In a nondescript facility in Denver, a small team of physicist-engineers is attempting something that sounds like science fiction: igniting a miniature star on Earth. (See how China came close to making an artificial sun).

If they pull it off, the consequences would ripple across every corner of the global economy, and nowhere more dramatically than Saudi Arabia and the oil-rich kingdoms of the Middle East.

Xcimer Energy, founded in 2022 by Conner Galloway and Alexander Valys, is betting that powerful ultraviolet lasers can crack the fusion puzzle that have eluded scientists for 70 years. Green Prophet’s scientist Brian explains fusion and what makes it so hard here.

The premise behind Xcimer is simple even if the physics is anything but: fuse light atoms together the way the sun does, release enormous amounts of energy, and do it without carbon emissions, without meltdown risk, and without the mountains of radioactive waste that plague conventional nuclear power. Clean, dense, effectively limitless energy which is the holy grail of human civilization. With fusion we could run air conditioners all day and all night. We could live well on the equator or run our heaters in the arctic and enjoy limitless travels to space.

What makes Xcimer genuinely different from the fusion experiments that have come before is its choice of laser technology. Rather than the expensive solid-state systems used at the US National Ignition Facility, which achieved a landmark ignition milestone in 2022 but at staggering cost, Xcimer uses krypton-fluoride excimer lasers, borrowed from semiconductor manufacturing.

These deliver high-efficiency ultraviolet pulses at a fraction of the price, and in 2025 the company completed the first privately funded excimer fusion laser of its kind built in over two decades. That’s not a press release milestone. That’s real hardware.

“We’ve already begun using Xcimer’s LPK experimental testbed to validate laser models and inform the design of our future systems,” said Conner Galloway, CEO and Chief Science Officer of Xcimer. “This milestone also sends the strongest signal yet that the private sector can build on decades of public investment to turn transformative research into commercially viable systems. We’ve seen this transition before in industries like space—and we’re beginning to see it happen in fusion.”

The roadmap is ambitious but structured. A Phoenix laser system in 2026 will validate the core physics. A Vulcan facility around 2030 aims to cross the holy grail of breakeven, which is producing more energy from fusion than was put in.

Xcimer is already taking proposals on prospective new sites nationwide to house Vulcan, which would directly employ hundreds of people in a large variety of jobs, including physicists, technicians, and support staff.

Vulcan’s location could pave the way for a future regional source of zero-carbon energy expertise, making the location attractive to more emerging businesses such as artificial intelligence and software companies, robotics manufacturers, and medical research facilities. 

By the mid-2030s, Xcimer envisions a prototype power plant delivering electricity to the grid at roughly $40 per megawatt-hour, competitive with natural gas and cheaper than most new coal. That’s when things start to get fun. Just like in solar. Every year the cost for producing solar goes down.

The US Department of Energy has already selected Xcimer as one of eight companies in its fusion commercialization program, lending the venture both credibility and critical public-private backing.

Now consider what this means for Saudi Arabia, and by extension the entire OPEC architecture that has shaped global geopolitics and which has supported a whole lot of evil and terrorism for half a century. The Muslim Brotherhood was born in Saudi Arabia and Iran-mullahs run on oil feeding terror operatives money in Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen. Unlike the UAE which has diversified, the Saudi economy runs on one thing: the world’s insatiable need for oil.

Renewable energy has already begun chipping at that foundation, and oil prices are dowb, but OPEC countries know that solar and wind have an Achilles heel because they are intermittent energy sources.

“We use the same approach as America’s National Ignition Facility – the only system in the world to demonstrate fusion ignition. We don’t need to spend time and money to demonstrate unproven plasma confinement physics; we combine NIF’s proven inertial confinement fusion approach with breakthrough laser technology. We’re driving down cost and complexity so we can deliver electricity on a pragmatic timeline and business model.”

Batteries help, but not enough. Fusion has no such weakness. It runs continuously, day and night, in any weather, in any country. A fusion-powered world wouldn’t just reduce demand for oil; it would collapse it entirely.

The leverage that petrostates have wielded for decades, over energy prices, over foreign policy, over global inflation, over terrorism, evaporates the moment civilization has access to a cheaper, cleaner, inexhaustible alternative.

Xcimer has raised just over $111 million from leading energy investors since its founding in 2022. It’s part of the DOE Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program, a highly competitive public-private partnership program designed to accelerate the development of fusion energy on the power grid. Xcimer was awarded $9 million, one of the most significant awards under the program’s first budget period.

Xcimer also collaborates with Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Savannah River National Laboratory, Naval Research Laboratory, Laboratory for Laser Energetics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, General Atomics and Westinghouse. 

::Xcimer

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As Germany shut its last nuclear plant last year, the oil-rich country the United Arab Emirates has completed firing up its first.

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America’s President Biden is sending a message to corporate America by not sending high profile US government officials to Saudi Arabia’s business conference this week, the Future Investment Initiative. The 3-day event, nicknamed Davos of the Desert, is opening Tuesday today, but US officials will be absent.

The theme this year of the Future Investment Summit (FII) is “impact on humanity”, more double-speak for the Saudi regime who has killed protestors against the new mega architecture project, Neom, which includes the 150-mile long vertical megacity known as The Line. 

As we speak, protestors against The Line, Bedouins who belong to the land, are in jail facing a life sentence or the death penalty. A Bedouin brother was killed in 2020 protesting the construction of the boondoggle that’s supposed to bring “sustainability” and a renewable future to the world, care of Saudi Arabia –– known for its carbon impacts from oil, environmental destruction and gross violations of human rights. 

What is Davos in the Desert?

Saudi Arabia and the US have some disagreements on energy, and Saudi Arabia and its oil cartel OPEC Plus, led by Russia and Saudi Arabia, has cut oil and gas exports to America, benefitting Russia. This decision will hurt Americans even more, as prices rise at the pumps and the invasion of the Ukraine by Russia continues. Biden has said to the Saudis that there will be “consequences”. 

