Abu Dhabi says to invest $15 bln in green energy

Stanley Carvalho, Reuters 21 Jan 08;

ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Gulf Arab oil exporter Abu Dhabi plans to spend $15 billion in the first phase of an initiative to develop green energy and build the world's largest hydrogen power plant, it said on Monday.

The investment would be part of the Masdar initiative, set up to develop sustainable and clean energy, Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahayan told the World Future Energy Summit in the emirate. He gave no time frame.

"I would like to underscore the government of Abu Dhabi's commitment to the Masdar initiative by announcing an initial investment of $15 billion," he said. "Next month ground will be broken on Masdar city, the world's first carbon-neutral city."

The money will go into infrastructure, renewable energy projects such as solar power, and manufacturing, to position Abu Dhabi as a leader in the global clean energy market, said Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, or Masdar.

The project includes plans to start building a zero carbon, zero waste city of up to 15,000 residents in the desert in the first quarter of this year. "Achieving a zero carbon city is doable," he said.

Abu Dhabi, capital of the seven-member United Arab Emirates federation, would also build the world's largest hydrogen power plant with 500 megawatts of capacity, said Jaber.

Masdar will hold a 60 percent stake in the "multi-billion-dollar joint venture," a Masdar official said, adding that the rest would be equally held by British Petroleum and Rio Tinto.

The project's engineering and design would be concluded by the end of 2008, he said.

Masdar has said it plans to develop a network of carbon capture and storage projects (CCS) to pump greenhouse gases into oilfields, reducing emissions while boosting oil output.

CCS, an as yet commercially unproven technology, should free up natural gas that is now reinjected to push oil out of oilfields. The UAE needs the gas for power generation to meet rising demand as petrodollars fuel an economic boom.

According to a U.N. Development Programme report issued last year, UAE greenhouse gas emissions were 34.1 metric tons per head in 2004, the third highest in the world after Qatar and Kuwait and well above U.S. per capita emissions of 20.6 metric tons.

Abu Dhabi signed an agreement with France this month for cooperation on the development of nuclear energy in the world's fifth-largest oil-exporter.

Sheikh Mohammed also announced the establishment of the Zayed Future Energy Prize, with an annual prize pool of $2.2 million, designed to reward achievements in energy innovation.

Masdar's $250 million Clean Technology Fund has already invested in different projects and Jaber said there were plans to launch another fund soon.

(Writing by Lin Noueihed and Inal Ersan, editing by Anthony Barker)

Abu Dhabi to build world's first zero-carbon city
by Laith Abou-Ragheb, Yahoo News 22 Jan 08;

Construction work on the world's first zero-carbon city housing 50,000 people in a car-free environment will begin in the oil-rich Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi next month, the developers said on Monday.

In Masdar City, which will be run entirely on renewable energy including solar power to exploit the desert emirate's near constant supply of sunshine, people will be able to move around in automated pods.

"This is a place that has no carbon footprint and will not hurt the planet in any way," Khaled Awad, director of the Masdar project's property development unit of the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (ADFEC), told AFP.

"At the same time the city will offer the highest quality of life possible for its residents," he said on the sidelines of the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Once completed in 2013, residents will be able to move around the six-square-kilometre (2.4-square-mile) city using a light railway line and a series of automated transport pods.

"They're like a horizontal elevator. You just say where you want to go, and it takes you there," Awad said of the pods.

Unlike the gleaming towers of nearby Abu Dhabi, a model of the Foster and Partners-designed Masdar City displayed at the summit showed only low-rise buildings with solar panels on each roof.

The city will be sited to take advantage of sea breezes, and a perimeter wall will protect it from the hot desert air and noise from the nearby Abu Dhabi airport.

Abu Dhabi sits on most of the UAE's oil and gas reserves, ranked respectively as fifth and fourth in the world. Proven oil reserves on their own are expected to last for another 150 years.

But like most oil-producing countries, the UAE also wants to diversify to ease its traditional economic dependency on oil.

The zero-carbon city, part of the wider Masdar Initiative launched by the wealthy Abu Dhabi government in 2006, is also a flagship project of the global conservation group WWF.

Masdar chief executive Sultan al-Jaber described Masdar -- Arabic for "source" -- as as an entirely new economic sector fully dedicated to alternative energy, which will have a positive impact on the emirate's economy.

The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed al-Nahayan, pledged 15 billion dollars to Masdar at the opening of the three-day summit on Monday.

"Rest assured, the Masdar initiative and Abu Dhabi will continue to play its part" in developing alternative energy sources, Sheikh Mohammed told some 3,000 delegates gathered for the annual event.

Masdar has also announced plans to build a 350-million-dollar 100-megawatt solar plant, which will later be boosted to 500 megawatts to help ease peak-time pressure on the national grid.

The initiative is also founding a university for future energy studies in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Despite its constant access to sunshine, only parking meters in the UAE are currently powered by solar energy. Even solar water-heaters -- popular in several hot-climate countries -- are seldom seen.

Other Gulf countries have a similar poor record in exploiting solar energy.

Abu Dhabi plots hydrogen future
Richard Black, BBC News 22 Jan 08;

The government of Abu Dhabi has announced a $15bn (£7.5bn) initiative to develop clean energy technologies.

The Gulf state describes the five-year initiative as "the most ambitious sustainability project ever launched by a government".

Components will include the world's largest hydrogen power plant.

The government has also announced plans for a "sustainable city", housing about 50,000 people, that will produce no greenhouse gases and contain no cars.

The $15bn fund, which the state hopes will lead to international joint ventures involving much more money, is being channelled through the Masdar Initiative, a company established to develop and commercialise clean energy technologies.

"As global demand for energy continues to expand, and as climate change becomes a real and growing concern, the time has come to look to the future," said Masdar CEO Dr Sultan Al Jaber.

"Our ability to adapt and respond to these realities will ensure that Abu Dhabi's global energy leadership as well as our own growth and development continues."

Technology bridge

The portfolio of technologies eligible for funding under the Masdar Initiative is extensive, but solar energy is likely to be a major beneficiary.

The hydrogen plant, meanwhile, will link the world's currently dominant technology, fossil fuel burning, with two technologies likely to be important in a low-carbon future - carbon sequestration and hydrogen manufacture.

Hydrogen will be manufactured from natural gas by reactions involving steam, producing a mixture of hydrogen and carbon dioxide.

The CO2 can be pumped underground, either simply to store it away permanently or as a way of extracting more oil from existing wells, using the high-pressure gas to force more of the black gold to the surface.

When hydrogen is burned, it produces no CO2. Eventually hydrogen made this way could be used in vehicles, though in Abu Dhabi it will generate electricity.

"It's important because it shows that you can generate hydrogen without carbon release from fossil fuels," commented Keith Guy, an engineering consultant and professor at the UK's Bath University.

"When you look at how hydrogen could be made economically, the route that many people have been looking at, through electrolysis of water, is incredibly expensive."

The Masdar Sustainable City, another component of the Abu Dhabi government's plans which is being designed with input from the environmental group WWF, is envisaged as a self-contained car-free zone where all energy will come from renewable resources, principally solar panels to generate electricity.

Buildings will be constructed to allow air in but keep the Sun's heat out. Wind towers will ventilate homes and offices using natural convection.

The fund and the Masdar City plans were formally unveiled at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi.