Let’s face it. Oil is not the ultimate answer to the world’s energy requirements, it being a natural resource that gets depleted over a period of time. The Gulf countries, now prospering under the few-decades-old oil boom, are themselves aware of the uncertainties in the long run, and hence the efforts on their part, including the UAE, to diversify their economies in a way as would enable them have other means of sustainability in future.

America, another major oil producing region, is equally aware of the future that lies ahead, though the Texan oil lobby is said to be putting spokes into the efforts and researches into the development of alternative, affordable sources of energy. However, for the US in particular, and for the West as a whole, there’s an added urgency to address the issue. That has to do with the new-found disquiet about oil, per se, it being increasingly seen as an instrument for political muscle-flexing. President Bush, himself a Texan and no small defender of its oil lobby, has in recent times been pushing the cause of renewable energy, his express (political) purpose being to reduce America’s dependence on the oil from the Middle East; and neutralise Russia in future. And, at a practical level, only the other day did America’s own General Motors unveil its rechargeable, battery-operated electric car that will predictably set the motoring trend for the coming decade.