World's First Zero-Carbon City: Masdar

When we talk about the Middle East, we visualize severe weather, violent sun shine and sand hills. Abu Dhabi is a part of the United Arab Emirates. Currently hostile area is being urbanized as the world’s first carbon neutral city named as “Masdar”. Engineers will use the skills inspired directly from lunar based conceptions which will help in heat dissipation, shade, gentle wind and clean air for the city. This city will be a exceptional example that will not use polluting technologies and fossil fuels for manufacture.Project is sponsored by the head of state Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan and designed by British architects Fosterand Partner. Construction has begun in 2008 and first six buildings of the city were accomplished and occupied in October 2010. However, due to the influence of the global financial crisis, Phase 1 of the city will be completed in 2015. Final completion is planned to occur between 2020 and 2025. It is assessed that it will cost US$18-22 billion and will take around eight years to build up completely.Masdar will be home of about 50,000 people, at least 1,000 businesses and a university. Masdar city aims at to achieve following advancements.

Transforming desert's utmost threat into ultimate strength

The most challenging task about constructing a city in the desert is that you need to account for the burning heat. That’s why engineers decided to make the Sun their major supporter, rather than enemy. They plan to take in a host of new solar expertise into the city, comprising centralized devices. These would work by concentrating sunlight collected by mirrors into a central tower, which would then direct a 1-meter-thick stream of light into various generators, for generating electricity. The whole city will be dominated by a large LED, which will be attached to the rooftop of a wind turbine. If Masdar city’s LED tower is showing blue then all power points in the city are running accordingly. If the LED is screening red light that means renewable sources of power are incapable of generating enough power for the time being.Masdar will still consume electricity for devices, some air conditioning and, most probably to purify sea water but when it comes to power the city has a simple motto "Only use energy when you have exhausted design."

Temperature Control

Masdar City has to be at low temperature but being surrounded by desert it’s going to be a challenging goal. Architects are focusing on building structures to make the Masdar city a perfect living place. Engineers of the developing city state that temperature in the highways generally will be 15 to 20 °C (27 to 36 °F) i.e. cooler than the adjoining desert. This temperature variance is due to Masdar's exceptional construction. From a distance, the city looks like a cube. It is surrounded by a wall making a well-defined boundary. The boundary walls keep the city compacted, a 45-meter-high (148 ft) wind tower sculpted on customary Arab designs is built which draws air from above and drives a cooling breeze through Masdar's streets. The location of the city is raised above the neighboring land to generate a considerable cooling effect. Buildings are clustered together to make streets and footpaths protected from the sun.

Contradicting the upward and outward extension of Dubai or Abu Dhabi, Masdar is compact like early Arab cities. Its Streets are narrow so that buildings shade each other, and the walls and roofs of buildings will do their bit to shed heat. The narrow streets are lined with houses close enough to shade each other, the vertical edges of buildings are fitted with screens to keep out the sun and to allow the gentle wind to flow through.An Other ideas being tried out in the developing city includes a circular arrangement of mirrors on the ground that will focuses light on a tower situated in the middle of the city. The tower will redirect the one-meter wide concentrated beam of light down to a system that collects the heat to drive generators.

Driver-less Vehicles

Cars will not be permissible in the Masdar city. With no conventional automobiles, the quality of air in the city will be excellent, guaranteeing protection, healthiness and contentment.” At street level it is all pedestrian and the planners have done their best to make the city compact and foot-friendly. But if tiredness overhauls you, then use underground transportation system. It can be Private Rapid Transit, introducing pod-cars. These busses will not be driven by man instead will be directed by magnetic sensors and go wherever you tell them to, but stop immediately if an obstacle is in the way.

These solar-powered cars would run under the city like a underpass system. Basically, they’ll take you wherever you wanted to go. “It’s a modest automobile for six travelers. It is designed like a car but it is powered by solar energy with batteries.

Water Recycling

The city developers say that 80% of water will be recycled. This calls for a change in thinking, says Peter Sharratt, who works with the British energy consulting firm. The plan is to reuse water as many times as conceivable. One idea includes capturing the remains of watering crops, called irrigation recovery. It works like used water goes through the top 2 or 3 feet of soil and accomplishes plants needs and underground collection systems recover whatever water is left over. That water then can be used on other day or directed for any other purpose. 

Dealing with Waste Management

Another main objective is to be the first city where leftover is transformed to energy and reduced to zero. In reality it could come very close to zero but not exactly zero because some stuff just can't be converted to energy or recycled. But when it comes to human waste it will all be repurposed. Ideally drain sludge will again go for a waste-to-power scheme. This approach to reuse or recycle as much as possible involves a challenging scheduling. McGuigan, the construction manager, says he is persistently looking for materials that can be reprocessed.

The goal to build a city of about 50,000 without depending on dirty technologies and fossil fuels appears to be challenging. Given that the construction site is located in a country that yields massive volumes of oil every day makes it more fascinating. Its architects and designers say that whole complex will be powered up by numerous forms of renewable energy, including solar and wind power. In Abu Dhabi there an area of nothing but wind swept desert. But 10 years from now if all goes according to strategy the project called Masdar City will burn no gas or oil, so its influence to greenhouse gases will be negligible. The future success of the project will be clear to see that how much success is accomplished.