{"id":2789,"date":"2008-03-03T08:31:56","date_gmt":"2008-03-03T14:31:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/2008\/03\/03\/why-the-saudis-are-looking-at-solar\/"},"modified":"2008-03-03T08:31:56","modified_gmt":"2008-03-03T14:31:56","slug":"why-the-saudis-are-looking-at-solar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/why-the-saudis-are-looking-at-solar\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Saudis are Looking at Solar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/files\/2007\/12\/sunset.jpg\" title=\"sunset orange\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/files\/2007\/12\/sunset.jpg\" alt=\"sunset orange\" align=\"left\" \/><\/a>Saudi Arabia makes more than 10 million barrels of oil a day, but it may be turning an eye on a cleaner, brighter prospect: solar power.<\/p>\n<p>Oil minister Ali al-Nuaimi told French media that the oil-rich nation is researching how it can become a center for solar energy research and eventually become a &#8220;major megawatt&#8221; exporter in the next 30-50 years. He also said that Saudi Arabia is ready to invest in carbon capture and storage, even developing technology to extract carbon dioxide (CO2 &#8211; a major global warming pollutant) <em>from the atmosphere<\/em> and store it underground (I&#8217;ll admit, I haven&#8217;t heard of extracting CO2 from the atmosphere before).<\/p>\n<p>This all comes on the heels of an agreement last November by Gulf OPEC members to invest three-quarters of a billion dollars US to fighting global warming and financing clean technologies. But is this just an attempt to be seen as a big player in the hot solar energy field &#8212; or could the Saudi government be concerned about peak oil and increasing regulations around the world that make fossil fuel use more expensive?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/markets\/feeds\/afx\/2008\/03\/02\/afx4719014.html\">Forbes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/markets\/feeds\/afx\/2008\/03\/02\/afx4719014.html\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saudi Arabia makes more than 10 million barrels of oil a day, but it may be turning an eye on a cleaner, brighter prospect: solar power. Oil minister Ali al-Nuaimi&nbsp;[ &hellip; ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":17442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,7],"tags":[447,155],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why the Saudis are Looking at Solar &#8226; Sustainablog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/why-the-saudis-are-looking-at-solar\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why the Saudis are Looking at Solar &#8226; Sustainablog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Saudi Arabia makes more than 10 million barrels of oil a day, but it may be turning an eye on a cleaner, brighter prospect: solar power. 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