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Gulf Oil Powers Pump Green Into Clean Technology

States invest billions to keep atop energy-economy heap

By Clay Dillow, Newser Staff

Posted Jan 13, 2009 8:44 AM CST

(Newser) – Though the per-capita carbon footprint of the United Arab Emirates dwarfs that of most anywhere else, it and fellow Persian Gulf oil giants like Qatar and Saudi Arabia are becoming the unlikely cradle of green technology, the New York Times reports. Wary of the world’s dependence on crude and the economic consequences of losing global energy dominance, Gulf states are pouring billions into green research.

Abu Dhabi, which is constructing a zero-carbon city, invested $15 billion in renewable energy last year, equal to President-elect Obama’s proposed investment for the entire US. A Saudi university gave $25 million to a Stanford solar researcher, and $8 million to a Berkeley scientist developing green concrete. “The leadership in these breakthrough technologies is a title the US can lose easily,” one Abu Dhabi exec says.

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Middle Eastern states are taking an unprecedented interest in green technologies like solar, pouring billions of oil dollars into their development. (Getty Images)

Long the global leader in oil production, Middle Eastern states are turning to research in green technologies to safeguard their economic dominance. (Getty Images)

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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.
- Khaled Awad, a director of Masdar, a futuristic zero-carbon city and research park in Abu Dhabi

The leadership in these breakthrough technologies is a title the US can lose easily.
- Peter Barker-Homek, chief executive of Taqa, Abu Dhabi’s national energy company

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Gulf Oil Powers Pump Green Into Clean Technology