Saudi Oil Minister Warns Against Moving Quickly to Alternative Energies

In a speech in Houston on Tuesday, Saudi Arabia Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi expressed concern that too much emphasis on alternative energies would mean lack of funding for oil investments.

1 minute read

February 12, 2009, 2:00 PM PST

By Tim Halbur


"Substituting the current energy infrastructure will be "prohibitive" in the short term and given the massive scale of the global energy system, a rapid change to alternative energy will be "costly and impractical," al-Naimi said yesterday at an energy summit in Houston organized by the Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

"While the push for alternatives is important, we must also be mindful that efforts to rapidly promote alternatives could have a chilling effect on investment in the oil sector," al-Naimi said in a speech on "Achieving Energy Stability in Uncertain Times" on Tuesday, according to Reuters.

"A nightmare scenario would be created if alternative energy supplies fail to meet overly optimistic expectations, while traditional energy suppliers scale back investment" he added."

Wednesday, February 11, 2009 in International Business Times

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