If you really want an indicator of just how close we are to
a more sustainable energy future, take a look at what’s going on over at United
Arab Emirates (UAE), deep in the heart of the world’s most notoriously prolific
petroleum-exporting region. UAE’s Masdar Institute of Science and Technology
has been talking up the potential for oil exporting states to transition out of
dependency on petroleum and into a more diverse economic model based on
exporting algae biofuel.
As to how the economics of algae biofuel production are
supposed to work out in a region that has water scarcity built into its DNA,
that’s a lesson that U.S. energy policymakers could learn from, too.