Saudi Arabia Eyes a Future Beyond Oil (nytimes.com) 58
An anonymous reader shares a report: At a two-hour drive from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's capital, rows of solar panels extend to the horizon like waves on an ocean. Despite having almost limitless reserves of oil, the kingdom is embracing solar and wind power, partly in an effort to retain a leading position in the energy industry, which is vitally important to the country but fast changing. Looking out over 3.3 million panels, covering 14 square miles of desert, Faisal Al Omari, chief executive of a recently completed solar project called Sudair, said he would tell his children and grandchildren about contributing to Saudi Arabia's energy transition.
Although petroleum production retains a crucial role in the Saudi economy, the kingdom is putting its chips on other forms of energy. Sudair, which can light up 185,000 homes, is the first of what could be many giant projects intended to raise output from renewable energy sources like solar and wind to around 50 percent by 2030. Currently, renewable energy accounts for a negligible amount of Saudi electricity generation. Analysts say achieving that hugely ambitious goal is unlikely. "If they get 30 percent, I would be happy because that would be a good signal," said Karim Elgendy, a climate analyst at the Middle East Institute, a research organization in Washington. Still, the kingdom is planning to build solar farms at a rapid pace. "The volumes you see here, you don't see anywhere else, only in China," said Marco Arcelli, chief executive of Acwa Power, Sudair's Saudi developer and a growing force in the international electricity and water industries.
The Saudis not only have the money to expand rapidly, but are free of the long permit processes that inhibit such projects in the West. "They have a lot of investment capital, and they can move quickly and pull the trigger on project development," said Ben Cahill, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research institution in Washington. Even Saudi Aramco, the crown jewel of the Saudi economy and the producer of nearly all its oil, sees a shifting energy landscape. To gain a foothold in solar, Aramco has taken a 30 percent stake in Sudair, which cost $920 million, the first step in a planned 40-gigawatt solar portfolio -- more than Britain's average power demand -- intended to meet the bulk of the government's ambitions for renewable energy. The company plans to set up a large business of storing greenhouse gases underground.
Although petroleum production retains a crucial role in the Saudi economy, the kingdom is putting its chips on other forms of energy. Sudair, which can light up 185,000 homes, is the first of what could be many giant projects intended to raise output from renewable energy sources like solar and wind to around 50 percent by 2030. Currently, renewable energy accounts for a negligible amount of Saudi electricity generation. Analysts say achieving that hugely ambitious goal is unlikely. "If they get 30 percent, I would be happy because that would be a good signal," said Karim Elgendy, a climate analyst at the Middle East Institute, a research organization in Washington. Still, the kingdom is planning to build solar farms at a rapid pace. "The volumes you see here, you don't see anywhere else, only in China," said Marco Arcelli, chief executive of Acwa Power, Sudair's Saudi developer and a growing force in the international electricity and water industries.
The Saudis not only have the money to expand rapidly, but are free of the long permit processes that inhibit such projects in the West. "They have a lot of investment capital, and they can move quickly and pull the trigger on project development," said Ben Cahill, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research institution in Washington. Even Saudi Aramco, the crown jewel of the Saudi economy and the producer of nearly all its oil, sees a shifting energy landscape. To gain a foothold in solar, Aramco has taken a 30 percent stake in Sudair, which cost $920 million, the first step in a planned 40-gigawatt solar portfolio -- more than Britain's average power demand -- intended to meet the bulk of the government's ambitions for renewable energy. The company plans to set up a large business of storing greenhouse gases underground.
Re: (Score:1)
Despite having almost limitless reserves of oil ...
Huh? There are very distinct limits to their reserves of oil.
Literally, there are distinct limits to their reserves of oil. Functionally, absent a major change in the projected demands for oil, or major investments in increasing production (which would not make any economic sense), they do not have a meaningful limit.
It is like saying that there is a limit to the amount of energy the sun will emit. While theoretically true, as the sun will inevitably burn out, it is not a meaningful limitation.
Re:Despite having almost limitless reserves of oil (Score:5, Informative)
Based on current estimates of approximately 266 billion barrels of proven reserves, Saudi Arabia has approximately 221 years left of oil production [worldometers.info]. This is of course based on current consumption and no additional reserves found. For the sake of argument we can use a figure of 250 years left of Saudi oil reserves. That is definitely a meaningful limit. Maybe not to you or I, but that is only the lifespan of three people.
Re: (Score:1)
Plus we'll have fusion in 10 years, or is it 5 years? Or am I thinking about quantum computers? I'm so confused...
Re: (Score:2)
It would be a disaster if all that was burned.
Demand will fall as cheaper, better, competing technologies become available. Some of it will have to be legislated too, to properly factor in the costs of climate change.
Re: (Score:2)
We may also have to include how much of that reserve can be extracted cheaply, If the price of extraction goes up over the years (maybe you need to dig deeper, use more expensive gear to extract, etc as the easier to reach reserves empty out), it may not be viable to extract everything economically.
Re: (Score:2)
Literally, there are distinct limits to their reserves of oil. Functionally, absent a major change in the projected demands for oil, or major investments in increasing production (which would not make any economic sense), they do not have a meaningful limit.
