“Abu Dhabi is an oil-exporting country, and we want to become an energy-exporting country, and to do that we need to excel at the newer forms of energy,” said Khaled Awad, a director of Masdar, a futuristic zero-carbon city and a research park that has an affiliation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, that is rising from the desert on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi.
Hmmm... well I'm pretty sure it's absurdly inefficient to transmit electricity across long distances, but this is a blog after all (fine, here's wikipedia on the subject: "As of 1980, the longest cost-effective distance for electricity was 4,000 miles (7,000 km), although all present transmission lines are considerably shorter.")
So perhaps the Gulf can power Europe? Bet they'd love to bypass Ukraine.
Also, although the gulf states have previously showed little interest in green energy like wind or solar, they have another advantage, Mr. Awad noted as he stood in the shimmering desert. “The sun shines 365 days a year,” he said.
So then why invest absurd amounts of money? Prestige?
Or perhaps when you have so much money, you just need something to spend it on? Renewable energy? Sure, why not.
Anyway, solar should be a boon. Man, what a sun they've got there.
i think it's telling that he referred to abu dhabi as a country
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