But as you say, the US is more wasteful with energy, which can make it seem better if you look only at absolute levels of the clean energy, and really bad if you look at absolute levels of the dirtier energy.
Using more energy is not itself "wasteful". For example, the US spends a bunch of extra energy on air conditioning, and as a result less older people die of heat deaths in the summer compared to Europe (and of course the population at large is generally more comfortable).
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-intensity-electric...
But as you say, the US is more wasteful with energy, which can make it seem better if you look only at absolute levels of the clean energy, and really bad if you look at absolute levels of the dirtier energy.