Introduction:-
MASDAR: A PROJECT OF MANY MINDS
This massive project came to life in 2006 with the collaboration of a multitude of companies
and institutions. The Masdar initiative is wholly owned by Mubadala Investment Company, a
UAE international investment company focused on sustainable energy and resource
infrastructures. The project was originally funded by a US$22 billion investment from
Mubadala leading to the creation of Masdar Venture Capital, Masdar City, and Masdar Clean
Energy, and other smaller sects of the firm such as Masdar Carbon and Masdar Power.
The completion date has been pushed back from the original goal of 2016 to 2030.
Masdar has a highly specific end goal, formed by a daunting question: how can we make a
city where citizens expend the least amount of energy while maintaining a high quality of
life, while the infrastructure produces the most amount of energy possible without at all
affecting the environment in and around the city?
Troubles in construction of Masdar:-
The issues that were at the center of most of the decisions made during this construction
process were heat, wind, water, and sand. The city was built on flat sands which make for a
terrible foundation because the sands could shift and dangerously destabilize the buildings.
Other sustainable cities example:-
Another examples is the Arcosanti ,Arizona in the United States. The eco-utopian city was
founded in 1970s with aims and goals similar to Masdar city today including sustainable
living and an inspiration for future developments.Arcosanti was designed to attract over
5,000 citizens. However, as a result of lack of funding, the city remained under construction
till today and is threaten to be subsumed by the sprawling metropolis of Phoenix. Its current
population ranges between 50-150 persons only
https://digitalcommons.bau.edu.lb/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=hwbjournal
Copenhagen, Denmark,is notable green city with features like green roofs, electric
buses ,electric public transport, green areas, clean tap water and ocean quay with bikes as
primary mode of transport.The goal of the city is to become the world‘s first carbon neutral
capital by 2025. (Another aim of the city is to bring its carbon dioxide consumption from its
present level of around 2.5 million tons to under 1.2 million tons in another two decades).
One of the biggest concentrated solar plants in the world is located in the heart of Morocco,
Ouarzazate. It involves five different projects, which is spread over 10,000
hectares.Moreover, Morocco has restricted the use of plastic bags (and has launched new
ideas for extending the networks in Casablanca and Rabat).
Stockholm, in Sweden, is the first city to be designated as European Green Capital by the EU
Commission in 2010. Instead of building new homes for the people, this city redevelops old
industry area with efficient low energy housing system.It has the underground pipes
connected to all the buildings which takes away the waste in the form of hot water which can
then be easily added to in the network
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/1706/1/012141/pdf
Why Masdar City is the world's most sustainable city?
Masdar is intended to be One hundred percent fueled by sustainable power source, while 170
MW (53%) of the all - out power used is given by Photo Voltaic.The energy utilization in
Masdar City should be under 30 KWh per capita every day, a sum which is multiple times
much less than the per capita power in use in USA
A two-fold Energy Management approach for Masdar City is:
(i) Reduced energy consumption by using globally proven energy-efficient
techniques – natural light, insulation, window glazing, low-energy specifications
for lighting, smart building systems and appliances.
(ii) Efficient energy generation using novel techniques –
Redesigned Photovoltaic (PV) panels for solar energy. Unlike the Concentrating
Solar Power technique,where mirrors reflect sunrays to a receiver placed atop a
central tower which then heats up a heat-transfer fluid to generate steam for a
steam turbine; in the new design, the receiver is placed at the base of the tower
thereby eliminating loss of energy (in the process of pumping the liquid to the
receiver when placed at the top).
Car free city:-Masdar will officially be the first car-free city in the world. The city will be
linked to major location(s) in Abu Dhabi through Light Rail Transit System (LRT), a carbon-
free vehicle powered by electricity. The vehicles will accommodate up to six people and will
run on recyclable lithium cadmium battery.
Water Management in Masdar:-
With the long term objective of reducing per capita domestic water consumption, Masdar
City targeted along two fronts:
(i) Reduce water wastage by promoting use of efficient and smart appliances (showers,
laundry systems, and water meters), incentivized and informed water tariffs and efficient
landscaping and crop irrigation
(ii) Improve efficiency of wastewater treatment and processing methods.
The entire water used in the city is desalinated and made suitable for drinking purposes using
solar energy. Wastewater treatment is, done using a Membrane Bioreactor.
Waste Management in Masdar :-
For waste management it is, accordingly segregated prior to collection and disposal and they
are managed using vacuum technologies. The non recycled waste is incinerated by cases an
electricity-generating process incinerates the waste, which leads to release of much less
carbon dioxide compared to landfill. Bio-waste is composted and the end-product is used to
improve farms located in the outskirts of the city. Recyclable waste is, reused and the
remaining waste is, utilized in a waste-to-energy plant.
Smart Home Farming
Recently they have showcased innovative and smart farming IoT technologies ‘Bustani’ in its
Masdar City eco-villa, centred around production of food at home and recycling of waste and
water.
Monitoring the consumption:-
Near the center of the city sits a wind tower that helps cool the city streets by funneling air
from 150 feet above down to the bottom of the tower. Every night, there is a light on the wind
tower that lights up in either blue or red. When it is blue, everyone can carry on as usual
because consumption levels are manageable, but if the light turns to red, then that signifies
that there is overconsumption within the campus, and all showers are immediately shut down
and unnecessary lights are turned off. It will be the community initiative to improve energy
efficiency
Limitation:-
(i) As the article reports, the city only had 300 residents as of 2016, ten years after
the start of the project, and in the same year of its supposed completion where it
was estimated that 50,000 residents would live within the city with 40,000
commuters. But today, the 300 residents are all graduate students at the institute.
(ii) By integrating energy consumption with highly specified data collection and
analysis, Masdar City redefined a human’s relation to their energy. Activity was
converted into currency, and energy was subconsciously converted into value.
These systems were found to be a possible threat to privacy and a pathway to a
city governed more by fear of over-consuming than anything else. The “hidden
brain” of the city, where massive batches of data were collected on residents’
consumption patterns, could pinpoint specific over-consumers. Without proper
protections to a resident’s privacy, these batches of data could also be sold to
corporations for advertising and marketing purposes without the knowledge or
compensation of the citizens.
(iii) The 22$ billion dollars Masdar project is originally funded from revenues from oil
and gas exports. The question here is, how can a city that is funded froma money
made through selling oil to power industries that are responsible for green house
gases and harmful emissions consider sustainable
(iv)
Conclusion:-
It is hence clear that Masdar city would eventually be a base case for international cities to
pursue urban sustainability. Masdar city demonstrates that green initiatives can complement
smart technologies, trends and practices in oil-reliant nations and help in driving a dynamic
economic and ecological system.
The $22 billion experiment may have had good intentions, but if Masdar teaches us anything,
it’s that intentions are meaningless without excellent planning. And also, you could build a
new green city, but wouldn’t it be greener to fix the ones that we already have?
https://grist.org/climate-energy/the-worlds-first-zero-carbon-city-is-a-big-failure/
