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Saudi Arabia aiming to be the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy

Saudi Arabia: an unlikely ally in the march towards renewable energy, Guardian, Molly Scott Cato, 5 June 15 The oil-rich kingdom’s enthusiasm for renewables has nothing to do with saving the planet from climate change and everything to do with economic dominance “……..How striking, therefore, to learn that the Saudi oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, is predicting that within just 25 years we could no longer need fossil fuels. This, from a representative of a country that has done more than most to block progress in climate negotiations.

Of course, this announcement has little, if anything, to do with a newly discovered yearning to save the planet from climate change; it has everything to do with economics. Saudi Arabia finds itself in the fortunate position whereby it can effortlessly switch from dominating the energy market of the 20th century through oil to dominating the 21st century with renewables. Al-Naimi believes that solar power will benefit the economy even more than fossil fuels. The evidence for this is that global investment in renewables jumped 16% in 2014, with solar attracting over half the total funding for the first time, driven by a 80% decline in manufacturing costs for solar in the last six years……..

Far from being a curse that concentrates power in the hands of an elite, renewables work most effectively when in community ownership. Energiewende(energy transformation) in Germany has shown this to be the case. Here, local ownership of renewables has provided a dramatic economic payback to investing communities.

The end game of climate change was always going to be a tussle between the vested interests of the past, using the wealth and power of the fossil fuel era to defend their assets, and the visionary supporters of the new clean energy technologies. The powerhouse states of the fossil era look set to overtake us on the path to a renewable energy future, while we continue to live under a finance curse inflicted on us by a government deeply attached to the finance industry. Saudi Arabia’s motivation may not be protecting the planet from climate change, or indeed improving community control over energy production, but it might just become a useful ally in the transformation towards a new energy era. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/04/saudi-arabia-ally-renewable-energy-oil-rich

June 6, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | renewable, Saudi Arabia