HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022

[M095-05] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:02:26 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

First of all, I hope this conference is not about tolerating high voltage lights on your face, because it is too excruciating to say the least. Very simple, STEM is something that we all know. I hate to be repeating myself on so many occasions, which I have, I think in detail put forth our future plan where we are going to go. If you see the overall of what we have been doing as Saudi Arabia, most of our programs, plans talks about relying on technologies and the evolution of technologies, but with a big difference this time because we as Saudi Arabia, this time we are different.

[M095-06] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:03:29 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

We are not waiting for somebody to develop these technologies for us to utilize, we are leaping into a future where we know that the challenge for us, for our own deliverance, in terms of our well-being, in terms of our sustainability, of our economy, in terms of and I have to owe it to the generation that we have now and the generation to come. It is a deep recognition within ourselves as Saudis, both women and men. After a long, inquisitive question of what it is that makes us different than others, that we should not be the innovators, the creators of technologies, what sort of shortcomings that we have, that does not inhibit us to be as creative as others.

[M095-07] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:04:41 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

Is it to education? Is it programs? Is it? Is it? Is It? Is It? And in all honesty, there is one good testament to see or showcase when you avoid and remove all the inhibitions for a society to represent its true selves. You could see it now happening in front of you. I get to be visited at the ministry, I am sure many other of our ministers here and elsewhere can, whenever they have delegations, all what they need to do, is simple, let them float in these buildings, let them go through the offices, and they will see a phenomenon that has not been here in Saudi Arabia for quite some time, which is that these offices or incubators are now full of young women and men, Saudis, well-trained, well-educated, well-motivated in our incubator as a ministry, or, I would say, the ecosystem.

[M095-08] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:06:10 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

We have been doing a lot of work to first attract this youthful, ambitious, serious generation, ensure that they have the ability to, as I always say, own what they are doing and engage them in things that are of substantial adventure. A youngster both women or men, would be much more obliged to work in an environment where it represents a challenge, but it gives him or give her the notion that she will be participating in a piece of adventure, full of excitement and more important, full of recognition to whatever they would do. In all what we do in the energy sector, we are not seeking as always, we have said on the Net Zero, for example, or on our Green Initiative, both Saudi Green Initiative or Middle East Green Initiative, or even on our efforts through the creation of the circular carbon economy.

[M095-09] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:07:28 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

We are not reaching the world seeking charity or seeking financing or any type of support, we are approaching the world with one prerequisite and request, work with us, and we could work with you too, to create technologies that bring these solutions that we are all aspiring for. Without technological solutions, great deal of the situation and the callings of the world today and tomorrow will not be delivered. We have a case to showcase here, which is what is happening now when it comes to the energy transition. Where is it? It is a leap in the future, it is a daydream people are not conscious of what it takes to get this from here to there.

[M095-10] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:08:28 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

Back to your question, and I know I will take some time, but I want to showcase something for all of us as Saudis of why I was think I might become one day like others here a very successful minister. It is not because of my personal endowments, it is not because of my personal capabilities, it is because I am trying to create, if I could succeed create an incubator that leads these young energies to come and work and be part of the endeavor to create the solutions, and if I can enable them to not only take part, but also to own these adventures and own it in the sense that each and every one with them would feel that not only he was part of the story, but he was the creator and the formulator of that story.

[M095-11] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:09:43 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

I also believe that many of the ambitions that this country wants to achieve has to do with long term callings and objectives and goals, and who else can make sure that these things are going to be delivered, but the young population, the young generation, they have the longevity, the age and the ambition to see it through. This is one of the biggest motivator for a youngster to work on those long term plans. They could always say " إن شاء الله يعني، بمشيئة الله" they could say it I have been here in the beginning and I have seen the end of it, and there is no other group that would be as ambitious as this group, and there would not be more groups to come as ambitious than this group, but the groups that will come afterwards.

[M095-12] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:10:50 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

Clearly, there is so many examples to draw. I do not want to bring in countries' name, but look at just boys and think and see where India was a few years ago, where is China was a few years ago, and let us ask ourselves what would inhibit us to be as adventurous as achievers as they have been, they have been some, there was always a role model, but again, you know, let us have the confidence in ourselves that one day, we could become, our youth would become the model of the future.