Meanwhile, where US officials fear to tread, investment banks Chase, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo will be there along with Blackstone Group and Bridgewater. Former Trump officials like Jared Kushner is expected to be there too.

If your mother, father or grandparents are attending the event, send them this link about The Line and the Bedouin who live there. Associating with regimes and taking their oil money makes you complicit in their crimes. 

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told American companies to consider “reputational concerns that can arise from public policy choices made by host countries” when investing.

She says, “the decisions that OPEC+ made just last week is — was, we believe, sided with the Russians and was against the interests of the American people and the families around the world.  We believe that decision is going to hurt and harm low- — you know, low- — lower-income economies.  And it is a — it was a misguided — and it was a mistake and a short-sighted decision.”

Meanwhile, I highlight the problems with large and multinational corporations and research groups. The head does not know what the tail is doing, or does, and doesn’t care: HEC Paris (claiming solidarity with the Ukraine people on its website), Springer/Nature and Stanford University, California are partners at the event. Why? Saudi Arabians are freaking wealthy and people, universities and companies want their money as we continue living a carbonised life on oil.

The same idea rings true for American companies who invest in or do business with companies that pollute or damage the climate. Social media has showed how easily reputations can be compromised.

Saudis also respect and listen to western advice. 

The Trump administration meanwhile set a different tone with Saudi Arabia: it encouraged business between the superpowers and it led peace efforts among Middle East countries.

Meanwhile conference organizer Richard Attias told the press that he was turning down American businesses eager to attend due to lack of space.

Also on the Biden Administration’s mind: tensions are still flaring from the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, an American resident at the time of his death. Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi was a Saudi journalist, dissident, author, columnist for Middle East Eye and The Washington Post, and a general manager and editor-in-chief of Al-Arab News Channel who was assassinated in Turkey. Khashoggi had been sharply critical of the Saudi rulers, King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Not all money is the same. The people that come with it and who are behind it matter. That has always been the case and remains the case and we are reminded of it from time to time. Like right now.

— Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures

We don’t like to preach doom and gloom. And Saudi Arabia is doing some good things too. It’s investing in hydrogen and replanting millions of mangroves trees.

Want to be part of Saudi Arabia’s growth while not damaging the planet future? It’s an in-depth study, and difficult to read but this Nature study’s author Haider Mahmood and associates invested much time and research on how Saudi Arabia can achieve its sustainability goals, sustainably.

Also globetrotting investment bank executives: a couple of weeks from now superpowers will be meeting across the Red Sea to the UN Sharm el Sheik Climate Change Conference in Egypt. Consider bringing your investment bank there to see how money can drive the world in a positive way for people and climate. 

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The United Arab Emirates (UAE, or the Emirates) and Israel signed an historic peace deal last month. For decades Muslim nations have boycotted and snubbed Israel in trade and tourism. It was so bad in the 70s with an oil embargo that Israel had only a handful of allies to help them buy energy. The strain caused Israel to develop in new ways, in solar energy and natural gas exploration. 

A new deal in the wake of a blooming love story between Israel and the Emirates has led to a landmark oil deal between Israel and the Emriates. In the deal, Emirate crude oil will be transported through the Indian Ocean and Red Sea by tanker, then shipped by pipeline through existing pipelines in Israel. 

From there the oil will be shipped to Europe and other nearby locations, hopefully avoiding the Taliban and the Houthis in Yemen along the way, because piracy is still an issue. Read about the sinking oil tanker off the coast of Yemen which could cause an oil spill 5 times the size of the Exxon Valdez. 

The new deal will be managed through a company called the Red-Med Land Bridge based in the Emirates and it is actually a joint venture between several companies:  Petromal, the oil and gas arm of Abu Dhabi’s National Holding and AF Entrepreneurship, an Israeli company.

The Red Med Land Bridge will work with Israel’s Europe-Asia Pipeline Co. (EAPC) to transport Emirati oil through Israel starting at its Red Sea port up to Haifa, which is an important energy transport hub to Israel and the rest of Europe. 

In the deal,  the Red Med Land Bridge will transport oil from the Gulf state and Eastern markets to the West via pipelines linking the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, as part of new commercial agreements between the two countries.

The agreement “offers oil producers and refiners the shortest most efficient and cost-effective route to transport oil and oil products from the Arabian Gulf to the consumption centers in the West, and provides access for consumers in the Far East to oil produced in the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions,” EAPC offered in a statement.

Storing and processing crude oil in Israel?

The Emirates is one of OPEC‘s third-largest oil producers and they struck a peace deal with Israel in Washington on Sept. 15, 2020. The prime minister of the Emirates arrived in Israel on Oct. 20 to consolidate trade deals and tourism, which will include visa-free entry to both countries.

A high level Emirati delegation arrived in Israel on Oct. 20 to sign commercial agreements in agriculture, tourism energy projects that hopefully also include renewable energy. Critics say that at 30% renewables Israel has set a low bar.

The world is still addicted to oil, well we depend on it, but we can bank on the progressive Emirates to lead the way in renewable energy, with Israel as an innovation partner. Israel still only produces a small amount of its energy needs using solar energy, about 5% of its energy needs, but its intentions are there to increase this number.

Some challenges in Israel: Just recently a large wind farm project slated to be built on a UNESCO bioreserve was axed. They said the noise pollution and damage to birds would be too great. Nature lovers and activists are well educated in Israel and it will be interesting to see how they react to an oil pipeline deal, given oil spills do happen in Israel. There was one at the end of October out of Ashkelon, some 2 miles out at sea.  Beachgoers in Tel Aviv got their feet covered in sticky tar.

Israel has oil spills in nature reserves to deal with. And an oil spill in the Red Sea port Gulf of Eilat almost destroyed the dying coral reef. 

