Abu Dhabi prepares for post-petrol future

May 19, 2009, 9:47 GMT

Cairo ­ In the short term, few places need green energy as little as Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. The emirate has 8 per cent of the world's proven oil reserves, enough for the city-state to continue exporting and burning oil at current levels for almost a century.

With a ready supply of gas and oil, a ready supply of cash from exporting it, and a climate that demands air-conditioning, UAE residents use more energy each than residents of almost anywhere else.

Yet the city-state has already invested some 22 billion US dollars in its Masdar project, set up to establish an entirely new economic sector dedicated to alternative and sustainable energy.'

In 2006, Masdar hired the prestigious London architecture firm Foster and Partners to design what the government hopes will be the worlds first 'zero-carbon, zero-waste city' when it is completed in 2016.

Last week, Abu Dhabi announced its bid to host the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency in the city. If the bid and the city are successful, Abu Dhabi - one of the world capitals of the 20th-century energy industry - will be able to claim it is also the capital of the 21st-century green energy industry.

'We are not sure if oil and gas will continue as the worlds main source of energy,' Mohammed Raouf, environment programme director at the Gulf Research Centre in Dubai, told the German Press Agency dpa.

'Theres great potential for the region to become the main exporter of electricity from solar power,' Raouf said. Its already late. We must start now.'

Raouf cited a recent study that found that 250 square kilometres of land in the Arabian desert could supply enough electricity to power Europe for a year if devoted to solar panels.

'Abu Dhabi's future lies in the ability to cautiously use existing wealth, to actively explore renewable energy production, to reduce the consumption of non renewable resources and to educate future generations,' reads the city's 2030 strategy plan.

'Abu Dhabi's rulers have watched (neighbouring) Dubai's run-away growth,' one international urban-planning consultant to the government told dpa.

'Theres a sense that things are being done more carefully and thoughtfully here,' he said.

Toward that end, Abu Dhabi is now writing environmental sustainability requirements into its building codes, and will offer incentives to developers who undertake measures to make buildings more energy- and water-efficient.

Masdars investment arm, a joint project with Credit Suisse worth more than 200 million dollars, is also funding projects abroad.

It has invested in a project to construct wind-powered electrical turbines off the coast of Britain. With the Spanish company SENER, it is underwriting the massive Gemasolar solar power plant near Seville, scheduled for completion in 2011.

In August, the first students are due to arrive at the Masdar Institute for Science and Technology, a graduate research institute founded in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

But it is the planned zero-emission city that Masdar is pushing as the emblem of its efforts.

From the architectural designs, it is easy to understand why: The city's walls will be designed to shut out the hot desert wind and the noise from the nearby airport but to let in the cooling sea breezes.

Its streets will be narrow enough for shade, too narrow for cars, but not too narrow for the electric-powered plastic pods inhabitants will use to whizz around the city's 6 square kilometres.

Solar power plants are planned to power the city and its desalination facilities. Water is to be recycled to nourish desert plants that planners say will store enough carbon to offset what is released in construction.

Electric sensors attached to the city's plumbing will alert engineers to any leak that could result in the waste of even little water. No one will be more than 200 metres away from public transport - according to the plans.

Critics note that no one will be much farther than 2 kilometres away from another highly publicized government-funded project, the Yas Marina.

Plans here include a Formula 1 race track, a Ferrari theme park, massive hotels and a sprawling and, of course, water-intensive golf course - all this on an island off the mainland, which is to be linked to the rest of the emirate via a 12-lane highway built especially for the purpose.

Raouf, of the Gulf Research Centre, called on the government to enforce legislation written to protect the environment more strictly, citing developments along the coast that are damaging the UAE's coral reefs, mangrove swamps, and beaches.

'Too often - and not just in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, but in the world ­ the environment takes a back seat to the economy,' he said. 'The natural environment is the real wealth of any nation. If you destroy it in 20 years for short-term gain, you may have earned some money, but you will have lost everything.'