Juan Cole departs from his usual topic of the Middle East to give credit where huge credit is due. Scotland is well on its way to powering itself entirely on renewable energy. They are showing the world that this can be done. Scotland renewable energy is primarily hydro and wind. However tidal turbines and wave devices are in development and should be commercially available soon.
Winner: The 2012 Amun-Ra award goes the far-sighted First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, one of the contemporary world’s great heroes. Scotland gets the award because it has the ambitious goal of getting 100% of its electricity from renewables by 2020, and it is making amazing progress toward attaining it. Although many provinces or countries get 60% or more of their electricity from renewables, most of these depend mainly on hydro-electric. For those without riparian resources, the challenge is to implement other renewable energy generating technologies. Scotland is favorably situated to develop wind power, and is going for it in a big way.