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Saudi Arabia predicts budget deficit as it funnels money into gigaprojects (www.ft.com)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 11 months ago (24 children)

It'll be interesting to see how the Arab states will diversify their economies in the next decade. There's really not much to exploit there except oil, so unless they pump out enough money to basically rest on their investments in perpetuity I'm really not sure what to expect.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (18 children)

They have deserts for solar energy and cheap workers. What else do they need?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (4 children)

It's hard to load solar energy on oil tanker.

Joke apart, how would they make money with solar energy? Oil is a very limited resources that can be transported very easily. Every country in the world needs oil but only a few country can supply it so the business model is extremely straight forward: export oil to the countries that has the money to buy it.

Now what is the business model with solar energy? Every country in the world has sun and electricity is hard to export over long distance so what are they doing with it ?