Revealed: Saudi Arabia’s grand plan to ‘hook’ poor countries on oil
Revealed: Saudi Arabia’s grand plan to ‘hook’ poor countries on oil
Climate scientists say fossil fuel use needs to fall rapidly – but oil-rich kingdom is working to drive up demand
Saudi Arabia shouldn't have bothered. Nobody except China is even trying to make a cost-competitive EV (in fact, every other country is trying to block the import of those cost-competitive EVs). Poorer countries are stuck with ICE because the "developed world" refuses to develop cheaper clean alternatives that poorer people can actually use. Instead, we get Rivians and Lucids and Teslas supporter by billions of dollars in incentives and subsidies and no reason to meaningfully drive costs down. All for the sake of profit at the cost of progress.
I highly disagree with that notion. This week marked one of the first weeks, where HVO100 Diesel was about 20 cents cheaper than fossile diesel in wide parts of italy. HVO100 in Sweden is getting super cheap as well, it's hitting the same prices in many fuel stations. You can't even get fossile diesel anymore in California. And I see more and more people fueling up on "my" HVO100 station for about 15-20 cent more.
BEVs are here to stay and I guess they'll get some market share, but that doesn't mean things aren't getting carbon neutralised somewhere else. Considering 1 kWh produces 1 Liter of HVO100, that is nearly 100% carbon neutral (some of the hydrogen needed is still being made from natural gas, but neste plans to phase that out until the end of 2024, so it's 100% carbon neutral - and btw reduces most other pollutants at least 45 %), it's going to be really, really cheap, as so much food grade oil is being used and still just burned in incinerators (neste estimates, around 65% of worldwide diesel/kerosene and heater fuel usage is possible with that alone, the talin oil and fish oil fish oil waste will be another 10% and the rest is going to be made from plastics, which is awesome in so many ways).
My guess is, BEVs will stay expensive and a bit more exclusive, but the rest is going to just fuel up with alternatives, as more and more countries are coming to their senses and outlawing fossile fuels.
The "funniest" part in all of this is...the Saudis are sitting on so much potential sun energy, it's utterly stupid to not just swamp the market with carbon free oil alternatives. Because they could have the best of both worlds, making other countries still depend on them for their energy needs, but doing it carbon neutral.
I think you're missing the context. China has shown that BEVs can be cost-competitive with ICE vehicles. This isn't some far out claim, it's the reality today. China has also been the primary driver behind the cost-competitiveness of solar, and produces the vast majority of the world's solar panels. The developed world is lagging behind not because the technology isn't there, but because they're unwilling to invest in it.
It’s really hard to be optimistic and solutions-oriented at times..
Because the environment is just peachy, and they don’t have nearly enough money yet?
How much can you actually make if they're poor?
as long as the oil formation is free of charge, they could always sell at a profit
Pretty much what the tobacco industry did when rich countries started to reduce and control tobacco use. Asia, Africa and South America became major growth markets.
I think the general idea would be to
- Design a vehicle with as low a cost as possible. Maybe create a design challenge with a cash prize
- Have the international community (mostly the US but it’d be reasonable for other countries to be pressured for this) subsidize the cost of the vehicles so they are competitive with ICE vehicles.
- Infrastructure for charging and repairs. This is going to be incredibly expensive and we’d again have to look for subsidies to develop a power grid and charging stations, as well as creating local services to repair the vehicles.
The moral motivation for subsidies lies in the fact that the west in general is that the west has profited massively via wealth and resource extraction from Africa.
While I agree with your suggestion, the issues with car prices in general isn’t what you stated.
Every new technology has initial high cost then it will go down over time since manufacturers have the expertise and tools to manufacture.
Also, patents and corps greed plays a huge role. Why the heck a headlight costs over $2000? And guess what, it has 3 leds that you cannot replace if one fails.
My sister got into a fender-bender with her 2017 Nissan X-Trail and the dealer quoted $20k. The car price brand new is $26k. The insurance ate it up.
Of course, they don't care about climate change. They are in a desert already.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Little was known about theoil demand sustainability programme (ODSP) but the investigation obtained detailed information on plans to drive up the use of fossil fuel-powered cars, buses and planes in Africa and elsewhere, as rich countries increasingly switch to clean energy.
The ODSP plans to accelerate the development of supersonic air travel, which it notes uses three times more jet fuel than conventional planes, and partner with a carmaker to mass produce a cheap combustion engine vehicle.
The ODSP is overseen by Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, and involves its biggest organisations, such as the $700bn Public Investment Fund, the world’s largest oil company, Aramco, the petrochemicals firm Sabic, and the government’s most important ministries.
In publicly available information, the programme is largely presented as “removing barriers” to energy and transport in poorer countries and “increasing sustainability”, for example by providing gas cooking stoves to replace wood burning.
To achieve this, fossil fuel emission must fall rapidly and most oil and gas reserves must be kept in the ground, meaning climate policies, such as support for electric cars, pose a significant threat to the oil-rich state’s revenues.
The ODSP is additionally targeting bus, ride-sharing and delivery services, according to the presentation: “The goal is to support the deployment of ICE fleets across developing countries to capture the increasing gasoline/diesel demand.”
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