2008 to 176 in 2016.
The important point is that even oil producing countries in the Middle East are trying to keep up with the growing use of renewable energies in the world. These countries often have several main reasons to develop technologies and infrastructure for using renewable energies.
First and foremost, renewable energies including solar energy are so low-cost that oil and gas producing countries have been prompted to brace for renewable energies to meet their domestic demand in part. Such inclination for renewable energies is seen specifically in the electricity sector.
Second, the oil and gas producing countries' switch to renewable energies would largely contribute to the diversification of their economies.
Third, using renewable energies could be instrumental in reducing oil and gas extraction costs. As the level of energy reserves in the world declines, recovery and production of oil and gas cost higher in many areas in the world. This increase has been such that shale oil and gas recovery or arctic and deepwater hydrocarbon extraction, which used to be assessed as costly, is now on the agenda of many producers. Under such circumstances, using renewable energies in oil and gas extraction and production could to a large extent slash production costs.
Fourth, the use of renewable energies will help oil and gas producing countries to save more reserves for exports. In fact, since most oil producing and exporting countries highly depend on oil revenues, domestic use of renewable energies would help largely increase the level of exports. For instance, estimates show that Saudi Arabia's use of electricity and sweet water is so high that this country has to directly burn crude to meet its domestic and water demand. Should it fail to limit demand or increase its investment in alternative sources of energy domestic needs would attract the bulk of its oil and gas production over the coming 10 to 20 years. That would leave Saudi Arabia with too little oil for exports and lower petrodollars would give rise to social, economic and political challenges. In that case, this country will have to invest in renewable energies in order to curb its domestic oil consumption to some extent.
Saudi Arabia, which is currently the largest oil exporter in the world, plans to build some 45.3GW of solar and wind power plants by 2020. By 2023, this country would be able to produce some 10% of its power generation capacity from renewable energies.
Qatar, which is the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), intends to produce 8.1GW of its electricity from solar energy, and increase it to 10GW by 2030.
Special Technologies a Must
Generally speaking, since non-renewable energies are close to exhaustion renewable energies have come to the limelight in recent years and they have seen significant growth. However, fossil energies will maintain their position as the most important source of energy. In fact, such energies as oil and gas will continue to remain important sources in the world.
Although the use of renewable energies would represent significant opportunities for impoverished and underdeveloped nations, these countries will not be able to use this type of energy due to insufficient funds and lack of access to advanced technology. Furthermore, among industrially developed countries there is no big inclination for using renewable energies because this issue would require fundamental changes in industrial infrastructure and technologies used by these countries, which would be very costly and may face resistance.
On the other hand, although every country enjoys wind, solar radiation and geothermal heat within its own territory generation of this country requires special equipment in which special metals and minerals are used. Extracting these rare minerals and metals also poses a challenge.
Although there is still a long distance from the generalization of renewable energies the growing pace of scientific and technological advancements has cleared the way for an increasing use of these energies. Therefore, one may hope that the use of these renewable energies would face significant welcome in the future, particularly because the use of these energies would be meant for safeguarding the environment and reducing costs inflicted by the production of fossil fuels. Therefore, renewable energies can provide a basis for the sustainable development of countries in the long term.