The environment minister Dov Henan had said about the oil spill in Eilat: “During the deliberations of the subcommittee on oil dangers in the Gulf of Eilat, we discovered an alarming picture of neglect and an inability to cope. Unless the laws are changed to better regulate the petroleum industry an oil disaster in Israel is only a matter of time.”

The oil pipeline plan and potential for Israel

The Israeli pipeline company EAPC already has about 200 miles of bi-directional oil pipelines installed with a capacity to carry 30 million mt of crude/year from Eilat to Ashkelon.  

Israel consumes 10.5 million mt/year of oil, according to its energy ministry. Meanwhile the Emirates with a production capacity of 4 million b/d, sells most of its oil to Asia, according to S&P. The country sells mainly refined oil products over to Europe, and these are transported via tankers that travel up the Red Sea through to the Suez Canal and then onto Europe through the Mediterranean. 

Reviving a lost oil dream with Iran

The Israeli pipeline was built in a joint venture with Iran in 1968, but after the Islamic Revolution in 1979 Israel lost its energy partner. The company changed its name from the Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline Co. to EAPC last year in 2019. 

The EAPC will help Gulf oil companies bypass the Suez Canal, the manmade canal built by Egypt in the 1960s to link the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, expanding trade from the east to the west. This canal also allowed damaging invasive species like these jellyfish to proliferate.

We can assume that since Israel has struck a deal with Chevron in natural gas that the EAPC may be able to provide infrastructure services in those areas to Europe.

The EAPC route through Israel is a good alternative to the Suez Canal in that the Suez it is limited by tanker size, and the pipeline that exists in Egypt, the SUMED, only carries oil products in one direction from the Red Sea to Sidi Kerir on the Mediterranean Coast. Sending a tanker to ship oil around the Cape of Good Hope is more expensive and slower. 

Israel is also proposing an oil pipeline deal with Saudi Arabia. Every OPEC  nation is looking to shorten its distance to market and Israel is a good shortcut to take. Especially given its experience in security.

Want to take action in cleaning up the sea? The UN has a new investment guide for bankers. We learned that banks are supporting the burning of the Amazon, whether or not investors at the bank are aware. Be one step ahead and invest in the sea, with this handy toolkit and guide you can download here. 

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And would the possible lifting of sanctions against Iran depress oil prices enough — at least in the short term — to hurt the many Arab states that depend on petroleum exports for revenue?

These are among the key issues facing politicians, pundits and corporate bigwigs throughout the Middle East — and all were fodder for discussion during the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations’ 22nd Annual Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference.

An energy panel held on the first day of the Oct. 22-23 event brought together five experts: Dr. Herman Franssen, executive director of the Energy Intelligence Group; Sarah Ladislaw, co-director of the energy and national security program at Washington’s Center for Strategic & International Studies; Thomas Graham, executive chairman of the board of directors of Lightbridge Corp.; Shihab Kuran, president of Sun Edison Advanced Solutions, and Kevin Book, co-founder of ClearView Energy Partners LLC.

The panel was moderated by Randa Fahmy Hudome, general counsel for the American-Egyptian Strategic Alliance and former associate deputy secretary of energy.

“This month, we marked the 40th anniversary of the Arab oil embargo,” said Fahmy Hudome, a former U.S. associate deputy secretary of energy. “What has happened since then with U.S. energy policy vis-à-vis the Arab world? Not much, except for this past year. We are now witnessing the most profound changes in energy production and relationships since 1973 — not only in the U.S.-Arab relationship but across the world.”

Franssen certainly agrees with that assessment.

“In the United States, we have made enormous progress that would have been thought impossible 10 years ago. The technology that already existed was perfected, and prices of $100 a barrel made shale gas possible. Today, more than a fourth of our gas production is shale gas,” said the Dutch energy expert, a former adviser to Oman’s Ministry of Petroleum and Minerals. “We are now in a situation where the United States — instead of being a massive importer of liquid natural gas — will most likely be an exporter of LNG, perhaps even a very large one. We could even rival Qatar.”

For a “very long time to come,” said Franssen, the United States will be self-sufficient in gas, and will be able to produce it at relatively low prices compared to any of its rivals. That’s quite a switch from 40 years ago, when American consumers were literally at the mercy of the Arabs and the multinationals that did business with them.

“Prior to 1973, two-thirds of global oil reserves were in the hands of seven giant energy conglomerates known as the ‘seven sisters.’ The events that took place in 1973-74 led to a complete revolution,” said Frassen, referring to the Arab oil embargo sparked by U.S. support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War of October 1973.

OPEC called off the embargo in early 1974, but things were never the same again.

“By then, Middle East oil producers and other OPEC countries had nationalized their resources, so instead of two-thirds of all oil in the hands of the seven sisters, two- thirds were now controlled by national oil companies. That marked the emergence of OPEC as a real power.”

Yet whether the 12-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is still a “real power” four decades later is debatable.

As Amy Myers Jaffe and Ed Morse wrote in Foreign Policy, the 1970s witnessed “a profound and unprecedented transfer of wealth” to the Middle East that continues to have significant repercussions today — from democracy movements to terrorism and civil wars.

“The region’s leaders failed to set up long-term mechanism to distribute the benefits of that wealth transfer broadly to their populations and to establish an equitable stake in governance of resource proceeds that would have brought a newfound stability to the region,” said the article. “Instead, they bought lavishly, gilding their palaces and buying fleets of luxury autos. For decades, they squandered the opportunity to use oil wealth to modernize their societies and train their populations for future global economic competition. The result — unfolding not just in the Middle East but in other oil-producing countries as well — is a crisis of governance that is itself triggering a round of oil-supply disruptions.”

At the same time, growth in renewable energy has been remarkable. World biofuels production has doubled to more than 1.2 million barrels a day since 2006, while wind power has grown in oil-equivalent terms from one million b/d to two million since 2008. Solar power, meanwhile, jumped from 20,000 b/d of oil-equivalent energy in 2008 to 400,000 b/d last year, according to the article.

