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.
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.
“Countries from the MENA region, including Saudi Arabia, will face the impacts of climate change and extreme temperatures, water scarcity,” said Shady Khalil, lead campaigner for Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa, an environmental group.Although it insists that petroleum has a long future, Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, seems to also be trying to signal that it is not locked in a pollution-belching past but is more like a Silicon Valley company focused on innovation.
‘We’ve always felt there has to be a parallel and concurrent investment in new and conventional sources of energy.’These fuels will continue to “play a very important role” up till 2050 and beyond, Al Ghazzawi said, arguing that both renewables and oil and gas would be needed to meet growing demand. “We’ve always felt there has to be a parallel and concurrent investment in new and conventional sources of energy,” he said.