Are Environmentalists Bad for the Planet?

TOWNSEND: I was making a speech to nearly 200 really hard core, deep environmentalists and I played a little thought game on them. I said imagine I am the carbon fairy and I wave a magic wand. We can get rid of all the carbon in the atmosphere, take it down to two hundred fifty parts per million and I will ensure with my little magic wand that we do not go above two degrees of global warming. However, by waving my magic wand I will be interfering with the laws of physics not with people – they will be as selfish, they will be as desiring of status. The cars will get bigger, the houses will get bigger, the planes will fly all over the place but there will be no climate change. And I asked them, would you ask the fairy to wave its magic wand? And about 2 people of the 200 raised their hands.

-- Solitaire Townsend Co-founder and Chief Executive of Futerra Sustainability Communications, Broadcast as 'Analysis', BBC Radio 4, 25 Jan 2010, 8:30pm: Podcast | Transcript

Renewable Energy in Europe - by technology.

In descending order of % share in 2013.

Biomass dominates

	% share of RE in gross final energy consumption			RE Primary production (kTOE)			% share of total RE, 2013
Country	2013 %	2020 TARGET		2003	2013		Biomass & waste	Hydro	Wind	Solar	Geo-thermal
Norway	65.5	67.5		10,277	12,458		10	88.7	1.3	0	0
Sweden	52.1	49		12,389	16,770		63.4	31.5	5	0.1	0
Latvia	37.1	40		1,728	2,137		87.8	11.7	0.5	0	0
Finland	36.8	38		7,887	9,934		88.2	11.1	0.7	0	0
Austria	32.6	34		6,130	9,466		56.2	38.1	2.9	2.4	0.4
Denmark	27.2	30		2,252	3,240		68.1	0	29.5	2.1	0.2
Portugal	25.7	31		4,241	5,621		55.4	21	18.4	2	3.2
Estonia	25.6	25		667	1,122		95.7	0.2	4.1	0	0
Romania	23.9	24		4,002	5,561		68.8	23.1	7	0.7	0.5
Lithuania	23	23		794	1,288		92.1	3.5	4	0.3	0.1
Slovenia	21.5	25		714	1,071		56.7	37	0	2.6	3.6
Bulgaria	19	16		952	1,826		65	19.2	6.5	7.5	1.8
Croatia	18	20		800	1,499		50.1	45.9	3	0.6	0.5
Italy	16.7	17		9,999	23,500		45.3	19.3	5.5	8.6	21.3
Spain	15.4	20		9,196	17,377		39.6	18.2	26.7	15.4	0.1
EU-28	15	20		104,094	191,961		64.2	16.6	10.5	5.5	3.1
Greece	15	18		1,538	2,487		43.1	21.9	14.3	20.1	0.5
France	14.2	23		15,521	23,073		64.5	26.3	6	2.1	1
Czech Republic	12.4	13		1,663	3,640		87.2	6.5	1.1	5.2	0
Germany	12.4	18		12,614	33,680		70.8	5.9	13.2	9.6	0.4
Poland	11.3	15		4,150	8,512		91.1	2.5	6.1	0.2	0.2
Hungary	9.8	14.65		906	2,074		90.3	0.9	3	0.4	5.4
Slovakia	9.8	14		651	1,467		67.3	28.4	0	3.8	0.4
Cyprus	8.1	13		48	109		16.3	0	18.3	64.1	1.4
Belgium	7.9	13		708	2,929		79.7	1.1	10.7	8.4	0.1
Ireland	7.8	16		235	766		41	6.5	51	1.5	0
United Kingdom	5.1	15		2,642	8,404		61.7	4.8	29.1	4.3	0
Nether-lands	4.5	14		1,625	4,294		86.3	0.2	11.3	1.6	0.6
Malta	3.8	10		0	10		27.4	0	0	72.6	0
Luxem-bourg	3.6	11		41	107		75.5	9.6	6.6	8.2	0

Source: Eurostat (online data codes: nrg_107a, t2020_31, and ten00081)

EU, share of energy from renewable sources, by sector, 2013, %

	Transport	Electricity	Heating & cooling	Gross final energy consumption
Norway	1.6	105.5	31.8	65.5
Sweden	16.7	61.8	67.2	52.1
Latvia	3.1	48.8	49.7	37.1
Finland	9.9	31.1	50.9	36.8
Austria	7.5	68.1	33.5	32.6
Denmark	5.7	43.1	34.8	27.2
Portugal	0.7	49.2	34.5	25.7
Estonia	0.2	13.0	43.1	25.6
Romania	4.6	37.5	26.2	23.9
Lithuania	4.6	13.1	37.7	23.0
Slovenia	3.4	32.8	31.7	21.5
Bulgaria	5.6	18.9	29.2	19.0
Croatia	2.1	38.7	18.1	18.0
Italy	5.0	31.3	18.0	16.7
Spain	0.4	36.4	14.9	15.4
European Union (28 countries)	5.4	25.4	16.5	15.0
Greece	1.1	21.2	26.5	15.0
France	7.2	16.9	18.3	14.2
Czech Republic	5.7	12.8	15.3	12.4
Germany	6.3	25.6	10.6	12.4
Poland	6.0	10.7	13.9	11.3
Hungary	5.3	6.6	13.5	9.8
Slovakia	5.3	20.8	7.5	9.8
Cyprus	1.1	6.6	21.7	8.1
Belgium	4.3	12.3	8.1	7.9
Ireland	5.0	20.9	5.7	7.8
United Kingdom	4.4	13.9	2.6	5.1
Netherlands	5.0	10.1	3.6	4.5
Malta	3.3	1.6	23.7	3.8
Luxembourg	3.9	5.3	5.6	3.6

