Qatar's doing this just to thwart Tom Friedman!
Friday, February 18, 2005 at 6:26PM ■"In Qatar, Oil Firms Make Huge Bet On Alternative Fuel: Supports Say New Diesel Is Cleaner, More Efficient; Untested on Large Scale," by Russell Gold, Wall Street Journal, 15 February 2005, p. A1.
Exxon, shut out of Saudi Arabia, is pouring billions into Qatar to create the worldís largest natural gas-to-liquid plant in the world. Big gamble? Yes. Getting the world to shift to this clear diesel is no mean trick, but not as hard as you might think. Work some huge rising vehicle markets like India and China and you capture a lot of the auto-making and truck-making playersí attention across the world. Itís not who has the most vehicles now, but whoís buying the most in the coming years.
But alas, none of this will really fit Tom Friedmanís dream of killing them (authoritarian regimes) softly with lowered oil prices, because the same (at least early) big sources of gas will hail from the same regions as the long-time big sources of oil. Yes, eventually, weíll search the world over more intelligently on gas, but in the near- and mid-term itíll all be what they call ìassociated gas,î or gas weíve found when looking for oil (associated with oil).
Should we be depressed? No. The connectivity required on gas is a lot more than that required for oil: more technology, more industry, more pipelines, more long-term commitments and infrastructural change.
Donít beggar these regimes; connect them.
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