While the United States still searches for a coherent national energy policy, countries you wouldn't expect are at the forefront of a green transformation. China has concrete plans to shift to renewables on a national scale and is manufacturing solar panels so cheaply it's hard for American companies to compete. Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil producer - led by octogenarians rarely associated with swift societal change - is moving at lightning speed to transform its electricity grid from near zero to 100 percent renewable sources. It's not that the Saudis suddenly have become environmentalists. In September, Citigroup issued a chilling, though not surprising, warning that Saudi Arabia could run out of crude for export by 2030. Even before Citigroup published its analysis, the Saudi government announced that it would spend more than $100 billion to develop 41 gigawatts of solar energy, enough to power one-third of the sun-drenched country, by 2032. In October, Saudi Arabia's 68-year-old Prince Turki Al Faisal told an economic forum in Brazil he would like to see the kingdom go entirely renewable within his lifetime. Saudi Arabia demonstrated its seriousness just a few weeks later by bringing senior executives from 20 U.S. clean-energy companies to Riyadh to explore partnerships. SunPower Corp., a San Jose manufacturer of solar systems already working with the Saudis, was one of the delegation's leaders. In other words: American companies are helping transform Saudi Arabia into a clean-energy haven so that the world's biggest oil producer can keep sending dirty and expensive crude back to gas-guzzling Americans.