Need for alternative energy

SAUDI ARABIA’S burgeoning energy consumption is cause for concern. Electricity demand is expanding by 8 percent a year. That may not seem a lot, but nowhere in the world is it growing so far. At this rate, by 2020 our power generation capacity will have had to be increased to 80,000 MW from the current 37,000 MW produced from 45 plants. Now while the Kingdom is in the fortunate position of being able to afford massive financial investment in new power stations, it is also clear that it cannot afford to be using ever more of its hydrocarbon resources to create that power. The figures speak for themselves. We produce around 12 million barrels of oil daily but every day we also consume at least 2.5 million barrels for our own energy requirements, largely on electricity production. This is a 50-percent growth in just a decade.

It is going to get worse. The International Energy Agency and banking analysts have estimated that rate of direct crude oil used to generate electricity more than doubled between 2008 and 2010 because of a rapid rise in power demand and a shortage of natural gas.

To be consuming a minimum of 20 percent of the oil we produce — and rising — is simply not sustainable. Moreover some 42 percent of Saudi electricity is produced using gas, which could also have been sold to our energy customers abroad.

Alternative sources of power generation are now finally being embraced. Nuclear power remains a controversial new component, but there are outline plans to build 16 nuclear plants in the next 25 years at a cost of some $100 billion. During his visit last month, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with the Kingdom. France signed one a year ago. South Korea, too, is also anxious to become involved in the program. Realistically however, given the exacting requirements for the safe siting, construction and operation of nuclear power stations, nuclear is not going to be feeding our energy hunger any time soon.

A far faster contribution will come from solar power. Five years ago a Centre of Research Excellence in Renewable Energy (CORE-RE) was set up at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran. The Kingdom currently has limited solar power installations such as at a desalination plant in Jeddah, a school in Tabuk and a village north of Riyadh. Now the government is working on concrete plans that will see 10 percent of electricity generated by solar power by 2020. A major step in this ambition will undoubtedly be the deal signed this Tuesday for the manufacture of polysilicon, a key material for making solar panels at a new plant in Yanbu. The IDEA Polysilicon Company from Saudi Arabia has linked up with Germany’s Centrotherm Photovoltaics to build the Sr4-billion plant, which will be able to produce up to 10,000 tons of polysilicon yearly. Other important manufacturing and installation initiatives will surely follow. Nevertheless, simply addressing the supply issue for electricity, in whatever way it is generated, is by no means the whole answer. The Kingdom must also look far more seriously at just how it is using power. Some of the fast-growing demand is entirely legitimate. Saudi Arabia is in the midst of an economic transformation that will see the continued growth of a nonoil economy.

But elsewhere, what is needed is a change of mindset. Much of Saudi electricity consumption goes into running air conditioners. The way things are going we are going to use more of our oil in future simply to keep cool. This is madness. Oil has to be there to earn us money to be used for investment in the economy, not to keep ourselves cool. We need the air conditioners but plain common sense says the power has to come from other sources — and the most obvious one is solar power. There is also an imperative on each one of us to act sensibly. We simply cannot continue to fritter away power with air-conditioning units or — just as bad — leaving office buildings left fully lit 24 hours a day. Similarly, the amount of electricity used for desalination could be reduced dramatically if water was not squandered so regularly.

Experts are saying that the increased use of green technology in new buildings will have a measurable impact on power demand. However, this is to overlook the reality that the Kingdom’s building infrastructure is not about to be renewed overnight.

Saudi Arabia has now overtaken the United States to be the world’s largest power consumers on a per capita basis. This is not a first place to be proud of. Yet a big solution is actually at our very own finger tips — which we should be using to turn off power-guzzling devices when they are not needed.

Nevertheless, simply addressing the supply issue for electricity, in whatever way it is generated, is by no means the whole answer. The Kingdom must also look far more seriously at just how it is using power. Some of the fast-growing

demand is entirely legitimate.