The U.S. government estimates renewables will be a larger source of electricity than natural gas in the United States by 2050. Globally, it estimates renewables will rise from being 28 percent of the world’s electricity in 2018 to nearly 50 percent in 2050.5 But those numbers are misleading. While renewables in 2018 globally generated 11 percent of total primary energy, 64 percent of it (7 percent of total primary energy) came from hydroelectric dams.6 And dams are largely maxed out in developed nations, while their construction is opposed by environmentalists in poor and developing ones.
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