Green city in the desert

Masdar City will eventually house 50,000 people when it is completed in approximately 10 years, with the first parts expected to be habitable by 2009.

The city will also house 1,500 businesses, providing work close to hand for the inhabitants and therefore reducing the need for long-distance commuting.

The city will cover an area six square kilometres and is expected to cost upwards of $22 billion to build. The density of building will therefore be much greater than Worthing, which has twice as many people but covers an area of 32 square kilometres as a comparison.

Perhaps as a result of the high density housing, the city will be car-free and a public transport network is planned to ensure that no home or business is more than 200 metres away from a route.

The public transport network will not be along traditional lines; there will not be double decker buses choking the city centre. Instead, a light rail system and a network of pods travelling among magnetic lines will be built, perhaps inspired by countless science fiction films (will flying cars eventually be introduced?).

Power to the city will not be by fossil fuel (despite Abu Dhabi's rich oil reserves) but by purely sustainable means. Wind and solar power will predominate, with use of new design technology to reduce the energy burden of individual buildings.

Shades will be provided on most of the buildings as a means of cooling buildings while simultaneously collecting energy from the sun.

Interestingly, the entire city will be ringed by a wall, which is designed to minimise the effects of desert winds, while also reducing the noise from the nearby Abu Dhabi airport.

Additionally, the city will host the largest hydrogen power plant in the world. And due to its desert location, water supply is expected to be from a solar-powered desalination plant. Water demand will be restricted by means of new technologies and is expected to be only 60 per cent of a similar sized city elsewhere.

While the proposals seem utopian, critics of the scheme suggest that far from being revolutionary, it is no more than a public relations exercise by the Abu Dhabi government.

There are also fears that because of its basic premise to be a "green" city, it will attract people of considerable means and not be inhabited by a truly representative and cohesive community.

Despite these criticisms, the developers are unfazed and have called it "the most ambitious sustainability project ever launched by a government".

The development has a very important backer, the World-Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), who see this as a flagship project that will hopefully be replicated elsewhere.

For more information about the project (and hopefully reports on progress), visit the website at www.masdaruae.com

Paul Willis is waste strategy

manager for Adur and Worthing councils