On October 22nd, 2009 the KAUST Student Council, KAUST student affairs, and the Saudi Arabian oil company ARAMCO (also responsible for most of campus construction, planning, etc) flew, a jet full of students, for free, to the oil fields at Shaybah (a 4 hour flight), in the Saudi Arabian "Empty Quarter," kinda the toe of the boot of the Arabian peninsula, just west of the UAE and Oman. It was in order to share the wonder of human engineering with KSA's future engineers at KAUST. There, we were treated to a very short tour of the facilities, as well as allowed to romp around the beautiful open desert sand dunes that stretch for hundeds of kilometers in all directions at sunset, and then served a roasted lamb dinner. After, there was a presentation about the faciliy, from which you can learn all the facts you need to know from this excellent video they played for us. Watch it; it is very good and gives many insights about KSA, Aramco, fuel, and the world. The rest of this blog post contains photos taken by me and others from the trip as well as excerpts of my thoughts that day regarding fossil fuels and human civilization, taken from my Saudi Travel Notebook... (Note I don't edit the grammar from the notebook - it's the diltuted form of insights I sometimes share on the blog. Another reason I hardly edit: retro-actively understanding the concepts I've put on paper can be tough.)
Can't wait to send photos home; here I look at where dead dinosaurs get pulled from the ground & changed into your fuel... I visit the place where your car's engines know intimately; suddenly, all your past vehicles & I have a common link... FIND OUT on this trip the markets for this product - could I have gassed up w/ Shaybah fuel before?
it's certainly sobering to sit here on top of so much natural resource - so much of what drives my home country crazy - & to think that what differet cultures had built atop of them, & whether some Gaia-like influence has chosen to push the paths of these peoples in one way or another...
Now watching PR video... all about Saudi inegnuity, Saudi goals, & man's ability to create - to achieve - but funny that all began as American-created company, & all this happy-go-lucky achivement stuff in order to serve the developed nations of the world fuel for their polluting vehicles; the Saudi ingenuity and oil harvesting technologies & skills all serve to [do that... to] subsidize global transport... help you get to work...
What if U.S.A. located on [this much] oil & had fields like these? [i.e. interesting that the U.S. is not.] To think that instead of just distance seperating product from markets, there are cultures...
"Any organic farming [here at Shaybah]?" asks a be-abaya'd woman visiting with us -
"No." Our guide says, flatly.
Sustainability, 'self-sufficiency' DENIED. [i.e. all imported, flown in on plane.]
If it's not from the sun, it's from the oil... Sun moves the biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere... OIL moves the anthrosphere... [We are part of the biosphere, yet our actions aren't mere flows of interactions between animals... we are literally] carving out the planet for our [excessive] existence...
When I go back and read this post now, I just think you will all find it confusing and reminiscent of dirty hippie. But Shaybah was large; something like 1/4 of all KSA production or something. And it put into perspective the money just to fly us out there, and indeed the money for KAUST... it was all very interesting. Hoping you could catch some of that in this post.
From Florida to Jeddah — Women on the Road
4 years ago