In addition, technological advances such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing — commonly known as “fracking” — have allowed the United States to boost production of shale oil and gas from places like North Dakota and Pennsylvania, while abundant U.S. natural gas is spawning new American-designed engine and modular fueling station technologies to readily use natural gas as a fuel in trucks, trains and ships, ending oil’s monopoly in transport.

So, is OPEC “over a barrel,” as a recent Bloomberg article put it?

Absolutely, writes the article’s author, Meghan O’Sullivan. Besides being largely unsuccessful, OPEC’s most powerful members these days are not interested in preventing huge spikes in world oil prices — nor do they have the ability to inflict similar shocks on the world as they once did.

“The 1973 crisis also launched widespread efforts in the West to find and develop ‘non-OPEC’ oil, to increase energy efficiency, and to bring alternative sources of energy online. OPEC has no self-interest in tanking the fragile economic recoveries of today with high oil prices — or in further catalyzing the already vigorous pursuit of non-oil energy sources,” she wrote.

And that subject is of major concern to the Arab world, which is why energy was the focus of the first panel at last month’s Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference.

Natural gas is flared from a unit at the Faregh gas complex deep in the Sahara Desert near Jalu, Libya.

“The world is moving to a low-carbon framework, complicating oil, gas and coal,” explained CSIS’s Ladislaw. “We are currently living through the spectrum of this unconventionals revolution. This has reordered the global landscape for new energy investments.”

One of the biggest questions, she said, is how governments around the world will respond to domestic economic difficulties as a result of such a massive shift in the global oil market. “A lot of countries are reassessing their own ability to insulate themselves and become more resilient to a wider array of potential energy futures,” Ladislaw said.

In 1973, OPEC exported two-thirds of its total oil production to Europe and North America. Today, two-thirds of its exports go to Asia — mainly China.

“But the very fact that 50 percent of the world’s oil is in the Middle East ¬— and that it’s the only region in the world with the ability to export most of what it produces — makes it the most important region for the oil industry. It will not be replaced in that role, no matter what we do in North America,” said Frassen.

“The Saudis and others remain the key element in the world of oil. What we are achieving now depends on a number of things,” he said. For one, oil must be priced at a minimum $80 a barrel for “unconventional” oil to be profitable. Secondly, the technology used by the United States must continue to be stable.

Book, a senior associate at CSIS and a member of the National Petroleum Council, spoke of a “possible pivot to Persia” — a reference to what might happen if Congress imposes ever-more stringent sanctions against Iran in an effort to force the regime in Tehran to give up its quest for nuclear weapons.

“We are looking at a very short-term discussion. From the crude risk perspective, this is big but it’s bidirectional: plus or minus one million barrels a day. That’s a big deal for the market,” he said.

Chinese oil workers repair a valve at a rig near Faregh, Libya, deep in the Sahara Desert. The rig is operated by China Oilfield Services Ltd. (COSL).

In the event Congress passes a measure that imposes economic sanctions against the remaining buyers of Iranian oil — China, South Korea, Japan and India — roughly one million barrels would be removed from the world market, pushing up prices to around $114 a barrel from the current $100. On the other hand, oil production in Iraq has skyrocketed by nearly 40 percent since the end of the Iraq War and could reach six million barrels a day by 2020, adding to a potential oil glut. And Iraq can produce oil at a far lower cost than unconventional oil anywhere in North America.

“We can benefit as a producer nation, but we stand to suffer far more than we benefit,” Book said. As a result, we are ill-positioned for all this loose talk about energy independence, in my view. Think about what the world will look like when you yank out 10 million barrels of production a day.”

Arab countries know their black gold will run out someday and have already begun looking for alternative energy supplies for their own rapidly growing populations. Two options being aggressively pursued are nuclear and solar power.

“In the past, there’s been virtually no use of peaceful nuclear power in the Middle East,” said Graham. “Egypt flirted with the idea, and Turkey twice asked for bids to build nuclear power plants, only to have the bidding process fail. Recently, Turkey went ahead and signed an agreement for Russia to build the plant with no money up front, and operate the reactor for 30 years. During that period, receipts from energy production will pay off the construction costs.”

More recently, Saudi Arabia has also indicated that it might build a few reactors, but the United Arab Emirates appears to be the most advanced country in the region when it comes to pursuing a nuclear future.

Yet efforts by the UAE to join the nuclear-power club were frustrated by a controversy that had erupted back in 2006. That year, Dubai Ports World bought British shipping giant P&O. As part of that sale, DP World was to assume the leases of P&O to manage major U.S. port facilities in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans and Miami, as well as operations at 16 other ports.

However, once the transaction became public, many Democrats in Congress — along with a few powerful Republicans — questioned the deal on the grounds it could make the United States more vulnerable to terrorism. DP World eventually backed off from its plan, transferring operations to an unspecified American entity.

“It was a short-term political firestorm, and it left its mark,” said Graham. “This outcome was wrong and unfair, and was profoundly embarrassing to the UAE — to the point where even though the UAE believed that nuclear energy must be in its future, it proceeded very cautiously down that road, in the wake of Dubai Ports World controversy, knowing that eventually the program would end up being reviewed by Congress.”

As a senior diplomat, Graham — whose Lightbridge Corp. is based in McLean, Va. — helped negotiate every major arms control and non-proliferation agreement from 1970 to 1997 in which the United States was involved. In 2009, he was appointed to the International Advisory Board of the United Arab Emirates.

As such, the UAE established a regulatory agency, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Program, in 2009 and “staffed it with real experts,” he said. Soon after, it awarded a consortium led by Korea Electric Power Co. a $20 billion contract to build the first four nuclear power plants, with a commitment of having the first plant operating by 2017. This past May, construction began on a second plant, to be finished in 2018. If all goes according to plan, two more reactors will be built in 2014 and 2015, for completion in 2019 and 2020. All four will be located in Barakah, a desert site west of Abu Dhabi.

