NY-Times: A solar-powered city is about to rise in the Persian Gulf. Why not in the United States?
...a story in this week's Science Times on Abu Dhabi's Masdar City — a 2.3-square-mile complex that by 2016 should, if plans hold, house nearly 50,000 people working on next-generation energy technologies. No cars. Solar cells for electricity and solar-thermal arrays for the energy needed for air conditioning. Local agriculture. Waste fully recycled.
Ellen Dunham-Jones, the director of the architecture program at the Georgia Institute of Technology, told me the project potentially signaled a real shift in the Persian Gulf, which until recently has been focused more on architectural flamboyance than energy efficiency and the like.
It's notable to see someone somewhere looking beyond fossil fuels, just as Thomas Edison recommended in 1931 when he told Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone: "I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that."
Perhaps Abu Dhabi, at least, isn't waiting.
In the meantime, where's Nevada, or Arizona?
Read full at NY-Times blog
