That statement was made in September. Now it’s November and the fire sales on all the stock exchanges around the world are still going on strong! So the Saudi Arabians now have PLENTY of places to invest for long-term gain.

Those crude oil people are really very lucky, aren’t they? Things are shaking out for them almost as if the whole scenario was planned in advance.

Step one: jack up the price of oil to an unbelievable high.

Step two: accumulate as much money as you can for the fire sales that are bound to occur.

Step three: when the high petroleum prices finally result in recessions in the industrialized nations, and stock prices there plummet, come in at the bottom and start buying up industries at bargain prices.

But that smacks of paranoia and conspiracy theory, right? It’s not as if there’s a cartel at work.

But why would the Saudis need nuclear power plants? For investments. The Saudis are rolling in cash with few places to invest for long-term gain. They also have a very well-educated and underutilized professional class. World demand for energy can go nowhere but up. The solution? Saudi Arabia becomes a worldwide financier and builder of nuclear power plants – with desalination as a side option. Unfettered by American environmental stupidity, they could mass-produce barge-mounted plants of standard design and tow them into place anywhere accessible to the ocean. It’s an approach Westinghouse tried to sell in the 1970′s. Standardized design, serialized production, and freedom from US environmental ninnyism would drop the cost of pre-fab nuclear plants substantially.

And what better place to put the pilot plants than at the north end of the Sea of Cortez? Sheltered from tropical cyclones by Baja California, free of oppressive American environmental regulations, and with a ready customer for the generated power in Southern California, this is a natural. The Mexican government could get a cut of the take in a sale/leaseback arrangement, and everyone would win. The Saudis would get a money-making long term investment and could become the world leaders in the design and operation of these plants and the host country would get a reliable source of power on the installment basis.

And, if the US refuses to sell the Saudis the technology, the French certainly will.

But why would the Saudis need nuclear power plants? For investments. The Saudis are rolling in cash with few places to invest for long-term gain. They also have a very well-educated and underutilized professional class. World demand for energy can go nowhere but up. The solution? Saudi Arabia becomes a worldwide financier and builder of nuclear power plants – with desalination as a side option. Unfettered by American environmental stupidity, they could mass-produce barge-mounted plants of standard design and tow them into place anywhere accessible to the ocean. It’s an approach Westinghouse tried to sell in the 1970′s. Standardized design, serialized production, and freedom from US environmental ninnyism would drop the cost of pre-fab nuclear plants substantially.

And what better place to put the pilot plants than at the north end of the Sea of Cortez? Sheltered from tropical cyclones by Baja California, free of oppressive American environmental regulations, and with a ready customer for the generated power in Southern California, this is a natural. The Mexican government could get a cut of the take in a sale/leaseback arrangement, and everyone would win. The Saudis would get a money-making long term investment and could become the world leaders in the design and operation of these plants and the host country would get a reliable source of power on the installment basis.

And, if the US refuses to sell the Saudis the technology, the French certainly will.

Thank you for the comment and for the link. Very interesting article about distributed generation and the way that it mimics natural systems.

I guess I am just a small minded person. I like systems that are simple and understandable and I definitely like power plants that are small enough to inspect in just a few minutes. It makes it easy for operators to know their plant and recognize potential issues before they become big ones.

It is also nice when there are a variety of sources for power, none of which is critical by itself.

With small nuclear plants, it is possible to use such concepts as cogneration or combined cycles and it is easy to see that the need for transmission and distribution systems can be minimized.