A Green Gulf?

It seems like some gulf leaders are actually following my advice and investing their oil revenues in green energy technologies. The Times has an interesting article along this line, but there are still some questions that arise.

From the article:

This new investment aims to maintain the gulf’s dominant position as a global energy supplier, gaining patents from the new technologies and promoting green manufacturing. But if the United States and the European Union have set energy independence from the gulf states as a goal of new renewable energy efforts, they may find they are arriving late at the party.

Well it’s good that the US and EU have set energy independence as a goal of renewable energy efforts, but what progress has actually been made on that front? Little in the EU, they are probably more concerned about energy independence from Russia these days. The US doesn’t seem to have any coherent energy policy. It’s good to talk, but because the US and EU positions amount to just talk I don’t think the gulf states are really that far behind.

Which brings me to my second quote from the article:

“The leadership in these breakthrough technologies is a title the U.S. can lose easily,” said Peter Barker-Homek, chief executive of Taqa, Abu Dhabi’s national energy company. “Here we have low taxes, a young population, accessibility to the world, abundant natural resources and willingness to invest in the seed capital.”

What about China? They are already the number two in pretty well every green energy category behind Germany. I think that the US has already lost the lead…if it ever had it to begin with. I think all of what applies to the Gulf States in terms of resources and youthful population applies to China, only on a much larger scale. Finally, these projects require a very educated workforce, something which is desperately lacking in the Gulf, much less so in China, and is present in the EU/US. Unless the Gulf States are able to import foreign talent, their capacity to really start a “clean energy silicon valley” seems greatly limited. I suppose that’s why a lot of the cash is going out of the gulf…to Caltech, Cambridge, Cornell, Imperial, La Sapienza, Oxford and Utrecht, to name just a few.