First impressions from Masdar's sci-fi solar city (Abu Dhabi, UAE)

[JCMach1]

Yikes, UAE is all over the news this morning (something positive this time)... Masdar city will be an amazing place once completed.




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Masdar’s $22bn “zero carbon” city isn't much too look at yet. It’s currently a fenced off six kilometre by six kilometre area of scrubland outside the city of Abu Dhabi, with a large 10MW solar PV farm in one corner.

But construction happens fast in Abu Dhabi, and by 2016 the government hopes Masdar City will be the world’s first traffic free, zero carbon, zero waste city – a home to 1,500 businesses and 50,000 residents as well as a showpiece for new clean technologies that can be sold around the world as a replacement for the oil revenues emirate relies on so heavily at the moment.

There are other such projects around the world, notably near Tianjin and Dongtan in China, but Masdar City is perhaps the most ambitious – the government hopes that within ten years this relatively small city will add some two per cent to the country's already hefty $100bn plus GDP.

Residents will travel around the city by "rapid transport pods" at above street level, while the city will be linked with nearby Abu Dhabi by an elevated light railway. The transport network, along with everything else within the city will be powered by up to 200MW renewable energy capacity, some 80 per cent of which will come from solar PV panels.

Moreover, four fifths of the water used in the city will be recycled, slashing the need to pump in desalinated water, with its large energy footprint, by 75 per cent. And a new desalination facility drawing water from the local water table and power from solar panels will further serve to cut the amount of water that is pumped to the settlement.

All streets will be pedestrianised and residents and workers will wonder around a series of Islamic themed garden spaces as well as piazzas based on those in Southern Italy.

So far, so science fiction, but visiting the site it's difficult to imagine it all now. Evidence of development is visible in cranes around what will be the Masdar scientific research institute, due to open in September 2009, but currently not much more than a building site.

Next to what will be the research institute is a solar PV test plant that represents one of the largest ever field studies of solar panel technology anywhere in the world... http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/analysis/2234200/first-impressions-masdar-sci

[Javaman]

1. how much carbon was expelled into the atmosphere to make this "zero carbon" city? nt

[LanternWaste]

3. Much likely...

Much likely less than would be used by a comparable city in the course of three months, so I see it as a positive on the scale of cost/benefit.

[originalpckelly]

2. Construction used to happen fast in Dubai.

Probably not as fast now.