Despite the setbacks to the global nuclear industry which followed Japan’s 2011 Fukushima disaster — the world’s worst nuclear accident since the 1986 meltdown at Chernobyl — Graham insists the mammoth project will pose no threat whatsoever.

“The UAE is the first newcomer country for nuclear power generation in the last three decades,” he said. “It has persevered despite the shadow of Dubai Ports World. It is delivering its reactors on time and on budget. It is committee to the highest standards of safety, security and nonproliferation.”
Yet in the long term, a far cheaper and safer alternative may be solar energy.

Shihab Kuran is president of New Jersey-based Sun Edison Advanced Solutions. Last year, the company he founded, Petra Solar, installed solar panels on 20,000 rooftops throughout Jordan. He also launched the innovative Smart City project in Bahrain.

“Solar energy is one of the fastest-growing sectors in energy today, along with wind,” he said, noting that more than 700 solar sites have been interconnected to date. “The solar industry will receive over $1 trillion in the next seven to eight years, so it’s a massive growth area for us.”

One of solar’s biggest advantages over oil, gas, coal and nuclear energy is that the fuel itself — sunshine — is free.

“But the bulk of the investment is your upfront capital costs, so you have to ensure that you have a long-term view — modeling the megatrends in oil prices and geopolitical stability. With all these arguments for and against solar,” he said, “solar happens to be one of the biggest job generators on a per-megawatt basis.”

Kuran added: “When you look at oil production, the number of jobs are limited. And with nuclear, if you build a nuclear plan in a place like Jordan or Qatar, most likely you will have to import the technology. But with solar, you can build a factory in six to nine months. For a country like Jordan that imports 96 percent of its energy, it’s a straightforward case. You want to be energy-independent? Solar is the answer.”

Top image: Sikh foreman looks on as his workers repair a valve at the Faregh gas complex near Jalu, deep in the Sahara Desert.

All images by Larry Luxner, 2013.

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I know it’s a knee-jerk reaction for environmentalists to be against the tar sands, to be against fracking, to be against the oil and gas industry, just like it is reasonable for animal rights activists to be against animal testing in medicine. There are certain “evils” or moral risks we take in this world to help bring us to the next problem in need of solving.  One day there won’t be animals in a biopharma lab, but algorithms doing the dirty work. I am sure of that. But meanwhile if a cancer medicine needs to be tested on an animal to make sure that my dad with prostate cancer stays well, I will opt for the animal’s suffering over my dad. Is that selfish or immoral?

I would never want to go back to the pre-oil, pre-industrial age, but look to and applaud people, researchers, and companies that are trying to make dirty and polluting industries better, like this company Flow Industries making fracking greener – which is making fracking greener at least in theory. Should we therefor discount companies like Shell, now exploring oil in the Arctic, for being a big evil, or laud them for feeding our greedy energy needs, while still trying to make their business a bit greener? Watch the video above. You decide.

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Green Prophet’s reports on happenings in the Gulf region have increasingly been using the acronym GCC, which stands for Gulf Cooperation Council.  Perhaps a bit of an explanation is in order. GCC is a political and economic alliance between Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar and Saudi Arabia (KSA). It was formed in 1981 following Iraq’s invasion of Iran and the start of the Persian Gulf War, ostensibly to enhance regional security and bolster trade.

Collectively, these six countries possess nearly half of the world’s oil reserves. Neighboring Yemen has agitated for membership, but its crippled economy and status as a republic are key differentiators that have so far kept them out of the club.   KSA is the most powerful member and the Council is headquartered in Riyadh.

Think of the European Union (EU), but for Arab Gulf states:

Common cultural characteristics link these nations. They share a language. Their sheikdoms and kingdoms are founded on Islam: patriarchal systems that are among the least democratic in the world. Member states are predominently conservative Sunni Muslims.  The UAE and Bahrain are more open to foreign influence and, resultantly, are more socially tolerant.  This is a cause for frequent inter-state dissention.

Their primary mandate is to increase coordination and cooperation among all members and across all fields, including:

• Economics and finance
• Commerce and communications
• Education, health and culture

Trade is a priority.

The GCC seeks to standardize regulations across industry, mining, agriculture, water and animal resources. Partnerships amongst private sector industries are encouraged.

Last month, as example, KSA called for common regional rules for regulating personal care products.  Presently, each emirate in the UAE has a different set of rules governing the importation and regulation of everyday consumables such as toiletries and cosmetics.

“If we have the same rules in all GCC countries, it would be easier for companies to adhere to them,” said Al Tamimi, a supervisor at the Saudi Food and Drug Authority, in an interview with the Khaleej Times. “Companies say ‘we’re registering (our product) in Dubai, why do we need to again register it in Abu Dhabi or Umm Al Quwain?’ ”

While the alliance encourages free movement within the GCC of workers who are citizens of the member states, unrest amongst the GCC’s 13 million migrant workforce is increasing. Despite the ban on trade unions in KSA and the UAE, the mostly South and East Asian workers have organized regional strikes and protests over low wages and poor conditions for foreign laborers.

Talks with the EU on a free trade deal began in the early 1990s, but by 2010, efforts had stalled. US free trade agreements were passed in 2006 with Bahrain and Oman: but independent actions like these threaten GCC economic unification.

The GCC common market was born in 2008. Plans to adopt a single currency surfaced in 2010, but were never enacted. A customs union was declared in 2003, with little progress.

Security looms large

GCC members signed an intelligence-sharing pact in 2004 aimed at anti-terrorism.  They seek to reduce dependence on US forces, but members have not agreed a strategy that satisfies all states.

