5. France has decided to build 2 gigawatts worth of wind turbines offshore, as its nuclear plants age and updating them or replacing them becomes expensive and unpopular. France gets roughly 80% of its electricity from nuclear plants. It is the 20% coming from hydrocarbons that desperately needs to be replaced by sources such as wind power.
4. In Germany, wind and solar are still rapidly increasing as a share of German energy-producers (renewables produce about 20% of German electricy but only 8 percent in the United Kingdom.
3. About 7 gigawatts of solar energy installations were put in, in the United States in 2011. That is roughly equivalent to 7 nuclear reactors. The US has a little over 100 of such nuclear reactors.
2. Mexico is considering becoming only the second country to pass a really strict hydorcarbons law.
1. Morocco, which has no oil of its own to speak of, is doing a big wind project. Morocco hopes to build 4,000 megawatts in wind and solar power capacity by 2020 which would be about half its energy needs.
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