Saudi Arabia has plans to shift to clean energy, taking advantage of the huge cash provided by the high prices of crude oil, which flows into the state treasury, according to the magazinetime“.
Even as the world’s largest oil exporter pumps crude into tankers, it is loudly declaring its ambitions to reach net zero carbon emissions within its borders by 2060.
For Saudis – a third of whom are under 35 – climate change is not an issue far from their future.
Saudi Arabia is famous for its blazing summer in most cities, with temperatures often exceeding 48.8 degrees Celsius.
Climate scientists said last year that they believed temperatures in the Middle East might become “life-threatening” in the coming years.
“These countries are already facing a crisis,” said Ali Al-Saffar, a Middle East analyst at the International Energy Agency in Paris.
Environmentalists say Saudi Aramco, the kingdom’s only state-owned oil-producing company, has caused more than 4 percent of global greenhouse gases since 1965.
Aramco pumps approximately 11 million barrels of crude oil per day – regarding 1 in 10 in the world – and sells more than 7 million barrels of that on international markets, earning huge fortunes for the royal family and their state-owned company whose profits skyrocket to regarding $110 billion last year, according to the American magazine.
However, following years of profitable production, a global crisis is now hanging over the Saudis’ prestige following almost all countries committed to cutting off their use of fossil fuels, which are by far the largest source of greenhouse gases on Earth and contribute to global warming.
At an Aramco research center, research includes attempting to capture and reuse atmospheric carbon from Saudi oil fields, a tactic that Saudi Arabia relies heavily on to achieve its emissions reduction goals.
Although its effectiveness remains highly uncertain, the Saudis have begun to capture carbon and ship it from a gas field in the desert to a plant regarding 100 km away to convert it into petrochemicals.
Engineers are also looking for a way to transport “blue” hydrogen – derived from natural gas – to distant Europe and Asia, where Saudi Arabia delivered the first shipment of blue ammonia to Japan in 2020 for use in electricity generation.
It also signed an agreement with Germany to develop green hydrogen. Aramco is also working on a synthetic fuel made from a mixture of captured carbon and hydrogen, which it claims will reduce pollution from ordinary cars by 80 percent.
The Saudi company says it plans to start marketing it in 2025.
33 clean energy projects
According to “Time”, Saudi Arabia has enough money for its huge plan to transform into clean energy, especially since Aramco has become the second most valuable company in the world (following Apple), with a market value of more than $2.3 trillion.
Last February, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman transferred $80 billion from the oil giant to the country’s sovereign wealth fund that he heads. The fund’s assets have risen sharply since the outbreak of the pandemic to regarding $620 billion.
About 15 specialists – none of them over thirty – gathered to outline the Kingdom’s strategy for energy transformation, as they explained their plans to Time magazine.
Among the plans are the construction of a network of electric vehicle charging stations, and the upgrading of offices and homes with low-energy electricity systems through 33 projects under construction for solar and wind energy.
“We have a mandate from the king to make all the buildings retrofitted for energy efficiency,” said Madian Al-Modyan, of the National Energy Services Company.
“We have our own capital to fund all our projects, so we don’t need to go to banks or any lending institutions,” he added.
The American magazine said that the fact that Saudi Arabia has only one oil company and that it is state-owned, enables it to spend freely on research in the field of renewable energy.
“You won’t find Exxon or Chevron or any of these companies that focus on researching things like this,” said Sadad Al Husseini, a geologist who previously headed Aramco’s exploration and production division and now heads Al Husseini Energy, a forecasting and analysis consultancy in the eastern city of Dhahran. “.
“We can develop world-class engineering companies to design hydrocarbon resources or plants in the Kingdom, and also offer this service to anyone else who is interested,” said Yahya Khoja, a Stanford-trained electrical engineer and consultant at the Saudi Ministry of Energy.
He added that the country would reduce its consumption of fossil fuels by regarding one million barrels per day, and it might then sell the oil in global markets and earn nearly $100 million per day at current prices.
Khoja continued, “This is how we justify the economics of this project,” describing the state’s plan as “comprehensive for all solutions. It is our way of making our way towards the solution rather than being satisfied with being part of the solution.”
