Abu Dhabi: Turning to the sun in the land of oil

Just on the outskirts of this Gulf city, past a refinery and a water desalination plant, the foundations are being poured for an ambitious project intended to take this big oil producer into the next energy boom. Oil, however, will have nothing to do with it. The sun will.

Abu Dhabi, one of the world's largest oil producers, is seeking to become a center for the development and the implementation of clean energy technology. Last year, the emirate, which is the capital of the United Arab Emirates, began the Masdar Initiative, a far-reaching program that seeks to rope in various companies, government ministries and universities around the world to help develop and commercialize renewable energy technologies backed by Abu Dhabi's money.

Despite initial skepticism and a few snickers, Abu Dhabi has sought to prove it is serious about clean energy. Masdar has already started a $250 million "clean technology fund" and begun construction of a special economic zone for the advanced- energy industry.

"We realize that the world energy markets are diversifying, so we need to diversify, too," said Sultan al-Jaber, the chief executive of Masdar. "We see the growth of renewable energy as an opportunity, not as a problem."

The project is not so much sizable as it is symbolic. The emirate, with about 10 percent of the world's oil reserves, could have a lot to lose from the adoption of clean energy in place of oil. Yet its effort is the most serious acknowledgment by a major oil producer that the energy market is changing.

"They've seen the writing on the wall: Where will all these places be post-oil?" said Virginia Sonntag-O'Brien, managing director of BASE, a center in Basel, Switzerland, that facilitates investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy. "It's their message that they are an oil-producing nation taking the energy and climate issue seriously, and developing their own economy."

By: Hassan M. Fattah