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Uruguay is a renewable energy utopia. How did it get there?

Part 3 of the TED Radio Hour episode Paradise Lost and Found

In five years, Uruguay transformed its grid. Now 98% of its energy comes from renewables. Former national director of energy, Ramón Méndez Galain, recounts his country’s path and how to replicate it.

About Ramón Méndez Galain

As Uruguay’s National Director of Energy, Ramón Méndez Galain led an unprecedented energy transformation, culminating in the country’s current mix of 98 percent renewables, nearly 40 percent of which comes from wind alone. He then became Uruguay’s Secretary of Climate Change and their chief negotiator for the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015.

Currently, as Executive Director of Ivy, Galain works to promote a sustainable transition throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, helping governments, the private sector, academia and citizens lead the region towards a net-zero economy.

He began his career as a university professor. He holds his bachelors and PhD in physics from the University of Grenoble, France and the University of La Plata, Argentina.

This segment of the TED Radio Hour was produced by Andrea Gutierrez and edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour. You can follow us on Facebook @TEDRadioHour and email us at [email protected].

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Manoush Zomorodi is the host of TED Radio Hour. She is a journalist, podcaster and media entrepreneur, and her work reflects her passion for investigating how technology and business are transforming humanity.

Zomorodi is a co-founder of Stable Genius Productions and is the co-host and co-creator of ZigZag, the business podcast about being human. She also created, hosted, and was managing editor of the podcast Note to Self in partnership with WNYC Studios, which was named Best Tech Podcast of 2017 by The Academy of Podcasters.

Prior to her time at WNYC, Zomorodi reported and produced around the world for BBC News and Thomson Reuters, including a few years in Berlin.

She was named one of Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business for 2018 and has received numerous awards for her work, including The Gracie for Best Radio Host in 2014 and 2018. Her book "Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Creative Self" (2017, St. Martin's Press) and her TED Talk are guides to surviving information overload and the "Attention Economy."

Zomorodi received a bachelor's degree from Georgetown University in English and fine arts. She is half-Persian and half-Swiss but was born in New York City, where she lives with her family.

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