Greenbang logo

Saudi Arabia to ditch oil heritage for solar

By jumperhead on Tuesday, 4th March 2008

sky.jpgDo you ever wake up in the morning and want to be something else? Change your job entirely? Become a tightrope walker or a tattooist? “It’s not that easy Greenbang,” you might say. “I trained for years to become what I am – I can’t change that overnight.” If you’re a little leery of snap changes, then you might want to take a leaf out of Saudi Arabia’s book.

Saudi Arabia isn’t afraid to get a makeover. It’s shedding its oil baron’s ten gallon hat for some eco-biz hemp fisherman’s pants as it prepares to go from an oil exporter to a power exporter, all about solar.

According to AFP, the country’s oil minister said:

“One of the research efforts that we are going to undertake is to see how we make Saudi Arabia a centre for solar energy research and hopefully over the next 30 to 50 years we will be a major megawatt exporter.

“In the same way we are an oil exporter, we can also be an exporter of power.”

Go Saudis!

Tags: , , ,

READERS COMMENTS - Have your say...

  1. Rizwan says:

    Actually this is not a bad idea at all for a country like Saudi Arabia, where the average temperature in summer is over 40 degree Celcius and sun shines over its territory all over the year. Solar cells are expensive to implement at first but they have little operating cost and they can be easily integrated with existing grid lines, which would off load the burden from fossile fueled power station, gradually moving to all solar cell solution.




Please note: Comment moderation is enabled and may delay your comment. There is no need to resubmit your comment.

Additional comments powered by BackType

RELATED NEWS

LATEST HEADLINES

One peak we should bring on faster: Peak plastics thumbnail

One peak we should bring on faster: Peak plastics

While most of the peaks we see looming today — peak oil, peak
Jurdy: To the dump, to the dump, to the dump, dump, dump thumbnail

Jurdy: To the dump, to the dump, to the dump, dump, dump

Jurdy finds another tough job to fill …
Finally: A plan to make clean energy a business opportunity thumbnail

Finally: A plan to make clean energy a business opportunity

Ensuring sustainable energy and resources in the future is all about how you
Perfect technology is impossible, but keep trying anyway thumbnail

Perfect technology is impossible, but keep trying anyway

“I guess I could be pretty pissed off about
Plan for a solar future means knowing when the sun won’t shine thumbnail

Plan for a solar future means knowing when the sun won’t shine

While energy experts elsewhere are looking for answers to
Wild warming or sulphur rain? Climate ‘party planners’ can’t decide thumbnail

Wild warming or sulphur rain? Climate ‘party planners’ can’t decide

Imagine you and your office mates are trying to