Irvine-based plug-in electric hybrid carmaker Fisker Automotive Inc. announced today that it had closed a $65-million round of financing led by an affiliate of the Qatar Investment Authority, a state-owned, state-funded sovereign wealth fund. The QIA's goal is to "strengthen the country's economy by diversifying into new asset classes." That makes it the fourth alternative car company or alternative car supplier to receive financing from the Middle East.... In December, Ontario-based Phoenix Motorcars received an undisclosed sum from Dubai investment house and trading group Al Yousuf, LLC. Al Yousuf also has invested about $5.5 million in Santa Rosa-based electric car company Zap Inc. In exchange for the investments, Eqbal Al Yousuf, president of Al Yousuf, was named chairman of Zap in May and put on the board of directors of Phoenix in March. And in December, Al Yousuf put $40 million into Reno, Nev.-based electric car battery maker Altair Nanotechnologies Inc., which at the time had a contract to supply batteries to Phoenix. Fisker gets an infusion of Mideast cash | Up to Speed | Los Angeles Times
rumour has it that the middle east has been investing in alternative energy companies thru 3rd party investors for years.
Makes sense, really. They know oil is going to price itself out of the market before long, as the remaining oil becomes more and more expensive to extract. For market purposes, there will be no more oil. They are making enormous profits, and need to invest them. Where better than in the industry that must eventually supplant their own? Americans are deluded into thinking there will be oil forever, so it's a great time to invest in alternatives.
Actually, it makes more sense for them to gain control of the alternatives and keep them supressed for as long as possible. Like Chevron has done gaining control of the patents covering most large-format NiMH packs.
Middle Easterners have been investing in all sectors of the U.S. economy for decades. They aren't just oil men, they are businessmen. In 2007, when the U.S. stock market had fallen, they used their oil profits to buy up billions of shares in major U.S. companies. When you look at percentage ownership in major U.S. corporations like G.E., AT&T, Citibank, and so forth, you will find that a good 30% (varying % for different companies) is owned by Middle-Eastern investment companies. They know that oil is the past and not the future, and that is why they have created huge investment banks. There have been numerous articles on this subject in Newsweek, Time, Businessweek, Forbes, and many other well-known print magazines.
Does the middle east ever consider using their wealth for solar energy, cause they have a lot of that too.
On the contrary! A self-serving oil executive who does not own the resources, but is paid on the basis of this quarter's profits, has an incentive to squander the resources (which he does not own) in order to maximize his bonuses. But a Middle-eastern nation, which owns its resources, has a strong incentive to conserve them for the future when they will be worth more. In addition, such a country does not want a general economic collapse of its customer. What it wants is to gain control of the energy supply that will replace the oil under its land, so that it guarantees income for the foreseeable future. It wants us to have a continuing supply of energy when the oil runs out, but it wants to own that energy so that we must buy it from it.
They have lots of sand too, but they aren't exactly shipping tankers full of sand to other markets are they? The transportation costs would negate the profits gained from the product, especially in electricity where all along the line(s) there are various losses through conversion/storage and other factors. If someone could find a way to transport/store it without losing most of the energy during transport/transmission you can bet they would be in on it.
My intent was not to focus on oil supply and future sales. It was to keep alternatives from gaining traction, acceptance, support, use, etc. Hence, to keep the alternatives off the market for as long as possible to retard their development and use for as long as possible. Oil will always have buyers, but demand would be slashed if alternative transportation takes off as I hope it does.
And I'm saying that rather than trying to block acceptance of alternatives, it's in their long-term best interest to gain market share in alternatives, so as to be well-positioned when the oil runs out. An OPEC nation knows its oil is running out. Blocking alternatives will only keep up its profits in the short term. But jumping into alternatives guarantees their profits in the long term. It's only when a company is run by criminals who care nothing about the nation or the company, but only care about this quarter's profits and their own consequent pay bonuses, that it tries to block alternatives instead of investing in them. When you own a finite resource, your best policy is to conserve it. But when you are profiting from someone else's resource, it's in your selfish personal interest to squander it. OPEC nations own their own oil. The decision-makers of oil companies are executives who profit from the oil, but do not own it themselves, and therefore have an incentive to squander it, not conserve it. Thus Chevron blocks the manufacture of batteries for EVs, while Arab nations invest in alternative energy.
Oil is one of the finest raw materials. You can produce from it many things, ranging from medicines to plastics. So humanity should preserve its oil reserves for something more important than simple burning.
Crude oil is the starting point for almost all hydrocarbon manufacture (plastics, mediicne, etc.). This is because the chemical conversions and factories to perform them have already been developed, designed, optimized and built. Theoretically one can make essentially any hydrocarbon from any other. The limitations are in cost and lead time. If crude oil becomes much more expensive (and I assume it will) then we will begin to manufacture hydrocarbons from other starting materials. Desired hydrocarbon products will not disappear w/o crude oil. Low production costs are another matter.
