Gee, a light seems to have switched on in Saudi Arabia:
"Saudi Arabia plans to generate solar electricity equaling the amount of its energy from crude exports, Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi said."
Previously they did build solar plants but shut them down after a while, now it’s pulling out all the stops for solar. 130 million is a pittance though for what they aim to achieve.
"Saudi Arabia exportsabout 2.7 billion barrels of oil per year, each containing the equivalent of 1,700 Kilowatt hours of electricity for a total of 4.59 × 1012 kWh per year, or the equal of about one quarter or the world’s annual electricity demand."(bron)
Imagine the advantage the country has, it can power it’s own silicon and panel facturies using the sun and thus reduce the production cost to next to nothing compared with plants in zones with less sun.
The question is though whether solar panels will prove the primary product. A little iron and heat combined can turn CO2 into CH4, methane. For this the infrastructure is already in place. So is one for heavier hydrocarbons that can be made from the methane. Like with the endles use of oil to get more oil, once one has begun to use solar one can get other materials and fuels based on more solar.
If only someone came up with a comprehensive and sane way to save our oceans, something equally feasible with the right approach and using solar energy, then we would still have a food supply problem, but there would be a more positive outlook ahead. Suadi is the place to watch, let’s hope they go CSP in a major way, PV may be cheaper, but they know the price it really has, that of fossil fuel emissions.