Based on current estimates of approximately 266 billion barrels of proven reserves, Saudi Arabia has approximately 221 years left of oil production [worldometers.info]. This is of course based on current consumption and no additional reserves found. For the sake of argument we can use a figure of 250 years left of Saudi oil reserves. That is definitely a meaningful limit. Maybe not to you or I, but that is only the lifespan of three people.
The problem isn't the reserves, it's how utterly dependent some economies are on a single resource. Oil price fluctuations have tanked more than a few oil state economies over the years including America's favourite South American dictatorship, Venezuela. Colombia has been in the same boat, you can still see the frameworks of apartment buildings that ran out of money in the 2008 oil crash. The current president Petro is trying to diversify Colombia's economy but he's getting a lot of opposition.
Whilst pl
Re: (Score:1)
They have centuries of oil and 25 percent of barrel is used for other than fuel and there is no end of those products in sight only growth of demand... your own country will die of wokeness, gender confusion and destruction of family structure first before Saudi Arabia runs out of oil.
Re: (Score:2)
Did a djinn grant them their wish of limitless oil?
In 1990 their "proven" reserves were about 260 billion barrels; sometime in the past few years it was updated to 266 billion barrels.
But since 1990 Saudi Arabia has produced over 100 billion barrels & their current production rate is 3.5 billion annually.
How much do you think they'll have in "proven reserves" 5 years from now?
Re: (Score:2)
>> their "proven" reserves
According to this article; https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
"But there is widespread scepticism about the official estimates, which were abruptly raised without explanation from 170 billion barrels in 1987 to 260 billion in 1989. Official reserves have remained constant every year since then at 260-265 billion barrels, even as the country has consumed or exported another 94 billion barrels.
If the government data is accurate, the kingdom has managed the remarkable feat of exac
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's true, and very possible that more oil could be profitably extracted using modern techniques. But its also possible that the oil fields aren't as healthy as is advertised.
"field-by-field production profiles and reserve estimates are state secrets known by only a small group of insiders, making it impossible to test or verify them."
Re: (Score:2)
"If the government data is accurate"
I'm quite sure the Saudi government has accurate data but I'm damn sure it's a closely guarded secret.
I vaguely recall rumors that as far back as 2012, Aramco has been using seawater to keep up the pumping pressure in the gigantic oil field known as Ghawar
Re: (Score:1)
So you don't know what "proven" vs. "probable" reserves are. Saudi Arabia has 50 years more worth of proven reserves and at least 90 years of "probable" reserves.... your children will die before there is any danger of them running out.
They won't run out of oil anytime soon.... and if world goes all non-fossil that means they'll have centuries of the 25 percent currently used for the medicines, plastics, and other feedstocks.
Re: (Score:2)
"They won't run out of oil anytime soon"
IF what they've been saying is close to true....and given how secretive they've been & that's in their best interests to have the world keep believing their black gold will never run out in our lifetimes, that's a very big "if"
Re: (Score:1)
they'll be fine for over a century, that is a certainty. And here in USA if we ever wanted to use kerogen deposits we'd have oil for 250 years.
There are problems with fossil fuels, but running out of them isn't in the cards for generations.
Are they eyeing democracy? (Score:1, Insightful)
Thought not.
Re: (Score:1)
Why should they....they are exporting their form of government everywhere.
Isn't that a form of government where people of some ethnic origins and women are second class citizens being imported back in the US too (and oh let's not talk of sexual orientation, that does not exist, the bible does not mention it) ?
Re: (Score:2)
Democracy, no.
Somewhat greater civil rights, definitely yes. I would not want to be a woman in Saudi. But it’s still much better now than five years ago, and better five years ago than five years before that. This is true in both small ways (eg fewer gender segregated queues in restaurants in malls) and larger (eg women now hold senior positions, eg CIOs at hospitals).
It’s still bad, but it is distinctly less bad.
Re: (Score:2)
In Saudi Arabia, we can blame the autocratic nobility for all the ills that they do. In the USA, the electorate gets to decide who represents those who commit the atrocities. Ethically speaking, what's the difference?
Oh, but "Freedom!", right?
Brought to you by... (Score:1, Insightful)
Brought to you by the same idiot who thought of the Saudi Megacity project! A 175km long city with one, long road!
When the rich brat son of a dictator who has never been told 'no' runs an nation.
Re: (Score:2)
Based on your response, I was hoping for something more wacky, like the megacity.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, I didn't even read it. But I'm sure he'll fuck it up.
Re:Brought to you by... (Score:4, Insightful)
They can invest in whatever infrastructure they want, but their economy is based on oil and their culture on oppression.
KSA is doomed. When the oil is gone, there will be a sudden drop in wealth because they have very little else to offer the world. Maybe Muslim tourism for pilgrimages to Mecca. It's not like they're ever going to be able to sustain a modern civilization on foreign non-Muslim tourists; even 'non-Sunni Muslim' is an issue.
Hundreds of years to catch up (Score:4, Insightful)
Technology is just bling if your society is stuck in the dark ages.
