil fuels aren't going anywhere, coal and oil will stay just where they like they have for longer than humans have been a thing.
Capitalist societies tho... private companies own those fossil fuels rights and they want to sell as much as they can for as long as they can.
We should be planning centuries in advance, not a financial quarter at a time.
I'm going to assume that those numbers only represent electric power generation. I wonder how much international import/export of power might change them.
Here in Hungary, 90% of electricty mix is putin 🤣( 36% putin's nuclear fuel, 44% putin's natural gas) as his slave orban prohibited building of wind turbines, makes solar investments unpredictable, insecure, and we dont have any fast rivers for hydro
At the time of posting the UK energy mix is a disappointing 50% FF. Not a lot of wind in the North Sea I guess. At peak it could be 25% FF or even lower with clear skies. At least there's usually more wind at the same time lower temperatures increase demand.
Lets not celebrate nuclear energy. The french plants are in a bad state and nuclear energy is not clean. Why does everyone forget the nuclear waste it produces?
But that doesn't matter. The real issue is that people heat their homes with oil or gas. Luckily our great leaders are fighting the actual problems! /s