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Abu Dhabi Makes Plans to Build Oil-Free City

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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,378066,00.html

With those billions at hand, the Masdar Initiative has the resources to pour into ambitious projects. The biggest: Masdar City, an eco-oasis in the desert that will be entirely carbon neutral, creating no emissions and no waste.

The Zayed Future Energy Prize, named after the UAE's founder, will award a total of $2.2 million to three different people for an environmental idea, technology or project that has not yet been developed.

They're so cool.

Edited by KevinDW78
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Cool? Is that sarcasm?

No I was being sincere. As an architectural student, I intend to visit Abu Dhabi at some point just to go see all the wonderful construction that goes on there. Have you ever seen the hotels in that city? They are breathtaking, just as Clawg said.

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They're so cool.

"So sick" is more like what came to my mind.

Or at best, "so deluded." There is little in the article about how this supposedly "carbon-neutral" city is to be run, other than "by alternative energy." What alternative energy? Are they going to pray to Allah to move things around? There is a reason "alternative energy" is not being used much anywhere in the world, especially where it is not subsidized: it does not work. The fact that they're offering huge bribes so that they can "tap into the best minds" is testament that they haven't got the technology to do it.

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On top of what CF has said, the environmentalists will probably still not be satisfied. Even if the city was carbon neutral, building it would disturb the "natural" (meaning untouched by man) ecosystem of the desert.

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No I was being sincere. As an architectural student, I intend to visit Abu Dhabi at some point just to go see all the wonderful construction that goes on there. Have you ever seen the hotels in that city? They are breathtaking, just as Clawg said.

I was (also?) referring to the CO2-neutrality of the city ;)

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"So sick" is more like what came to my mind.

Or at best, "so deluded." There is little in the article about how this supposedly "carbon-neutral" city is to be run, other than "by alternative energy." What alternative energy? Are they going to pray to Allah to move things around? There is a reason "alternative energy" is not being used much anywhere in the world, especially where it is not subsidized: it does not work. The fact that they're offering huge bribes so that they can "tap into the best minds" is testament that they haven't got the technology to do it.

Don't worry, they will use oil as the "alternative energy. they will just call it something else... after all, isn't it their oil that is making them so rich that they could borrow the great minds from all around the free world to come build their city? but when Americans start drilling (despite the orcas that might be "angered" by it) their oil will be needed to run their own city. because there won't be much to whom to sell anymore.

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No I was being sincere. As an architectural student, I intend to visit Abu Dhabi at some point just to go see all the wonderful construction that goes on there. Have you ever seen the hotels in that city? They are breathtaking, just as Clawg said.

What I was going for - in case it was unclear - was the fact that they will be squandering gazillions to kowtow to environmentalism. That leaves a taste in my mouth so sour that I can't separate and appreciate anything else about this.

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What alternative energy?

There is more info in the video link story. Just because they don't mention it in the story doesn't mean they don't have something in mind.

Hmm, I guess I just look at it differently. I'm not interested in the environmental aspect of it. I enjoy the innovation. I don't understand why Oists often feel this way whenever the subject of oil comes about. Wasn't the whole point of Galt's motor was that it was a new invention that allowed cheap effective energy in a way that nobody had come up with before? Isn't this the same thing? What. pray tell, is SO WRONG with trying to innovate new forms of energy? If it's cheaper and easier, what is the problem?

Edited by KevinDW78
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What. pray tell, is SO WRONG with trying to innovate new forms of energy? If it's cheaper and easier, what is the problem?

The problem is the answer to the question "What for? The good of man's life or for the environment as an intrinsic value?" In this case, the answer is "for the environment, more importantly for the cause of global warming." Their motivation is what is upsetting. As CF has said, there is a reason there is little to no usage of alternative energy right now in the world: It is not effective. The money reward is merely Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the mountain, once again.