Re:Hundreds of years to catch up (Score:5, Interesting)
Technology is just bling if your society is stuck in the dark ages.
Well, sure, but...
"Abortion in Saudi Arabia is only legal in cases of risk to a woman’s life, fetal impairment, or to protect her physical and mental health.[1][2] Pregnancy arising from incest or rape also qualifies for a legal abortion under the mental health exemption."
In at least some ways they're ahead of at least some US states.
A future beyond dictatorship (Score:1)
A future beyond dictatorship for Saudi Arabia? Now that is unthinkable.
Better late than never? (Score:1, Informative)
Electric chainsaws on reporters, eh? (Score:1)
Re:Electric chainsaws on reporters, eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Saudi Barbaria won’t ever be able to evolve, not with the clergy hand’s around the Sauds’ balls and them being very dependent on the population being maintained in stupid ignorance.
Saudi Barbaria is totally in a catch-22 situation. Without the clergy to back them, the Sauds would fall very rapidly to an islamic revolution, and the clergy cannot be neutralized effectively to prevent such a revolution.
Re: (Score:1)
Are you living in some long past decade? In SA, for example, women can be divorced, separated and widowed and live and travel without male supervision unlike some of the real shitholes. They've tossed out the gender separation, strict dress codes and prohibition on women driving.
I wouldn't want live there, but SA are in much better position to be stable over long time periods than our crumbling woketard libtard lawless nation.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
I'm a native American living near Chicago. Things are going to hell over here because we're getting too woke and progressive to function. Mistaking lawlessness for social progress, looting for "reparations", purposely breaking down family structures to pay for a lawless ignorant criminal class in inner cities, confusing parents and children about gender matters to neuter children, etc.
The woketard libtard progressive, tyou are the rot eating America from the inside out.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Wrong, 60 year old 4th generation Americans do talk like I do, dipshit.
You're the one embarrassing himself with bigotry towards a group not even in the discussion and making up utterly ignorant and wrong rules about Midwestern English.
You're a useless piece of shit trying to make something of himself like a hole trying to find some donut to embed itself in. But you're just a hole.
Re: (Score:2)
If you actually are a citizen of this country, please take your ignorant, ungrateful ass somewhere it actually deserves to be.
Re: (Score:1)
You're deranged. You think talking about the breakdown of family structure, breakdown of the rule of law, confusing children about gender to neuter them and attacking on normal humans without mental illness who are the ones propagating mankind is "anti-american"
Look in the mirror, you are the problem. You are the ignorant, ungrateful one who should move yourself out of here, we didn't build this country for your kind.
Re: (Score:2)
Defending murderous tyrants while shrieking out your ass about a conspiracy to "neuter gender" is a great way to advertise that you're a basement-dwelling incel. Take your medication, fuckwit.
How many homes? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Sudair, which can light up 185,000 homes"
There is something missing here, namely storage. You need to light up your home when its dark, but that is when there is no solar generation. So, inquiring minds want to know, what about the batteries?
Re: (Score:2)
One would think Saudi Arabia would build lots of concentrated solar thermal with molten salt storage.
They have the land, climate & insolation to make it work.
Re: (Score:1)
One would think Saudi Arabia would build lots of concentrated solar thermal with molten salt storage.
One would think they could use nuclear fission and molten salt storage to keep the lights on.
They have the land, climate & insolation to make it work.
Plenty of nations around the world have the land, climate, and insolation for solar + storage but they did the math and figured out that nuclear fission would make a nice addition to their future energy supplies. China and UAE come to mind as examples.
Re: (Score:2)
You can build a lot of solar PV or thermal in the ~9 years it took the UAE plant to be built
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
It looks like they have a 600MWh battery system coming: https://www.energy-storage.new... [energy-storage.news]
Re: (Score:3)
Do or die. (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Smelting of steel and other metals: For these things you need carbon. Steel in particular can also be smelted using hydrogen, but you will need to produce it using renewables for it to be sustainable. Also, it means a serious technology shift that nobody in their right mind will finance without substantial government support. It will
Construction is easy (Score:3)
Only surprised they aren’t going faster (Score:2)
They have the cash, the need to diversify, the insolation, the space, and solar is cheap to build. If anything, I’d have thought they could reach their goals more quickly. (I’d also have thought bifacial vertical solar would deliver better yields given the temps in Saudi, but I’m no engineer)
Sudair can light up 185,000 homes (Score:1)
What's that in kilowatts or megawatts?
Meh. It won’t ever work. (Score:1, Flamebait)
Not a chance.
Saudi Barbaria’s ruling family, the Sauds, is buttressed by the wahabbite clergy (which was directly responsible for most islamic terrorist attacks in the West).
In return for a large amount of funds, the clergy brainwash the population into backing the Sauds and spreads the religion of hate throughout the world by building mosques all over the place. The clergy have their hands firmly around the Sauds’ balls, and they totally have the power to topple the
Blah blah blah (Score:2)
If they have such amazing access to capital, less red tape, and strong political will, they should just actually do it, instead of paying media companies and journalists to write articles about it.