Let's also remember it matters where the electricity comes from. You're not necessarily going green if you use coal-based electricity.
Source: https://www.electricitymap.org
Source: https://www.electricitymap.org
That means the US CO2 emissions per kWh are significantly better than Germany, by the way.
And beware of old data. Even a couple years makes a difference. From 2014 to 2017, CO2 emitted per kWh has dropped by 13%.
(My figures mostly come from here, which has up to date info through December 2017: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph... along with calculations for emissions per kWh based on efficiency and CO2 per heat unit for a given fuel source.)
By my calculations [1,2,3], the US produced approximately 450g of CO2 per kWh in 2016.
And note that the difference is due almost entirely because the US still gets ~19% of its electricity from nuclear power but Germany does not (450g/(1-.19) = ~560). For all of Germany's effort in renewables at great cost, all it has done (besides helping to fund the technology, which is useful) is compensate for the retirement of nuclear in Germany.
[1] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...
[2] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_a_03.html
[3] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_08_01.html
Technically true regarding states, but there are several Canadian provinces which get more than 95% of their energy from renewables, some of whom are serving a larger population base than Norway.
Agreed.
At the same time, moving from direct use of fossil fuels to even indirect use of fossil fuels via electricity is a real move that at a minimum facilitates future sustainability.