I'm not a proponent of lumping all sources of "RE" together to get a high number and implying it as a modern success story. hydro is already fully utilized in developed countries like UK and Germany. And they both get 2 times more energy from fire wood than from wind and solar combined. It is misleading because when the media says "RE", most people think they are talking about wind and solar.
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Rural Afghanistan is the world leader, getting 97% of their energy from "RE"...
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using firewood and dung.
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https://www.researchgate.net/publica...nable_energies
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UK currently gets 2.2% from wind, some of it offshore, and .5% from solar. If UK wants 50% of it's energy from wind, an area equivilent to 1/4 of the country will be required for the wind farms. If they want the other half from solar, another 1/8 of the land mass will be needed for the solar farms.