Why the Saudis Are Going Solar

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/312-16/30877-why-the-saudis-are-going-solar

But Turki doesn’t fit the stereotype, and neither does his country. Quietly, the prince is helping Saudi Arabia—the quintessential petrostate—prepare to make what could be one of the world’s biggest investments in solar power.

Near Riyadh, the government is preparing to build a commercial-scale solar-panel factory. On the Persian Gulf coast, another factory is about to begin producing large quantities of polysilicon, a material used to make solar cells. And next year, the two state-owned companies that control the energy sector—Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil company, and the Saudi Electricity Company, the kingdom’s main power producer—plan to jointly break ground on about 10 solar projects around the country.

Turki heads two Saudi entities that are pushing solar hard: the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, a national research-and-development agency based in Riyadh, and Taqnia, a state-owned company that has made several investments in renewable energy and is looking to make more. “We have a clear interest in solar energy,” Turki told me. “And it will soon be expanding exponentially in the kingdom.”

Such talk sounds revolutionary in Saudi Arabia, for decades a poster child for fossil-fuel waste. The government sells gasoline to consumers for about 50 cents a gallon and electricity for as little as 1 cent a kilowatt-hour, a fraction of the lowest prices in the United States. As a result, the highways buzz with Cadillacs, Lincolns, and monster SUVs; few buildings have insulation; and people keep their home air conditioners running—often at temperatures that require sweaters—even when they go on vacation.

Saudi Arabia produces much of its electricity by burning oil, a practice that most countries abandoned long ago, reasoning that they could use coal and natural gas instead and save oil for transportation, an application for which there is no mainstream alternative. Most of Saudi Arabia’s power plants are colossally inefficient, as are its air conditioners, which consumed 70 percent of the kingdom’s electricity in 2013. Although the kingdom has just 30 million people, it is the world’s sixth-largest consumer of oil.

Now, Saudi rulers say, things must change. Their motivation isn’t concern about global warming; the last thing they want is an end to the fossil-fuel era. Quite the contrary: they see investing in solar energy as a way to remain a global oil power.

[get the red out]

1. Until Saudi women walk free in the sun

Fuck them! They can become the Eco-green light of the world and still fuck them.

[happyslug]

3. Saudi Women can walk free in the sun all they want to....

They just can not go where men may see them, thus Saudi Women can walk in the sun provided they stay in the desert.

Sarcasm if you do not know.

[cprise]

2. They are runing out of water

De-salinization is a big deal to the Saudis, as it is to the Iranians. Solar and nuclear are both attractive for that task.

[happyslug]

4. Saudi Arabia actually gets more rain then North Africa

Last edited Tue Jun 23, 2015, 11:09 AM - Edit history (1)

http://www.climate-charts.com/World-Climate-Maps.html#rain

Saudi Arabia gets 3 to 5 inches of rain, compared to Egypt and North Africa which get less then one inch of rain per year.

The generally accepted cut off for a desert is 15 inches of rain per year, thus Saudi Arabia is "Desert" but it is a lot wetter then North Africa.

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibits/biomes/deserts.php