"Until now, all the oil-producing countries under the lead of Saudi Arabia did everything to torpedo renewable energies," said Wolfgang Palz, chairman of the independent World Council for Renewable Energy, speaking on the sidelines of an international conference on renewable energy in Algiers in June.

"This is really a big change now because with all this talking about the limitations of conventional resources," oil-producing countries "feel obliged to do something," he said.

What were they doing to "torpedo renewable energies"?

Something is not correct about this, look at numbers...

$425MM capital cost for 150 MW, 83% gas, is not remotely cost effective.  Solar at $15/bbl by 2020 obscures that cost is available today.  Southern Spain climate could compete with Algeria climate.

My alarm bells rang when I read that Saudi Arabia suppresses solar energy, "Until now, all the oil-producing countries under the lead of Saudi Arabia did everything to torpedo renewable energies,".  Absolutely not true.  Not there, true here under Bush.

... that cryptic paragraph refers to OPEC's habit of reducing oil prices to forestall the development of renewables -- most notoriously in the late-Carter, early-Regan years.

grist.org

I was at the table when the Sauds talked about ending the OPEC embargo (long before it happened).  They made it absolutely clear it was not to hurt renewables, which they firmly supported as needed by the poor and as a source of domestic energy after their oil is depleted.  Their oil price policy had several motivations; reduce Iran's income, increase market share, and strip the USSR of hard currency from oil exports.  The Sauds get the credit for the collapse of USSR.

The biographer of the King sent me the message that President Clinton told the King that "solar energy would not be supported as long as oil was plentiful and cheap."  The suppression of solar energy was and is a US policy, not a Saudi policy.

Their prophecy was that solar and nuclear renaissance will occur after peak oil.