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I don't see China mentioned in the article. Article is about another setback to Saudi Arabia in their renewable energy plans to get off oil. And SoftBank is a

I don't see China mentioned in the article. Article is about another setback to Saudi Arabia in their renewable energy plans to get off oil. And SoftBank is a Japanese company. Plus it wasn't an innovation investment, it was deployment project for solar panels...

nwatson 8y ago
Sure, and solar panels are made in China, a nice export-heavy industry for them.
mikekchar 8y ago
It does make you wonder, though, why isn't Saudi Arabia doubling down on Solar/Wind/Battery technology (or I suppose anything else)? There is going to be a time when they run out of capital. They are willing to spend big bringing in talent to the oil fields. They do a lot of R&D and employ some really brilliant people. Why not build a solar manufacturing infrastructure in Saudi? Why not pour tonnes of money into R&D -- rather than installing lots of solar panels. To be fair, I don't really follow middle eastern news, so perhaps they are, but at least through the news filter I have, I don't seem to notice it. I think the comparison to China is actually quite apt. China is going whole hog on this stuff and if the world is not careful, they are going to own the industry for a long time going forward. Personally, I don't care one way or the other, but why does a capital rich country like Saudi Arabia shy away from investing in nascent technology? Or, being optimistic, perhaps that's what they are going to announce in October (haven't read TFA out of respect for their paywall which I don't want to pay into). /me (who calls Japan his home) is wishing we would get off our backside and get really serious about geothermal energy R&D... :-P
- snaky 8y ago
  Why the world should be careful? China pretty much owns e.g. Lithium batteries industry, so what?
  - mikekchar 8y ago
    Sorry. I did not mean to imply it in that fashion. As I said, I don't really care one way or another. The point is that if you want to be the ones making money, then you need to get started early. Just like memory chips and LCD display technology was eaten up by first Japanese and then other SE Asian companies. This is the "new oil" as far as I can tell. Chinese dominance of the battery industry probably should worry you if you are hoping to be a G8-like country in the future. It's nothing to do with China per se. I'm sure they will be quite happy to sell their technology just like Japan and other SE Asian countries were happy to sell cars and memory and computer displays throughout the 80s, 90s and 00s. But if you are the kind of country that has companies like GM (or Aramco...) and you think you're going to dominate the market place forever because of history, then you're going to be feeling the pinch pretty quickly. Or at least that's what history seems to be implying to me. Maybe I'm wrong.

nwatson 8y ago

Sure, and solar panels are made in China, a nice export-heavy industry for them.

mikekchar 8y ago

It does make you wonder, though, why isn't Saudi Arabia doubling down on Solar/Wind/Battery technology (or I suppose anything else)? There is going to be a time when they run out of capital. They are willing to spend big bringing in talent to the oil fields. They do a lot of R&D and employ some really brilliant people. Why not build a solar manufacturing infrastructure in Saudi? Why not pour tonnes of money into R&D -- rather than installing lots of solar panels. To be fair, I don't really follow middle eastern news, so perhaps they are, but at least through the news filter I have, I don't seem to notice it. I think the comparison to China is actually quite apt. China is going whole hog on this stuff and if the world is not careful, they are going to own the industry for a long time going forward. Personally, I don't care one way or the other, but why does a capital rich country like Saudi Arabia shy away from investing in nascent technology? Or, being optimistic, perhaps that's what they are going to announce in October (haven't read TFA out of respect for their paywall which I don't want to pay into). /me (who calls Japan his home) is wishing we would get off our backside and get really serious about geothermal energy R&D... :-P

snaky 8y ago
Why the world should be careful? China pretty much owns e.g. Lithium batteries industry, so what?
- mikekchar 8y ago
  Sorry. I did not mean to imply it in that fashion. As I said, I don't really care one way or another. The point is that if you want to be the ones making money, then you need to get started early. Just like memory chips and LCD display technology was eaten up by first Japanese and then other SE Asian companies. This is the "new oil" as far as I can tell. Chinese dominance of the battery industry probably should worry you if you are hoping to be a G8-like country in the future. It's nothing to do with China per se. I'm sure they will be quite happy to sell their technology just like Japan and other SE Asian countries were happy to sell cars and memory and computer displays throughout the 80s, 90s and 00s. But if you are the kind of country that has companies like GM (or Aramco...) and you think you're going to dominate the market place forever because of history, then you're going to be feeling the pinch pretty quickly. Or at least that's what history seems to be implying to me. Maybe I'm wrong.