These days Saudi Arabia’s former energy minister, Ali Al Naimi, can’t seem to get enough of renewables.
Just last week in Doha, Mr Al Naimi was leading the Forum of Energy Elders, an initiative by the Al Attiyah Foundation. The event aspires to foster a platform for these “energy elders” to provide feedback on how to address important issues facing the industry.
According to organisers Gulf Intelligence, Mr Al Naimi said that throughout the earth’s life – which scientists believe to be 4.5 billion years – “the planet has run quite effectively on solar power. Our energy quest today is to utilise solar and other renewable forms of energy.”
He discussed the reliability and efficiency of renewables, and said “I have no doubt that fossil fuels will retain a vital place, but all forms of energy will be required as we go forward”.
It’s interesting because very little happened in the kingdom’s clean energy sector under his stewardship – which lasted from 1995 until last year.
While there was that time that Mr Al Naimi said that Saudi Arabia would like to export as much in electricity (which included nuclear power) as the country did in oil, and also the speech at the Paris climate talks when he said the kingdom recognised the future was in renewables, the truth is you can probably count his mentions of solar and wind on two hands.
Mr Al Naimi's book, Out of the Desert: My Journey from Nomadic Bedouin to the Heart of Global Oil, gives a view of the man behind the job – a position that didn't require much time spent on renewables. At his book launch in Singapore in February, he said: "As far as oil prices and oil, I have left that behind."
One might wonder what has changed.
lgraves@thenational.ae
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