Saudi Arabia is planning to develop a civilian nuclear and renewable energy center, see an article in Arabian Business here. Interesting to note that Saudi Arabia uses 1.25m barrels of oil each day where the price of a barrel is $5, see Financial Times article "Saudi Arabia announces nuclear centre" here.
On the nuclear technology acquisition front, Saudi Arabia is in talks with France, while Kuwait has already signed a deal with France on developing a nuclear energy project, see here. And UAE recently signed a $20b nuclear deal with South Korea, see here.
Nuclear remains the cheapest (~6c/kwh), green and most available on-demand alternative energy today... yet the technology improvements are going to bring solar down further from (~20c/kwh) in the next few years.
The fun begins when mass energy stores become available!
Update: Areva, the French owned nuclear group, will be doing fund raising of ~$4b through mostly Middle Eastern and Asian investors.
