Monday, February 1, 2010

Saudi Arabia goes green

Who'da thunk that one of the world's largest exporters of petroleum would become an advocate of solar power? Well, that's exactly what's happening with Saudi Arabia. The desert country is surrounded by salt water, meaning that in order to get potable water for drinking and other uses requires massive desalination efforts.

Up until now, Arabian desalination plants were fueled with oil, consuming up to 1.5 million barrels per day. That's a lot of oil. With the use of solar, the dirty consumption will cease. They even plan to export solar as well as oil (this also gives them an extra 1.5 million daily barrels to export instead of use, so this isn't entirely a magnanimous effort).

What this does is set an example for the west. Use the power we have available to us, not what we get from other countries.

Full story here.