Export Land Model gone wild. Saudis double oil use for electricity in one year

[mooncliff]

Saudi Arabia, home to more proven oil reserves than any other nation, has an energy problem. HSBC estimates that this year the kingdom will burn 1.2 million barrels of oil a day to generate electricity, double the amount burned in 2010. With the amount of crude oil burned domestically climbing sharply, it is leaving less and less oil (NYSE:USO) for exports.

http://peakoil.com/production/saudi-...nergy-problem/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7885ZX20110909

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_land_model

[Starving Steve]

Re: Export Land Model gone wild. Saudis double oil use for electricity in one year

When one thinks of Riyadh, one thinks of a camel crossing, with a few lights. But in reality to-day, greater Riyadh has over seven million people. It's like greater Chicago, maybe even larger in population.

Where is Riyadh getting its water to drink? Answer: Filtered sea-water, pumped upward from the sea to Riyadh, in the middle of Arabia.

Since Riyadh is doing de-salinization of sea-water, why can't we? The elevation of Riyadh is 620 metres or 2,034 feet above sea-level. The filtered sea-water is pumped upward to Riyadh. Los Angeles, California borders the sea, and most of L.A. is no more than 400 feet above sea-level. So, why isn't L.A. following the example of Riyadh and de-salinating sea-water to replace all fresh water imported from the Colorado River and from the California Aqueduct?

There is no shortage of fresh water anywhere on Earth, any more than there is a shortage of energy. And to use Saudi-Arabia as an example again, the Saudis have only begun to explore for oil off-shore of Arabia, and they have not even begun to upgrade heavy oil on land. Furthermore, Saudi-Arabia can burn more natural gas, and Saudi-Arabia can develop atomic power, too.

The bottom-line: The whole sustainablity movement ( and way of thinking ) is way off-base.

[lektrode]

Re: Export Land Model gone wild. Saudis double oil use for electricity in one year

might simply mean that its hot(ter) this summer and more air conditioning coming online?
either that, or they started buying electric cars...

[mooncliff]

Re: Export Land Model gone wild. Saudis double oil use for electricity in one year

I think a lot of it is for desalination.

[solitas777]

Re: Export Land Model gone wild. Saudis double oil use for electricity in one year

When one thinks of Riyadh, one thinks of a camel crossing, with a few lights. But in reality to-day, greater Riyadh has over seven million people. It's like greater Chicago, maybe even larger in population.

Where is Riyadh getting its water to drink? Answer: Filtered sea-water, pumped upward from the sea to Riyadh, in the middle of Arabia.

Since Riyadh is doing de-salinization of sea-water, why can't we? The elevation of Riyadh is 620 metres or 2,034 feet above sea-level. The filtered sea-water is pumped upward to Riyadh. Los Angeles, California borders the sea, and most of L.A. is no more than 400 feet above sea-level. So, why isn't L.A. following the example of Riyadh and de-salinating sea-water to replace all fresh water imported from the Colorado River and from the California Aqueduct?

There is no shortage of fresh water anywhere on Earth, any more than there is a shortage of energy. And to use Saudi-Arabia as an example again, the Saudis have only begun to explore for oil off-shore of Arabia, and they have not even begun to upgrade heavy oil on land. Furthermore, Saudi-Arabia can burn more natural gas, and Saudi-Arabia can develop atomic power, too.

The bottom-line: The whole sustainablity movement ( and way of thinking ) is way off-base.

Desalinisation is energy intense and extremely expensive.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Export Land Model gone wild. Saudis double oil use for electricity in one year

The Saudis reportedly abandoned trying to turn the desert into a garden for being self sufficient in growing food...due to cost.

Instead buying up massive tracts of foreign land in places like Sudan and Madagascar...where in the case of Madagascar......mass land acquisition by foreigners contributed to the fall of government in 2009.

There's a LOT of justified concern about fundamentals contributing to the deterioration of regional security and I suspect water(access to sufficient potable quantities of it) is an often understated fundamental.

Especially with what is happening between Egypt and Israel I wonder if we should be watching Nile River water politics JUST as closely.

[GRG55]

Re: Export Land Model gone wild. Saudis double oil use for electricity in one year

I think a lot of it is for desalination.

The desalination plants use the waste heat from the combustion process to generate the electricity. They don't normally use petroleum or natural gas directly.

[mooncliff]

Re: Export Land Model gone wild. Saudis double oil use for electricity in one year

Saudi Arabia is burning about 2% of the oil produced in the world daily just to desalinate water for Saudi Arabia. That is unsustainable.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Export Land Model gone wild. Saudis double oil use for electricity in one year

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the cost of de-salinization is $0.50 per cubic metre of water delivered to a nearby sea-level city like Los Angeles. The cost to pump the water to a city like Riyadh at elevation 2034 feet above sea-level and well inland in Saudi-Arabia would be higher. However, much of southern California's water is pumped hundreds of miles from northern California and then over the 4,000 foot divide south of Bakersfield and down into the L.A. basin presently. And then from there, some of the water is pumped all over southern California, including to Orange County and to the inland empire. So, by comparison, de-salinization of ocean water adjacent to southern California may be even cheaper than pumping water from northern California ( i.e, what we do now ).

Atomic power might someday provide the energy to de-salinate sea-water. This is not a pipe-dream; this is feasible now. At off-peak electrical energy demand times of day, atomic power plants could be used to de-salinate sea-water.

My point is that once we get into the mind-set of sustainability, at least as that word has been interpreted heretofore by environmental extremists, important and vital capital works projects such as water projects, power projects, and transportation projects are not done. Consequently, our standard of living would decline, and we might then be caught into a negative feedback-loop of increasing misery and increasing population--- i.e, the turd-world dilemma now.

Obviously, there is a limit to what the world can sustain in population, but we are centuries away from that limit. If we do our homework now and engineer for the future, we will do fine, just the way we always have.

If economic geography and history are a guide to planning the future, a rising standard of living in the world would foster a decline in the fertility rate of women, a decline in the birth rate of the world, and a consequent decline in the rate of population growth in the world. In fact, a rising standard around the globe could create the condition for a decline in the world's total population.

LEAN FORWARD

[GRG55]

Re: Export Land Model gone wild. Saudis double oil use for electricity in one year

Saudi Arabia is burning about 2% of the oil produced in the world daily just to desalinate water for Saudi Arabia. That is unsustainable.

Would you mind providing a source for this statistic. I don't believe it.

[c1ue]

Re: Export Land Model gone wild. Saudis double oil use for electricity in one year

Saudi Arabia is burning about 2% of the oil produced in the world daily just to desalinate water for Saudi Arabia. That is unsustainable.

Whether this statistic is true or not, ultimately it is their resource to do with as they please.

If they choose to turn all their oil into plastic Gumby sculptures rather than import it for rapidly depreciating dollars, who are we to complain?

The only alternative is to build nuclear power plants there. And apparently that is moving along nicely:

http://www.dawn.com/2011/06/02/saudi...s-by-2030.html