Scotland is the envy of America

Holly Richmond, who writes on the US site called Grist, was hugely excited just before Christmas when she heard that Scotland will be using only clean energy fuel by 2020. Scotland, she pointed out to her readers, is only the size of Arizona, but it was using 24% renewable energy as early as 2010. Last year it was up to 40%. By 2015, it’ll be 5%, and then by 2020, it aims to be running on 100% wind, solar, wave, and hydro. Arizona only gets 9% of its power from renewables, despite all that sunshine.

What’s more, our fan goes on excitedly, ‘Scotland shuns fracking and nukes.’ (The Scottish government has no plans to build new nuclear plants.) Holly is thrilled. ‘The Scottish public is on board with the government’s plans. Scots don’t mind dams or solar panels or wind turbines. They deeply dislike nuclear reactors and want nothing to do with hydraulic fracturing.’

But, she adds, it rains a lot and it’s hard to find good Mexican food. Holly says she ‘writes and edits things for fun and money.’ We’d love to know how she does it, but never mind. She’s on hollyrichmond.com and Twitter, which she says is ‘the entire basis of her self-esteem.’ Perhaps she really should come to Scotland.