If there is an alternative energy source that is cheap and is just as effective, or more, than current energy sources, then we would have either seen it on the market already or people would be currently developing it, or at least trying to devise it. The ignorance in these people is the assumption that our current culture is using oil only due to laziness, that is, an unwillingness to be innovative. Their money is a carrot on a stick for a rabbit that is not there, at least, not for now.

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What if we had nuclear power plants all over the place and drove electric cars? Wouldn't that be cheap and effective?

It'd be cheap for the grid electricity, not for the cars. The cars would be slower, shorter, ranged, and more expensive by far. In the 1990's the government squandered literally billions... let me repeat that: billions of dollars chasing the windmill that is the electric car. Only to have nothing but leftist propaganda about how "the companies" "killed" the electric car. The companies did no such thing: The electric car was slower, more expensive, and had 1/3 the lifespan of conventional cars.

How many oil rigs would billions of dollars buy? You have to consider opportunity cost. Stop thinking like a science geek and start thinking like an economist.

Let me put it this way: when I look at the pyramids, I'm not impressed by the science that went into their construction. I'm horrified that a society would squander so many of their precious resources (expropriated by tax, no doubt) building gigantic and useless things that did nothing. That what science was involved was enslaved and made to serve the goal of mystic, life-destroying nonsense.

So too it is with the idea of a "green city." As "carbon" is absolutely zero threat to anybody, to spend gazillions to make a place "neutral" of it is horrifying, plain and simple. They may as well be taking their money and setting it aflame.

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It'd be cheap for the grid electricity, not for the cars. The cars would be slower, shorter, ranged, and more expensive by far. In the 1990's the government squandered literally billions... let me repeat that: billions of dollars chasing the windmill that is the electric car.

I believe you mean 'tilting at the windmill', as it is very difficult to run after something that doesn't move. Though it is amusing to imagine an overstuffed bureaucrat huffing and puffing as he madly chases a contradictory windmill that goes where it pleases.

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evil can't exist in the world alone, it needs some good to sustain itself ( "good has nothing to gain from evil (...) while evil has everything to gain from good" - A.R.)

Allow me this analogy:

Socialism promised and "was all about" harnessing technologies to make the masses rich! We can now see how technology indeed made the mases richer, but it took some acute minds to realize that a materialistic philosophy - branded socialism- was not going to work, and it was evil in itself.

Environmentalism's outspoken most accepted goals are to diminish pollution, make industry more eficient, for the sake of "everybody!" Many "green" technologies are efficient and would be desirable even in an "unbiased" free market. What it now takes is to differentiate between the efficiency and the green brand of environmentalism.

We all desire efficiency, and many desire -and need- it specifically to cleaner or less polluting systems. We are willing to pay for it if it works.

The problem is twofold: that some may pay more than those techs are worth for the sake of publicity or because of a sheer laws like fluo lightbulbs.

As the second generation of the materialistic philosophies that sprouted as the downside of industrialization, (the first one being socialism in all its variants) this new secular "science friendly" religion dosn't consider class nor nation, but species. One doesn't belong to the Proletariat or the Reich but one belongs to the human species, and therefore to biology itself and its host planet, mother Earth. I believe the set of priorities is well laid out: Gaia, the inanimate Earth is at the highest level, while biology next, our human species then, and our individual selves last. Environmentalism has literality materialized God, like Socialism never could. Now the mystic circle is closed: we came from adoring the earth and the animals, and now we're back to adoring the earth and its bugs. Marxism paved the way of course, by stating not only that we're alienated from those bugs, but that we wouldn't want to be!

Politically this can take two forms: By setting the social-acceptance norm to their standard (as it's happening today) or to enact more intrusvie laws from NGOs. When national or supranational organizations make all-ecompasing hard laws about it we have environmentalism or ecofascism.

But remember that they're trying to hijack the best civilization on earth, not Russia, therefore they're going to present each of their attacks attached with new investments in new technology that we might want to have ourselves.

Just as it was the case with Communism, Technology is a good thing, and they made masses think that their system enabled it - by force or magic

Now they're simply buying or getting arabs to buy technology they don't need or could use better.

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