UNNATURALLY COOL69Twenty years ago, when output was substantially lower, the kingdom
consumed 15 percent of its production (figure 5.1).
Saudi Arabia has vaulted up the ranks of global oil consumers. In
2016, the kingdom was the world’s fifth- largest oil consumer, despite a
population that ranked forty- seventh. That same year, oil demand in
Saudi Arabia surpassed that of Russia, the world’s largest country by area
and a peer oil producer with a much larger population and economy (see
table 5.2).
Saudi Arabia’s oil consumption has grown at nearly the same pace as
that of India, the world’s third- largest consumer and a fast- developing
behemoth with 1.3 billion people and an economy more than three times
the size of Saudi Arabia’s. Saudi oil consumption is approaching that of
the world’s fourth- highest consumer, Japan, which has a highly devel-
oped industrial and manufacturing economy. Among all the world’s
countries, in fact, only China (ranking second) and the United States
(ranking first) consume significantly more oil than Saudi Arabia.
A major reason Saudi consumption is so high is because, while
crude oil and diesel have long been banished from the power sector
nearly everywhere else, the kingdom still burns oil to generate elec-
tricity. During the summer months, the Saudis burn an average of
700,000 b/d^7 and sometimes as much as 900,000 b/d.^8 That’s an enor-
mous amount, equal to the average daily consumption for the entire
country of Turkey.
These stunning summer numbers stem from the region’s ubiqui-
tous air conditioners, which account for the lion’s share of electricity
consumed— around 70 percent of total power.^9 Electrification came so
late in the Gulf that older residents remember the days before air condi-
tioning, when they slept outdoors to stay cool. From a base of nearly zero,
electricity demand quickly grew to lead the world.
Residents of Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE consume more
electricity, on average, than Americans (see figure 5.2)— and the vast
majority of this power is generated by fossil fuels. Generation growth
averaged 10 percent per year between 1973 and 1999, slipping to 7 percent
per year between 2000 and 2010, which was slightly faster than the aver-
age GDP growth that decade of 6.5 percent.