PS: Doesn't necessarily include all sectors (e.g. Industry)

Source: Share of energy from renewable sources; Eurostat: nrg_ind_335a, Last update: 09-03-2015

Notes:
It's in descending order of RE consumption.
Eurostat included Norway, although its not an EU country! Why? Perhaps because its hydro is so high that it makes the European figures look better (with a lower biofuel %).
Population density matters. 4 countries at the top of the list all have low population densities. 2 countries at the bottom (Malta, Netherlands) have high population density. Because renewable energy is an intensive resource (taking up vast land areas), countries with high population density find it harder to do.
In most cases, biofuels contribute 60% to 95% of the renewable energy mix. Eurostat don't make it easy to find the biomass contributions.

Leaving aside other criticisms for a moment. I now attempted a 2nd chart to verify the data above using data from elsewhere on Eurostat. The chart below merges 2 sources. The 2nd column compares primary renewable consumption with all primary energy consumption. The percentages this time around are lower. Why? I can't explain because Eurostat don't explain the derivation of the figures above.

PS: I didn't harmonize the country list because I didn't want to be accused of 'curating' the data.

Gross inland consumption kTOE

	RE %	Hydro	Wind	Solar (PV + thermal)	Other RE (biomass, geothermal)	RE (all)	All energy
Norway	37.4%	11,047.0	162.9	0.0	1,375.1	12,585.0	33,660.8
Montenegro	36.9%	215.3	0.0	0.0	166.9	382.2	1,036.6
Latvia	36.1%	250.4	10.3	0.0	1,350.5	1,611.2	4,465.8
Sweden	34.8%	5,276.1	846.3	14.2	10,946.0	17,082.6	49,134.0
Albania	31.0%	598.1	0.0	11.9	201.5	811.5	2,617.7
Austria	29.6%	3,609.4	270.9	227.9	5,883.9	9,992.1	33,762.4
Finland	29.2%	1,103.9	66.6	1.7	8,746.6	9,918.8	33,925.6
Denmark	24.2%	1.1	956.4	69.0	3,351.4	4,377.9	18,101.2
Portugal	23.5%	1,180.6	1,033.0	114.0	2,986.5	5,314.1	22,611.9
Lithuania	18.1%	44.8	51.8	3.9	1,111.9	1,212.4	6,687.4
Romania	17.2%	1,286.1	388.7	36.3	3,839.8	5,550.9	32,346.0
Italy	16.5%	4,537.7	1,280.9	2,024.5	18,527.5	26,370.6	160,007.1
Slovenia	16.5%	396.6	0.3	28.1	706.1	1,131.1	6,871.3
Croatia	16.2%	688.0	44.5	9.1	526.5	1,268.1	7,825.6
Spain	14.7%	3,162.5	4,634.8	2,677.7	6,933.7	17,408.7	118,778.8
Serbia	12.8%	877.3	0.0	0.0	1,041.1	1,918.4	14,992.9
Estonia	12.7%	2.2	45.5	0.0	803.5	851.2	6,702.7
Euro area (19 countries)	12.1%	23,391.4	14,789.3	9,784.5	94,585.8	142,551.0	1,178,002.7
Turkey	11.8%	5,109.2	649.8	795.0	7,493.4	14,047.4	118,847.2
European Union (28 countries)	11.8%	31,860.5	20,207.4	10,626.3	134,066.4	196,760.6	1,666,318.4
Bulgaria	10.8%	350.8	118.1	136.1	1,208.6	1,813.6	16,763.7
Greece	10.7%	545.6	355.9	500.7	1,213.1	2,615.3	24,358.3
Macedonia	10.7%	136.2	0.0	0.8	156.4	293.4	2,746.0
Germany	10.3%	1,977.5	4,446.1	3,249.3	23,724.5	33,397.4	324,271.5
France	9.0%	6,061.0	1,378.6	487.4	15,377.3	23,304.3	259,297.2
Poland	8.7%	209.7	516.3	15.4	7,818.0	8,559.4	98,158.7
Czech Republic	8.5%	235.1	41.4	189.1	3,103.0	3,568.6	42,191.3
Hungary	8.3%	18.3	61.7	8.1	1,800.5	1,888.6	22,741.1
Slovakia	8.2%	416.9	0.5	56.2	935.7	1,409.3	17,261.4
Ireland	6.2%	49.7	390.5	11.3	399.2	850.7	13,737.3
Belgium	6.2%	32.7	312.6	245.8	2,898.5	3,489.6	56,727.5
Cyprus	6.1%	0.0	19.9	69.8	44.6	134.3	2,189.3
United Kingdom	5.0%	404.0	2,444.9	364.5	6,886.4	10,099.8	201,054.1
Netherlands	4.2%	9.8	483.8	70.4	2,806.6	3,370.6	81,170.9
Luxembourg	3.6%	10.2	7.1	8.8	130.5	156.6	4,337.4
Malta	1.5%	0.0	0.0	6.9	5.8	12.7	839.0

Source:
Simplified energy balances - annual data [nrg_100a]
Supply, transformation and consumption of renewable energies - annual data [nrg_107a]