How the U.S. Energy Mix Measures Up

At an event in Ohio on Wednesday, President Donald Trump spoke to tank factory workers and mocked the renewable energy sector, calling wind turbines “windmills”. The president also joked that wind energy meant that people would have to turn off their TVs if there was no wind blowing.

In fact, the U.S. is already using around 10 percent of renewable energy in its overall energy mix, a figure comparable to those of European countries like the UK and Germany. Some countries are using more renewable energy sources, like Canada and New Zealand, both of which have been investing in their respective hydropower sectors. Australia is trailing the U.S. in the adoption of renewables and is relying even more heavily on coal.

The share of renewables in U.S. electricity generation is about the same as their share in total energy consumption. Here, other countries are already using more renewables, like Canada (66 percent), the U.K. (29 percent) or Germany (33 percent).