US Lags Other Major Nations on Wind & Solar despite Growth

There has been more than 300 percent in the past decade in U.S. production of renewable energy, but the United States still lags far behind Europe and Indonesia and is only slightly ahead of Mexico in the percentage of electricity it gets from renewable sources, according to a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council. European countries, led by Germany, get more of their electricity from wind, solar, geothermal and other renewable sources than any other region in the world, NRDC’s global renewable energy scorecard shows. The United States got about 2.7 percent of its electricity from renewables in 2011, making it No. 7 among G-20 member countries. Renewable energy is expected to be a major issue at the upcoming Rio+20 Earth Summit in Brazil. NRDC is advocating for countries to adopt policies to increase the percentage of electricity they get from renewable sources to 15 percent by 2020. Already some smaller, non-G-20 countries such as Spain, New Zealand and Iceland get more than 15 percent of their energy from renewable sources. See full Article.