Global discussions on the reduction of Co-2 emissions and the increasing interest in alternative energy sources and production technologies have started to concern oil exporting nations. International discussions on projects such as Desert Tec might also have sparked their interest to explore a possible diversification of their energy resource production portfolio. However, extremely low in-country retail prices of fossil fuels to date present a significant economic hurdle to such developments. This paper uses a formal model setup accompanied by intuitive graphical illustrations as well as a numerical example to analyze fossil fuel abundant nations' potential to transition to a supplier of renewable energy as well as possible pitfalls resulting from their status quo situation. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.