We’ve been hearing about Dubai’s version of Masdar City since 2011, but skeptics have doubted that “Sustainable City” would ever become more than a mirage in the desert. Not anymore, according to local news reports. Diamond Developers has announced plans to officially launch their latest project – a 120 acre green city – at the […]
Dubai police have announced the latest acquisition to their fleet of cop cars: a 700 horsepower Lamborghini Aventador.
These films shown below show the basics of the Estidama Pearl rating system unique to the Abu Dhabi region. We’ve collected a number of films from around the net on Estidama, a LEED-like sustainability rating for communities, villas and apartments in the United Arab Emirates. A system that makes sense for the challenges of the […]
Green Prophet’s resident photographer documents “cut” Hajar Mountains in the United Arab Emirates. Huge swaths of the Hajar Mountains in the UAE’s northern emirates appear ghostly white when viewed on Google Earth. Closer examination of the satellite imagery reveals large chunks of missing hillside and some sort of quarrying operations, and my recent physical visit to […]
Irish artist David Thomas Smith weaves thousands of Google Maps screen grabs into intricate designs mimicking Persian rugs. Look closer, and these symmetrical compositions reveal global landscapes transformed by mankind. Imagine a carpet made up of aerial satellite images of modern infrastructure: concrete roads and rooftops replacing fiber weft and warp. See this artist’s “rug” […]
A small island off the coast of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates has announced plans to use the heat from burning trash to generate electricity for roughly 200 homes. Currently, Delma Island transports its household waste to the mainland, where it is dumped in already overburdened landfills. The process called “waste to energy,” […]
While some in the United Arab Emirates insist on developing unsustainable vehicles like this solid gold mercedes car powered by biofuel, engineering students from Dubai have been hard at work designing a more modest vehicle that should be able to travel as far as 1,000 kilometers on just one liter of fuel. Ironically, the team […]
With the advent of modern agriculture and technology, it is no longer necessary for most people to shoot their dinner. Yet the taste for the sport of tracking and shooting an animal has persisted, and in some countries, hunting is carefully regulated to maintain a sound balance between predator and prey. Working with the local […]
The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building standard devised by the United States Green Building Council often comes under fire for being insufficiently rigorous – particularly for large commercial buildings. Now a new version – LEED v4 – has been established. Taking effect in November, 2013, LEED v4 incorporates four new standards designed to improve […]
Construction of the Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia, also known as the Kingdom Tower, has been plagued by political, economic and labour issues, with the proposed completion date of 2020 deemed unrealistic for many years now.
Everything old is new again in Abu Dhabi’s Central Market “The Souk” where developers are inspired by the emirate’s not-so-distant past. Kinda crazy that the 1970’s can be viewed as olden times, but in the rapidly developing United Arab Emirates, thirty years represent radical transformation. Nestled in the base of the Emirate’s new World Trade Center […]
By appointing the Chief Executive Officer of the country’s leading renewable energy initiative as Minister of State, the oil and gas rich United Arab Emirates sends a very clear message to its own people and the world that they are serious about cleaning up their overall energy portfolio. Last week the UAE rearranged its cabinet, […]
Suntech’s financial woes may have an effect on solar energy plant projects like this one Suntech Solar, the Chinese solar panel manufacturing company that became involved in a number of Middle East solar energy projects, including deals to sell home solar panels in Israel and a bid for Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City’s Nour 1 solar energy […]
On a man-made Abu Dhabi island, fake wind towers heat homes instead of cooling them. I recently photographed a new housing development on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi. You can see it on Google Earth. The wind tower design originates from Persia. The earliest examples of wind towers, used for cooling houses, in the United Arab Emirates can […]
The Shams 1 Concentrated Solar Plant (CSP) in Abu Dhabi is the largest of its kind in the world and it has finally gone live. Green Prophet visited the 100MW plant in the western region of the United Arab Emirates earlier this year as part of a Masdar-sponsored media tour during the World Future Energy […]