Bofferbrauer2 said:
Europe is producing tons of oils for Biofuels. Most Maize (corn) and Rapeseed (canola) plantations throughout Europe are for the sole purpose of fuels. Gas already has 20% of them, Diesel also above 10%.
Also, you're putting everything on the EU while the decisions to ban Fossil and nuclear came from the individual countries, not per EU directive. Also keep in mind that Europe is producing less power now simply because Europe needs less power than it did 10 years ago (electricity consumption peaked in 2008), hence why taking so many old power plants off the grid ain't too problematic and getting replaced with renewable energies. It's slowly going up again since 2015, possibly due to the rise of electric cars.
About the bolded part: Then why is it the single largest part of the European electricity production since 2014, replacing both coal/lignite and nuclear (it went from 3rd to 1st) on the top spot?
In 2016, 29% of the European electricity production is from renewable sources, followed by 26% from nuclear. And while some countries vowed to get out of nuclear energy after Fukushima, others didn't and actually are expanding their nuclear power capacities. France, Finland and Slovakia are building nuclear power plants, and most of the eastern European countries are planning to extend their capacity of nuclear power production at a later point should it become necessary. Italy was one of the countries where the electricity consumption was receding the most, so cutting their nuclear reactors was also about rebalancing their power consumption to avoid overloading the grid.
With cutting fossil more and more out of the mix, the amount of CO2 produced per kWh is also dropping nicely. In 1990, that value was at over 520 g/kWh, while in 2016, it was all the way down to 295 g/kWh, so almost half of the amount per kWh than 30 years prior.
And I guess that with thermal you actually meant geothermal. But yeah, those two, just like power generated from dams, are very dependent on location and thus don't have much room for improvement. But as I just explained, it doesn't have to.
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