“Things” Are Getting Better
Saudi Arabia 1991 was my first overseas job out of Europe. The view of Al Jubail at night was awe-inspiring back in those days. We could drive out of town to the industrial zone in the company pick-up truck and check out the various industrial plants lit up in the distance, it was space-age to us then. The Saudi’s reliance on oil only had created these many plants producing by-products from the oil process such as Ethylene, Naptha, Kerosene and so many other chemical processes producing plastics used in almost every level of modern society. We would drive carefully by, surreptitiously taking photographs but ever mindful of the Saudi’s overbearing security presence. Remember this was in the days before mobile phones with good cameras installed. A flash from my compact Pentax would alert security guards or police and almost every main road had a security checkpoint where cameras could be confiscated.
The main shock at the time was the view of all the gas being burnt off from flare stacks countrywide. They looked great at night and roared constantly like some ferocious dragon in a fantasy movie.
In those days we were just becoming generally more aware of global warming as a phenomenon, but it would be a few more years before investment would be raised to convert those greenhouse gases into cleaner fuel. The…
