Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar Assad (AP)
Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, the fourth largest OPEC oil producer with about 10 percent of the known reserves, is seeking to become a center for the development and implementation of clean-energy technology.
Last year, the emirate launched the Masdar Initiative (masdar is Arabic for source), which has signed up major oil and technology companies, universities around the world and U.A.E. ministries to help develop and commercialize renewable-energy technologies backed by hundreds of millions of dollars of Abu Dhabi’s money. …
From its gleaming high-rise towers to its $3 billion marble-encrusted Emirates Palace Hotel, Abu Dhabi has long prided itself on being an example of what oil money, put to good use, can do. Oil helped turn Abu Dhabi from desert fishing village into an influential Arab capital. It helped build a citizens’ trust fund that is estimated to be worth up to $300 billion, whose investments are estimated to bring the emirate almost twice income as its oil sales do.
Now, Abu Dhabi hopes to show that petrodollars can develop innovation in clean energy. Access the full article>>
