By IANS
Abu Dhabi : The construction work for a Masdar City – a zero-carbon, zero-waste, green city – has started, news agency WAM reported Sunday.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, laid the cornerstone of the city Saturday and Masdar CEO Sultan Al Jaber announced a development budget of $22 billion for the city.
Masdar City plans to utilize sustainable technologies such as photovoltaic cells and concentrated solar power through an integrated planning and design approach and save more than $2 billion in oil over the next 25 years and create more than 70,000 jobs.
“We are creating a city where residents and commuters will live the highest quality of life with the lowest environmental footprint,” said Al Jaber.
“By taking sustainable development and living to a new level, it will help the world understand how all future cities should be built.”
Masdar City would require 200 MW of installed power and around 8,000 cubic metres of water per day as compared to more than 800 MW of power and more than 20,000 cubic metres of water needed by a conventional city of similar size.
The first step in the city’s seven-phase plan is the development of the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST), world’s first graduate university dedicated to renewable energy developed in collaboration with MIT, scheduled to be opened in 2009.
Masdar City is one of the flagship projects of the One Planet Living programme – a global initiative launched by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
One Planet Living aims at proving that it is possible to live within ecological limits and still improve the quality of people’s lives. One Planet Living communities such as Masdar City put the principles of sustainability into practice.
Masdar City would also be the home of Masdar Initiative, Abu Dhabi’s multi-billion dollar investment in the development and commercialisation of innovative renewable and sustainable energy technologies.