86 Percent of New Power in Europe From Renewable Sources in 2016 (theguardian.com)

Renewable energy sources made up nearly nine-tenths of new power added to Europe's electricity grids last year, in a sign of the continent's rapid shift away from fossil fuels. From a report on The Guardian: But industry leaders said they were worried about the lack of political support beyond 2020, when binding EU renewable energy targets end. Of the 24.5GW of new capacity built across the EU in 2016, 21.1GW -- or 86% -- was from wind, solar, biomass and hydro, eclipsing the previous high-water mark of 79% in 2014. For the first time windfarms accounted for more than half of the capacity installed, the data from trade body WindEurope showed. Wind power overtook coal to become the EU's second largest form of power capacity after gas, though due to the technology's intermittent nature, coal still meets more of the blocâ(TM)s electricity demand.

Comments

I would say 25.4% is greater than 2%

[jopsen]

I have no idea what the actual number is

Then by all means make up statistics rather than googling it, why don't change your username to Trump? :)

In 2014 renewable energy made up 25.4% of all energy production in the EU.
Source: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/s...

Now don't be fooled there is lots of similar stats here, like:

Renewable energy sources accounted for a 12.5 % share of the EU-28’s gross inland energy consumption in 2014.

(Presumably because not all energy is consumed, read the details if you care, but read before you bash).

The goal remains:

The EU seeks to have a 20 % share of its gross final energy consumption from renewable sources by 2020

Similarly, in 2014, the US was a 11%, source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
(note. don't confuse electricity production for total energy production).

All these stats are from 2014, clearly things a better now, given most new energy production facilities are renewable.

Re:Clearly

[MightyMartian]

What a load of crap!

http://www.snopes.com/2017/02/...

No, there's no fakery here. And when you're finished digesting just how gullible, then you can ponder the fact that the Arctic has been as high as 30 degress above normal temperatures this winter. While you try to salve your infantile feelings that the universe should behave like you want it to, CO2 still has the properties it has been known to have for over a century;

Grow up

Re: Clearly

[AmiMoJo]

Nuclear in Europe is insanely expensive. As in, you would be insane to pay those prices for it. Even with massive over-build and backup storage, wind is far cheaper. There is just no economic case for nuclear any more, at least not here.

Rant all you like about environmental nutjobs and NIMBYs, but it's investors and governments who are killing off nuclear. That and the returns on renewables are far better than could ever be hoped for from developing new nuclear designs to replace they crappy ones we have now.

By the way, did you know that Germany built -5 new coal power stations. Minus 5, as in they built some new ones but closed even more, ending up with 5 fewer and the new ones are cleaner to boot. Even China hit peak coal a couple of years back and is now on the decline.