[M095-14] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:12:20 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

Well, most of, by the way, a good chunk of what we are doing now and what we will be doing in the future. Let us not forget one thing, people are not focusing on the idea that who is leading Vision 2030, he is a person who is a young person, a very ambitious person, and he does not know, cannot comprehend the word impossible. Now, if you are lucky have a leader of such qualities, it goes without saying that there is in this country a similar number of young women and men that are equally ambitious, equally enthusiastic, equally determined to create their own future and the future of the country and equally committed to deliver.

[M095-15] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:13:37 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

And also equally determined that again, equally determined to remove the word impossible from our vocabulary, if you permit me, because I owe it to them, you know, my honesty will be fragile if I do not put the right attributes to those who earned them. When Mr. Sawaha invited me to leap, I brought a group of 50 cadets. There were young women and young men, they are working with us. Today, I am becoming a little bit humbler by just introducing you quickly, of about a roughly 14, 15 of our youngsters that are working with us in this endeavor, and I am not here to brag about them or incentivize them or motivate them, I certainly am here to make sure any youngster would like to join us, our doors in ministry are open, including some of our ministers, if they would like to join the Ministry of Energy. That is fine.

[M095-17] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:15:15 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

It is okay, but just to if you do not mind Dr Hayat. This is very relevant and very important because, you know, it is not about this list, It is, trust me it is hundreds of young women and men working in this ecosystem, and I owe it to them, if I am to be honest with myself, I am here just to deliver what they are telling me is good for the country, is good for our leadership, is good for making us achieve what we are our asking and the asking or the calling of our leadership. So if you allow me.

[M095-19] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:16:03 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

Few names, I think they are floating around somewhere here, Haleema Al amri, Haleema, she is KAUST, PhD innovation on chemicals and catalyst and polymer, she is a Saudi. Yahya khawaja, he is our champion on artificial intelligence, he did his double master from Stanford, he is a Saudi. Ikram Santal, believe it or not, she is our expert on energy storage. Yahya Al-Saif, Yahya knows about hydrogen better than the minister himself. Yousef Al-Zabin. What is he? Yousef just joined this, he is our expert on nuclear technology, and we are just building a capacity to make sure that we will execute our nuclear program with our good people, and they have been trained, and more in the hundreds will be trained to do that job.

[M095-20] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:17:58 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

Fahd Al-Sayari Fahd where is he? Missing in action, Fahd, again? We almost lost him because he was going to work, he is PhD in nuclear energy, and we almost lost him because he was supposed to work in one other country if we did not make sure that we have him, but he is with us. Mohammed AL Moammer, again he is our expert on renewable technologies, and he has a team of youngsters to work on the evolution of renewable technologies, so how can we apply them and ensure that we incubate them just to make sure that we continue the leadership in terms of being the most cost effective, least cost producer of renewable.

[M095-21] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:19:03 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

Nouf Abdulghani, again she is our expert on how to integrate emerging renewable energy technology as part of the kingdom energy mix with the trying to figure out a solution on the intermittence and how we can engage everything, both nuclear, solar, wind, battery and linking it with an efficient transmission system. Few samples, 3 samples from KAPSARK Abdullah Aljarbou. Abdullah is not a scientist, but he is a very serious economist, he is a modeler and he does macroeconomic modeling utilizing optimization method to identify best uses of natural resources.

[M095-22] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:20:14 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

You know, as I have my own weakness with economist, but I always say that engineers cannot work without economist, some economist will bring, has to bring sanity to the engineers, otherwise the sky is the limit, so we always try to take counsel with the engineers that we have, and indeed, Abdullah is amongst the brilliant and ambitious youngsters that we have at KAPSARC.

[M095-23] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:20:47 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

Norah AlHussein, she is our authority, I would say, in geographic information system mapping, she satellite images to assess economic activities. No one in this ministry does not approach her without figuring out her own views on these issues, and there are a lot of these issues that relates to her work, and she is developing her own team now at KAPSARC. We have Trulia Maverick from KAPSARC, Norah Nezamuddin, Norah worked with me and others in overhauling KAPSARC altogether, and we went live now as KAPSARC now. It is no longer studies and research, it is an institution of advisory and consultancy. She is a specialist on transportation sector, identify impact of different policies and model the cost of transportation.