In 1984, they formed the Peninsula Shield: a Saudi-based defense to guard against threats from Islamic extremism and non-GCC states. Troop deployment is controversial.  Last year, the Shield was sent to Bahrain to boost security during anti-government protests, but it was not sent to Kuwait to counter the Iraqi invasion.  GCC members disagree over the roles of neighboring Iraq, Iran and Yemen in future security pacts.

The members differed over the US-led invasion of Iraq. While some opposed the action, others were supportive:  as example, Kuwait served as a launch pad for the military campaign.

After investing billions in US anti-missile technologies, the GCC failed to integrate systems or construct an early-warning system . Mistrust amongst members has stymied plans to deploy a joint missile shield, which the US maintains is the best defense against any Iranian strike. A robust military is constrained by lack of modern combat experience and miniscule forces.

Currently, a unilateral GCC position as regards Syria is unformed.

The GCC can be viewed as a means for the conservative Gulf monarchies to add muscle to any confrontation with Iran, and to collectively prevent recent uprisings from spilling into their territories.   Tensions have heightened over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, and there are concerns about the reliability of America.

Last year, the US backed expulsion of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, but was less supportive in backing the opposition in Bahrain.  There is speculation that the US wants to maintain a strong Iran as a counter-weight to GCC power.  The Iraq War is cited as example: toppling Saddam Hussein enhanced Tehran’s power, leaving in place a Shi’ite-dominated state.

Members lack solidarity over internal matters such as the divide within Bahrain’s ruling Al Khalifa family, who failed to quell a 15-month-long rebellion by the Shiite majority.  Bahrain faces a possible Shi’ite government with additional Sunni demand for a direct role. Similarly, KSA’s Shi’ite population has also been showing signs of restlessness, but the real threat lies in that nation’s majority Sunnis, who, if they were to become politically active, could underpin the kingdom’s absolute monarchy.  A united GCC approach to these matters has yet to be broadcast. Members differ over the pace and extent of political reform.

Going the next step to an Arab Union?

Last December, Saudi King Abdullah proposed a GCC political union that would adopt joint foreign and defense policies.   In March, the GCC announced that they were evolving from a regional alliance to a confederation. Given the slow inter-state consolidation of the past thirty years, it’s unclear what the resultant impacts of this new action will be.

The Jerusalem Post reported Bahrain’s Samira Rajab, Minister of State for Information Affairs, saying that a union between Bahrain and KSA would be the first stage of a wider confederation.  This was contradicted by Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa statement that confederation “covers all the countries.”

Bahrain Prime Minister, Khalifa Bin Salman Al-Khalifa said “The great dream of the peoples of the region is to see the day when the borders disappear with a union that creates one Gulf”.  He emphasized a focus on security and defense, which Rajab contradicted, saying it would be an economic alliance.

Interesting times for the Gulf region.  Watch as this middle-aged coalition maps a new path to unity, and see if a better future results.

Image of Gulf Cooperation Council flag from Shutterstock.

The post The Gulf Co-op Council is a European Union Arab-style appeared first on Green Prophet.

I speak to Qatar-based environmental researcher Mari Luomi about the balancing act Qatar has to perform at the upcoming climate summit

You could say that Mari Luomi’s environmental education began at a very early stage. Wandering through the forests and lakes of Finland when young, she explains that she learnt very quickly that human societies formed a part of the Earth’s ecosystems- and not vice versa. This love and interest in nature later developed into a fully-fledged career and she is now a Post-Doctoral Fellow looking at the environmental issues facing Gulf nations at the Center for International and Regional Studies of Georgetown University in Qatar. In the run of the climate summit in Qatar later this year, I caught up with her to talk politics, the challenge of behaviour change and what an OPEC nation with the world’s largest per capita carbon footprint has to offer the international community in terms of dealing with climate change.

Despite what you may have been told, when it comes to environmental issues, the Gulf nations are not a homogeneous mass. There are those who are trying to push forward and diversify their economies towards low-carbon and there are those that are, well, not. Luomi explains that the Gulf monarchies are not only worried about their continuing dependency on fossil fuel exports, but their domestic consumption of energy and water too, which has grown so fast in the past decade that it is now significantly eating away from valuable export revenues and turning most into net importers of natural gas. However, rather than aiming to reduce demand and encourage conservation they are still mostly trying to increase supply of energy and water. They want more rather than focusing on using less and this is hugely problematic.

According to the latest statistics Qatar, where you are currently based, has the largest ecological footprint of the region (and world!). Do you think the government, businesses and civil society are doing enough to change that?

The interesting thing about this indicator is that it factors out the consumption and emissions of a country’s exports while including those of imports. So in Qatar’s footprint, we only have the impact of what is actually consumed here. All emissions of the massive gas and oil export industry are excluded. Shockingly, despite the fact that 57% of Qatar’s population in 2008 (for which the figures are) consisted of low-wage migrant labourers, the average resident still consumed 6.5 times the Earth’s carrying capacity.

Qatar is hot and arid, and has a high per capita income, but these alone do not explain the overshoot. A lot, unfortunately, boils down to lack of awareness and indifference. Few people here seem to be aware the environmental consequences of their actions. This applies to all segments of the population, including most Western expatriates, albeit for different reasons. In 2008, the government launched a document that outlines the country’s objectives for the next two decades and the environment was one of the four main areas of focus. A short-term planning document that followed proposes a number of pertinent measures both on the supply and demand side.

Still, missing are strong incentives for businesses and individuals to change behaviour and practices that are environmentally unsustainable. High subsidies and lack of enforcement remain two major obstacles on the road to sustainability. A lot of blatant greenwash by companies also goes on unimpeded due to the weak CSR culture and generally low awareness of environmental issues.

With Qatar hosting climate talks in November/December, do you think this will change anything long-term in terms of environmental action in the region? And why was Qatar eager to host the climate summit?

