There may have been a public battle to allow Saudi women to drive but an award-winning film explores the sensitive issue of women’s rights through a young girl and her green bike

The battle for Saudi women to drive (and also take part in the Olympics) may have hit the headlines in 2012 but there are a million little battles fought by Saudi women everyday. The new and award-winning film ‘Wadjda’ by Saudi filmmaker Haifaa Al Mansour charts a young girl’s wish to ride a green bicycle and race with a boy in her neighbourhood. Al Mansour says the film aims to put a human face on the issues in Saudi Arabia and charts the struggles of ordinary people who have to manoeuvre through the conservative society of the Kingdom.

“The Saudi culture can be especially brutal and unforgiving to people who fall out of step with the society, so there is a real fear of being labeled an outcast,” explains Al Mansour, who is the first female filmmaker in Saudi Arabia. “So in some ways, the story is part of my life and the things I encountered in my life. A lot of my experiences, along with those of my friends and family, are reflected in the film in some way – they didn’t just come from a concept in my mind.”

‘Wadjda’, which won the best Arabic feature film at the Dubai Film Festival, is the first full-length feature ever filmed entirely inside the Kingdom. The film lead, Wadjda, is desperate to buy a green bike at her local shop but her mother won’t allow it, fearing repercussion from a society that sees bicycles as dangerous to a girl’s virtue. So Wadjda decides to try and raise the money herself.

“I come from a small town in Saudi Arabia where there are many girls like Wadjda who have big dreams, strong characters and so much potential. These girls can, and will, reshape and redefine our nation,” insists Al Mansour. The filmmaker also explained that it was important for her to work with all-Saudi cast of actors and to tell the story with local, authentic voices. “I hope the film offers a unique insight into my own country and speaks of universal themes of hope and perseverance that people of all cultures can relate to,” she added.

For more on “greening” Saudi Arabia see:
Saudi Spring for Women Drivers Begins Now!
Are Saudi’s Female Olympians Harlots or Heroes?
Saudi Women Give Right to Vote (& Save Planet)

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A bright and renewable future for Saudi Arabia? A shock announcement from the world’s largest oil producer

Following plans to transform Mecca into a solar city, an influential member of the Saudi Royal family has announced even more ambitious renewable energy plans for the country. Prince Turki Al Faisal Al Saud, founder of the King Faisal Foundation and one of the state’s top spokesmen, said he wants to the country to switch completely from fossil fuels to renewable energy. The prince admitted that the shift would not be complete in his lifetime (he is 67) but that it will happen.

“Oil is more precious for us underground than as a fuel source,” said Prince Turki Al Faisal Al Saud at conference. “If we can get to the point where we can replace fossil fuels and use oil to produce other products that are useful, that would be very good for the world. I wish that may be in my lifetime, but I don’t think it will be.” He said he wanted the country to invest in alternatives to fossil fuels such as renewables, nuclear and other low-carbon sources of energy. Vast oil reserves could then used to create useful materials such as plastics and polymers, he explained.

The plans come hot on the heels of a damning Citigroup report which found that Saudi Arabia could be an importer of oil by 2030 due to the high levels of domestic consumption. Saudis are consuming a quarter of the 11.1m barrels a day of crude they produce, with residential use making up 50% of the demand. Two thirds of the residential use is going directly into air conditioning. The country is also consuming all of its gas supplies domestically. As such, these huge renewable plans are a good idea as the country clearly won’t be able to supply its citizens with the kinds of energy it currenly is.

However, some commentators have denounced these plans as window-dressing in the lead up to the COP18 climate conference which will take place in Qatar. They state the the plans to switch to 100% renewables simply frees up more oil to sell abroad – which fetches a much higher price then selling it locally. So, there’s money to be made and the notion that this is all in the name of the environment is misleading.

Indeed, Prince Turki – who served as director of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence services for more than 20 years – was also clear that the rest of the world was likely to continue to rely on fossil fuels for many years to come. “No country can ban itself from any one form of energy,” he said. So, I guess that means they are still very much up for selling their supplies to those who have not quite made the switch.

For more on Saudi’s energy plans see:

Holy Mecca Will Be Sauid’s First Solar City

Saudi Oil Wells May Run Dry By 2030

Masdar Looks to Make Good on Solar Power in Saudi Arabia

: Image of Arabian falconer via Shutterstock.com

The post Saudi Arabia Announces Plans For 100% Switch To Renewables appeared first on Green Prophet.

Wonder just why Saudi Arabia finally got serious about solar with a $109 billion plan to solar-power a third of the Kingdom? I did. After all, for a long time, while its greener neighbors have been adding thousands of megawatts of clean climate-friendly power, the kingdom has ignored its solar potential. It has next to nothing installed, 50 MW.

What changed? Oil prices are high. With rapidly growing electricity demand, Saudi Arabia is the largest oil consumer in the Middle East.

The kingdom uses crude oil to keep the lights on, the A/C humming.

It also must turn its only water supply, seawater, into water that is drinkable or bathed in, and desalination takes a lot of electricity.

“At world market prices, solar is competitive if you use crude oil to generate electricity,” Maher al-Odan, a senior consultant at King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Research (KA-CARE) told Reuters

The Saudis have no coal or natural gas.

An average of 700,000 barrels a day of crude were used in Saudi power stations during the peak air-conditioning demand period from May to September last year.

KA-CARE, which was set up to plan Saudi Arabia’s new energy mix – and has moved aggressively to switch the kingdom to renewables – said the kingdom could be taking bids in the first quarter of next year for the first of these solar projects.

The first projects will have a combined capacity of 3 GW, about half each from PV (photovoltaic solar panels like on houses) and half from CSP (concentrated solar power) using a variety of solar thermal technologies that run like a traditional thermal plant in the back end but use sunlight in various ways to generate that steam, rather than burning fossil fuels.

PV might seem a counterintuitive choice for the region, where most of the major projects next door are in CSP solar thermal technologies, because PV can lose as much as 15 percent at the very high temperatures found in the region.

“We have losses due to high temperatures and so on,” Odan  in an interview, compared with European nations like world leader Germany.

“But what we gain from high radiation (from increased sunshine) more than compensates for the loss of efficiency.”

Saudi Arabia has invested in its own manufacture of polysilicon, which is refined from its equally abundant sand and is the raw material from which solar panels are made.

What has changed is that solar PV has become a better deal, purely economically.

Arab News reported that the $109 billion investment in renewable energy projects in Saudi Arabia will save some 690,000 barrels of oil every day if completed.

“PV is highly competitive now,” says Robin Mills, head of Manaar Energy Consulting,” against oil and against the higher cost gas the Saudis have available.”

Image of Arabian lady at home from Shutterstock

Read more on solar energy:
Interview: SolarReserve For the MENA Region?
Saudis Could Export Solar for the Next Twenty Centuries
Solar to Light Our Nights Gets Hotter

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