A zero-carbon city will be built on the site of the Neom smart city project, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said on Sunday, as quoted by Reuters. The city, dubbed “The Line” will have the capacity to accommodate 1 million residents, who will enjoy “carbon-positive urban developments powered by 100% clean energy”. It will cost between $100 and $200 billion, representing a sizeable chunk of Neom’s $500-billion price tag. Neom is the flagship project of Prince Mohammed’s Vision 2030 plan, which at its launch aimed to diversify the Saudi economy away from oil. The latest oil price crash has not made the $500-billion project more economically viable, but there were problems even before the pandemic. In 2018, the CEO of the Neom project, Klaus Kleinfeld, told media that “The investment case for NEOM is actually very easy to make, because we’ve got so many things going for us,” adding […]