Ironically, while most countries are currently struggling with economic crises, Qatar is one of the few countries where the economy and natural resource consumption have kept growing, largely thanks to natural gas. The dire global economic situation has become a major impediment to increased global ambition to fight climate change. In Qatar, this is not an issue, but here too, economic considerations still continue to override environmental ones. Also, emissions are a sensitive issue to the OPEC exporters on so many levels. Qatar, like other Middle Eastern states, is still classified as a developing country, which means that it currently has few obligations vis-à-vis the international climate regime.

Hosting major international events is part of Qatar’s foreign policy. It is also aimed at creating a brand and diversifying the economy. Having the UN climate conference in Doha this year also follows a trend of Qatar ‘punching above its perceived weight’ in foreign relations. And yet again, we’re facing a risky bet. If Qatar manages the double task of brokering a successful conference outcome and balancing its interests as an OPEC member with those of a dynamic, forward-thinking state seeking to live beyond oil and natural gas, then we might see positive reverberations both domestically and regionally. The very optimistic scenario is that the conference will give rise to a new regional leader in climate change mitigation and open the floor for a frank discussion on domestic environmental problems.

Your book ‘The Gulf Monarchies and Climate Change: Abu Dhabi and Qatar in an Era of Natural Unsustainability‘ will be published later this year to coincide with the UNFCCC meeting in Qatar. What were the major findings of the book?

In late 2007 I became fascinated with two seemingly contradictory events in the region: Saudi Arabia, along with three other Gulf OPEC states, known for their controversial role in the international climate negotiations, announced the creation of a US$750 million fund for Research & Development into clean-tech. At the same time, Abu Dhabi was gearing to start construction at Masdar City and announce a civilian nuclear energy programme.

The original question that inspired me was the one we’ve heard a thousand times since: why would an oil exporting state invest in alternative energy? My next questions were: what is driving these developments? Are there regional differences? And what does this possible shift in attitude entail for international climate politics? Answering these questions led me to more questions, including why, despite so much havoc to the sensitive desert environment caused by the last decade’s explosive growth, does the environment continue to be a marginal issue in most of the Gulf monarchies?

In the book, I explore these questions and try to answer them. I examine the two most dynamic monarchies to have taken at least some steps towards lower-carbon economies: Abu Dhabi and Qatar. Fundamentally, however, the book sends a strong message about the difficulties of trying to sustain the environment in fast-growing societies that are still so pervasively impacted by fossil fuels.

What change is needed to help the Gulf nations in particular take environmental issues and climate change more seriously?

No doubt it’s the people that need to change, eventually, if we are to save this region. Values need to change. Governments have a crucial role in initiating the change by making large structural improvements with the help of technologies and efficiency; passing laws and enforcing them; initiating awareness-raising campaigns; steering consumption through pricing, and so on. Wealth accumulation and material consumption should not be our primary goals in life. I have an idea of what should be done to change this, and it involves actions on the very top and among young nationals. I’m just afraid that I am still in a trivial minority with my thoughts and that change in many countries is coming too slow.

For more on the UNFCC meetings and the Middle East see:
Qatar (Still) Had the World’s Largest Carbon Footprint
Interview: Green Buildings and Next Climate Summit in Qatar
Despite Best Intentions, Gulf Countries Can’t Quit CO2
#Occupy Climate Change: The Arab Spring and Occupy Wall St.

Image of celebrations in Qatar from Shutterstock

The post Can Qatar Balance its Oil Interests and Host a Successful Climate Summit? appeared first on Green Prophet.

Long considered leaders of R&D and Clean Technology, particularly in the fields of water desalination and solar energy technology, Israel has now set firm sights on leading the shift away from oil dependence. Between now and 2020, the tiny country intends to spend NIS 14 billion (US $ 3.82 billion) to help innovators and researchers test viable alternatives to oil. And while often slow to implement their own technology, cooperation with Europe may change that.

Two crucial conferences will help foster a greater technological exchange between Europe and Israel – the chair of Eureka High Level Group (HLG), Europe’s R&D program with which 40 countries are involved.

The first, where 500 European parliamentarians are expected to make an appearance, is the European Friends of Israel in Jerusalem this week. In addition to the conference, attendees will visit Israel’s leading industrial plants.

According to Globes, this is significant because the plants represent “a market of 375 million consumers, who could help promote Israeli technology.”

The second is the Eilat-Eilot Renewable Energy Conference considered so important on the international renewable energy scene that the European Commission included it in their ECO4B enterprise network. This year, 2,000 businessmen and women, researchers, government representatives, and investors will attend.

European Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, Paolo Romani (leading a large Italian delegation and Italy’s Economic Development Minister), Karl-Josef Kuhn, principle engineer of Siemens AG, and head of Siemens Corporate Technology E-Ca,; and Dr. Gabriel Marquette, Director of European Affairs at Schlumberger Research are among some of the heavyweights, Globes reports.

Removing political roadblocks and rising golden innovations will be among the conference foci.

Meanwhile, Israel has finalized a solid plan for the next several years. In addition to the Arava Renewable Energy Technology Center, the government will pour enormous sums into oil substitutes in order to slip out from underneath OPEC’s oppressive monopoly.

Led by Prof. Eugene Kandel, on January 30, 2011 the National Economic Council approved a national plan for developing alternatives. It includes investing nearly a quarter of the committed $3.82 billion during the first five years and the remaining money the following five years.

This money will be used to help roughly 100 startup companies and research institutions, as well as nourish existing businesses or “incubators.” Some of the money will be used to build pilot installations, while the rest will be allocated to testing and implementation.

The Prime Minister will also award an annual prize of NIS 1.5 million to innovators that develop oil alternatives in order to encourage would-be inventors to put forth their clever ideas.

All of these steps demonstrate that Israel is taking oil substitutes very seriously, which in turn should boost confidence among consumers and developers. Nor does the plan involve operating in a vacuum. Ideas will be sought from other high-tech producing countries that have an equal stake in reduced oil dependence, such as China and India.

