The pie charts illustrate the electricity generated from all sources—nuclear, conventional, and renewables such as biomass, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, and solar—in two countries over one year, in 2009: Germany and France. It is evident that German electricity generation outnumbered that of France by 50 billion kWh, 560 billion kWh, and 510 billion kWh, respectively.
Overall, the data indicates that Germany relies mostly on conventional thermal methods, while France relies on nuclear. Renewables constituted approximately the same percentage points in 2009. However, the share of each renewable energy source differed in both countries.
In Germany, conventional thermal methods were the most common, with 59.6%, while nuclear accounted for just 23.0% in 2009. Conversely, nuclear showed the largest proportion, with 76.0%, and conventional thermal methods registered at only 10.3% in France at the same time. In both countries, renewables were in the vicinity of 15%.
Renewables consisted of 5 distinct energy sources: biomass, hydroelectric, solar, wind, and geothermal. Germany represented 39.3% for biomass, 17.7% for hydroelectric, 36.9% for wind, and 6.1% for solar. In contrast, France showed completely different numbers: 8.1%, 80.5%, 10.5%, and 0.9%, respectively. Notably, only geothermal’s shares were exactly the same, 0.0% in both countries.