The House of Saud is living on borrowed time. They are the “Haves” and everyone else are the “Have Nots”. And the native are restless.
Diversifying the economy opens up new avenues of growth for the Have Nots.
Hell, women can drive there now. (Some restrictions may apply) but it’s a start. A younger generation, educated abroad, are coming into power.
The Sauds know the era of oil is coming to a close they have to diversify while they have the oil revenue to do so or they will starve and dehydrate. They need either nukes or massive solar to run the desal plants when the oil is too valuable to burn to the sky.
I tell people all the time oil is top valuable to our species to burn it to the sky. Liquid hydrocarbons are the life blood of modern society not just an energy source much MUCH more importantly they are the basis of modern technology. Plastics of every form, medications, critically fertilizers specially the nitrogen based ammonia,urea and nitrates all based on hydrocarbons. The average American eats the equivalent to two barrels of oil per year just in fertilizers alone. There are alternatives for diesel. Trains can and should be electrified, short haul trucks can be battery electric ask Tesla or Fisker or Ford. Long haul trucks should be electric via overhead wires like the trains down the interstates or in slots in the road way. Trucks do massive hwy damages proven by science to be 9600 times that of cars all long haul freight should be by rail to a local distro point no more long trucks period it would.drastically cut hwy damages and costs. Commuter cars do best with electric the avg American goes 40 miles round trip or less per day the NHTSA shows 80% of the population is under 40 per day. A 300 mile EV is 8 days worth of communting per charge once a week just like filling a tank once a week at the pump with the added benefit of if you have a plug in the garage you have a means to put that 40 miles per day in a few hours over night. For ships and aircraft synthetic liquids make sense ammonia is 17% hydrogen by weight and would work as well as liquid H2. Some time sooner than most would like to admit oil is going to be too expensive to burn and will be reserved for petrochemicals and fertilizers plus plastics. $400 bbl is not going to kill the pharmacy industry for raw materials as the value added to amounts consumed is small. Same for fertilizers , plastics will have an issue but plant based plastics are a thing already.