Dr. Opper, chairman of Eureka High Level Group and a member of the steering committee that formulated the national plan, believes that its ambitious goal is attainable, according to Globes.

“If Israel helps to solve the world’s dependence on oil, it will turn out to have been a very important decision,” he said.

:: Globes

More On Technological Innovation From Israel:

US Firms Look To Israel For Clean Tech Partnerships

Israel Cleantech Intelligence: Desalination and Six More

Eilat-Eilot Conference: The Ins & Outs Of Renewable Energy In Israel

The post How Israel Will Lead The Search For Oil Substitutes (And How The Rest Of The World Is Watching) appeared first on Green Prophet.

According to the Masdar City website, the undertaking is intended to be Abu Dhabi’s “multi-faceted response to the challenges facing a sustainable future.” The city, intended to house 50,000 residents in a kind of technosphere designed to invoke a time-venerated Arab city. The enterprise is aimed at making Abu Dhabi “a global leader and hub for the research of renewable energy and sustainable technology.”

While initiatives aimed at advancing a sustainable future are to be applauded, there is something disturbingly off about the context in which the Abu Dhabi oil state seeks to claim the mantle of energy leadership and sustainable practice. As a key and continuing link in the system that actively led to the causes of climate change — carbon-based greenhouse gases — one questions the validity  of the initiative. There is little doubt that the Masdar company, which owns the development can buy the best clean technology that money affords. However, to view the $22 billion project as an act of green benevolence deeply belies the country’s history, government and economics.

According to the website, Masdar City is the expression of “the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE [United Arab Emirates] Armed Forces.”  Sheik Mohamed is the brother of Sheik Khalifa, ruler of Abu Dhabi. Both are sons of the founder of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Zayed, who in turn received the territory to rule from a brother. Abu Dhabi is part of the United Arab Emirates, a state created when the British departed the territory in 1971.

To understand the evolution of the UAE and Abu Dhabi it is important to investigate  the roots of its creation.

The UAE is one of five Arab polities (Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait being the others) along the oil-rich Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula formerly known as the Trucial States.

As detailed in an official biography of Sheikh Khalifa, the country was a backwater of confederated tribes living in oases villages as late as 1948.

The ascent to power of these emirs and sheikhs was arranged by the British colonial office as part of its grand design to gain hegemony over land routes, strategic waterways and mineral finds – especially oil – in the imperial rivalry with the other European powers in the late 19^th and early 20^th century.

One of the ways the colonials achieved their aim was by purchasing the loyalty of local strongmen whom they rewarded with states created to conform with territories that served the colonial powers’ strategic interests. In this very successful scheme the Middle East, formerly a largely dormant expanse of the failing Ottoman Empire, states were endowed in North Africa and West Asia and allocated to selected elites. These included Transjordan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the emirates that then became the UAE.

Following the First World War when industrialization spread throughout North America and Europe, the energy that fueled industry– and the environmental crises in which we now find ourselves  – petroleum , was in increasing  demand.

The Seven Sisters and their Puppets

The US and European states through the agency of the major oil companies (known as the Seven Sisters) created contracts with the newly installed rulers of the puppet states, none of which derived their power from democratic means or as an expression of popular will.

While these states received royalties from the great profits that accrued to the western oil companies, the latter’s penchant of taking the bulk of revenues resulted in the emergence of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), an advocacy group and  cartel that represented the oil-producing states.

As a result the oil crisis of the early 1970s ensued.

Britain left the UAE at that time in the capable hands of their reliable junior partners, the Al Nahyan family.  More equitable terms for profit-sharing of oil revenues were arrived to meet the increasing demands of the ruling elites, whose rulers continue to govern by decree at this time.  The crisis was defused with rising revenues for both the oil companies and the OPEC elites.

The oil sates have few productive activities other than the incomes they derive from petroleum resources and the increasingly complex services that industry entailed. With such wealth derives great influence and the UAE is touted by western governments and multinational corporations with vigor. Abu Dhabi is said to have an income flow  of $1.5 billion a week. To put this in perspective, Kenya’s Gross National Product for a year is $18.04 billion dollars per year. Abu Dhabi has a population of somewhere around 950,000; Kenya’s population is slightly over 36 million people.

The majority of residents, an estimated 80 percent are not UAE nationals but migrants from India, Pakistan,  the Horn of Africa and elsewhere. These residents, the country’s major labor force, are often paid beneath the minimum wage and do not enjoy enfranchisement in the national life of the country. Most of the country’s territory consists of sand and gravel desert with salt plains around the coast. Abu Dhabi is the capital of the emirate and of the UAE.

According to the Oxford Economic Business Group profile on the country “sitting atop 9% of the world’s proven oil reserves (98.2bn barrels) and almost 5% of the world’s natural gas (5.8 trillion cu metres), the UAE’s extraordinary hydrocarbon wealth gives it one of the highest GDP per capitas in the world.

“Abu Dhabi owns the lion’s share of these resources – 95% of the oil and 92% of gas.”

In this context it is pertinent to ask if Masdar City, a state project of one of the world’s greatest purveyors of the world’s carbon problem, a repository of immense wealth that took a tribal fiefdom from a subsistence economy to a global titan in less than two generations, can really claim the mantle of global sustainability leadership.

It is well and good that sheiks profess green aspirations. However, if Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan is really interested in being a champion of global sustainability he would divest the country’s coffers of its carbon-based wealth and help offset the carbon debt of the poor countries whose plight is largely the result of the system his fiefdom helps fuel.

Dr. Yosef Gotlieb, a regular contributor to Green Prophet, wrote Self-Determination in the Middle East (1982).

Read more about Masdar:
Re-assessing Masdar City
Masdar and the US Collaborate on Carbon Capture
Abu Dhabi’s Masdar Clean Tech Fund Closes

Above map via Dubai Travel

The post Masdar City: A Diversion from the Crucible of Climate Change appeared first on Green Prophet.