[M095-24] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:22:09 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

She is working with us at all levels, including what we do now with Lucid and Velocity and what have you, plus, we are working with so many things just to make sure that overall, be it reliant on renewable or clean fuels, we call it, as hydrocarbon clean fuels. All of that will be put together, yet we will have the efficiency of the transportation, if you call it, fleet and system that enable us to have a much more sustainable transportation system in Saudi Arabia. Now we have oil sustainability program. This is a program that would make sure that we convert molecule of hydrocarbon into good uses with sustainability and attending to the challenge of clean fuels and clean and also does not inhibit but actually help us in achieving net zero in 2060.

[M095-25] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:23:34 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

So Saleh Abdullatif. He works on the development of environmental and economical sustainability polymer materials, applications and technologies. Oil will be with us and gas will be with us, and we will create the technologies to take the oil that was or used to be used in conventional markets and conventional uses. We have our creative minds, Saudi creative minds to convert these things into some other non-conventional uses, so we are here to stay, and that is why I keep telling people oil and gas will be used and you will find it later on in your pipes, in your windows, in your cement, in every application that you can think, and I would refer you to that nice ad with that fellow when he ended up almost naked because he was surrounded with plastic.

[M095-26] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:24:46 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

Another Maverick tough girl Judy Fayez. Judy is working on innovation of and efficiency of jet fuel and aviation, she is also working on fuels that will be cleaner fuels, so instead of people wasting time and money and effort on trying to figure out something else, we could use just the jet fuel and work on them and make it cleaner and more cost effective and more comparative to any of these biofuels that people are talking about. At the Climate Change Norah Al-Sedairy is she here? Nora in the Green Initiative I did refer to her that she definitely knows better than me on issues of climate change, on oceans and what have you, and she had some training also at KAUST, and now she is an active participant in climate change.

[M095-27] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:26:08 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

I have to say something which you would find it in an article written, I think it was the Financial Times if I am not mistaken, talking about this new Saudi team, negotiating team at Glasgow where people were floating around and they so many of the Saudi attending or negotiating are below the age of 30. While they are negotiating, I think the word use was dinosaurs like me. It was this totally disheartening to so many of these delegations that they see Norah and others sitting on the table, putting a fight on issues of too detailed technical issues, and it was quite disarming for them to see a caliber like this. I owe it to the others, but the others are all over the place negotiating as we speak today. Otherwise, it would be my honor to bring them here.

[M095-28] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:27:31 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

We have at K.A.CARE two youngster Talal Alharbi and Alaa Al-Nahdi both believe it or not, are working on small modular reactors. Why? Because we believe that this technology, if we can harness it with others, it will be something that we could use ourselves, especially in remote areas, it would give you sustainable electricity, it would be safe, and it will be solving the issue of any disruptions, it would give you a continuity of that. This is the samples and I am sorry for taking so much of your time, but eventually we could sit here, talk for hours, hours, but eventually it is all about people and it is all about the incubators to enable people to work.

[M095-30] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:29:55 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

People would make a mistake, people would make follies, and we should be there supportive and helpful and encouraging them not to fall into despair and disappointment and eventually leave the arena, as they call it. None of us had had not his own follies, if I count you the mistakes I made in my career and my life, gee you will be displeased that why on earth he became a minister to start with. Okay.

[M095-32] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:31:24 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

Well, again, I wish Yehya can come in, spend some time here to talk about what they are doing, because he is really, truly better than me. That is to start, but from his own education for me, I know that artificial intelligence would be the most important intake to the energy sector. I do not think there is any sector that would, maybe I am over exaggerating, but I think energy sector is probably in every step of the way will be plugged, artificial intelligence will be plugged in every sector in every operation. You know, one of the things that we find it extremely challenging is safety and security.

[M095-34] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:33:31 · HRH Minister of Energy Remarks at GEC 2022 · 2022-03-27 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

Just 1 second, I am again lucky to serve at, of course, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, serving at their pleasure is an honor, but I am really disheartened to when I walk into that building, when I see these vibrant, truly vibrant, smiling, ambitious faces, they stay the hours, they put the hours, they put the efforts, so I owe it to them, I really owe it to them that not only in a mood of self-congratulation, congratulating myself for being an incubator of those talented people, but I owe it to them to give them that gratitude, because without them, I would not be the proud person standing before you here today. Thank you.