, Columnist
Why the Most Oil-Rich Country Can’t Keep the Lights On
Kuwait is a cautionary tale of where fossil-fuel addiction can lead.
Blackouts are common in this Persian Gulf petrostate.
Photographer: Yasser Al-Zayyat/AFP/Getty Images
If you want an image of where the internal contradictions of the fossil fuel economy are headed as disruptive clean energy and a warming planet transform the 21st century, consider Kuwait.
The first real boomtown of the 1960s Arab oil rush, its people have a richer endowment of crude than any other nation on earth. The 101.5 billion barrels of reserves are equivalent to about 23,000 barrels for every resident — more than double the next-placed country. At current prices, this geological inheritance works out at about $4.3 million per citizen1.