"Construction is under way on what is being called the world's
first carbon-neutral city, rising from a featureless sandy
expanse near the Abu Dhabi airport. Green as the city is
intended to be, some environmentalists have criticized the
project for deflecting attention from ongoing unsustainable
development in a region with few natural resources aside from
oil. The city called Masdar, Arabic for "source," will have
40,000 residents and be powered exclusively by the sun, wind and
heat stored in the earth. Project leaders are relying on future
"green" innovations -- what project manager Amer Battikhi calls
"jumps in technologies" -- to make the goal possible. For that
reason, many of the solar fields planned for the city will be
built near the end of the eight-year project. A 10-megawatt
solar farm was built first, however, to generate power for the
first phase of construction. Planners are also using recycled
steel and recycled concrete and hope to recycle and reuse all
construction waste. Waste that can't be