In 2012, the world’s airlines transported three billion people, emitting 689 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. To mitigate the aviation industry’s future environmental impact, Boeing, Etihad Airways and the Masdar Institute of Technology are working on a groundbreaking new jet fuel made from desert plants fed with saltwater.
Can there be more Masdars? Can this experimental eco-city be replicated in other Middle Eastern or North African countries that don’t have Abu Dhabi’s immense oil wealth? Green Prophet put this question to Anthony Mallows, Director of Masdar City, and Chris Chi Lon Wan, City Design Manager, during a recent roundtable discussion.
The international renewable energy group IRENA announced the first six recipients of concessional loans for off grid renewable energy projects that are “ready for the shovel,” as Director General Adnan Z. Amin put it in a press conference yesterday. They will receive a combined $41 million from the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD).
This is the second year that Masdar has hosted Green Prophet at the World Future Energy Summit (WFES). Last year we visited Shams I, the world’s largest CSP plant, more state-of-the art green buildings at Masdar City, and we saw an Estidama green villa prototype.
Remember how exciting it was when we first saw pictures of Masdar City in the United Arab Emirates. Masdar is the futuristic terra-cotta curvy buildings designed by Foster & Partners? Well, the same design team is behind the United Arab Emirate’s solar-powered 2015 Milan Expo Pavilion and it features a host of groundbreaking technology.
There’s something so satisfying about watching the seed of an idea turn into something real – like GE’s Ecomagination Center unveiled at Masdar City outside of Abu Dhabi today.
Last year, Israel’s parliament announced plans to run entirely off solar energy by the end of 2014, but it turns out the Knesset is going even further to clean up its act. The new “Green Knesset” project will completely overhaul its ethos to stand as a symbol of the country’s environmental revolution.
The current road linking Abu Dhabi and Dubai, E111 is said to be one of the most dangerous, which killed roughly 9 out of 100,000 people in 2012, but the new state of the art E311 highway will be one of the world’s greenest.
A central hub of innovation is great for incubating clean tech breakthroughs. Abu Dhabi has Masdar City, Saudi Arabia has KAUST, and Turkey will soon have the Ostim Eco Park. ONZ Architects strike the perfect balance between nature and development with their incredibly efficient green-roofed design proposal for the park, slated for construction in Ankara.
Nearly 7 million people have fled their homes to escape the violence in Syria, and 2 million refugees in Jordan and Lebanon face a wet, cold winter with nothing – not even a safe lamp to light their way. Which is why WakaWaka launched the Solar for Syria campaign.
An enormous flexible canopy of photovoltaic cells will shade the pavilions at Dubai’s 2020 expo, an innovative step towards greater energy efficiency for the international event, but critics warn that the workers slated to build the necessary infrastructure stand to suffer the most.
The same team behind SunGlacier, an extraordinary solar-powered artificial leaf that produces ice in the middle of the desert, has come up with a new concept – ‘Desert Cascades.’
Years after the plan was first suggested, the Israeli Parliament building will finally boast a large rooftop solar array that will give the Knesset a sound measure of energy security by 2014.
Gulf countries like Abu Dhabi may lack freshwater resources, but they also have a lot of humidity. MIT’s new super efficient fog harvesting material could help countries with climates like this capture that moisture for drinking water.
Israeli startup Gauzy has invented smart glass that goes from transparent to opaque with nothing more than a touch. Based on liquid crystal technology used in LCD screens, this revolutionary new product has great eco potential.