MIT's work on a zero-carbon city

Imagine if the city of Boston were able to emit no carbon and no waste.

Today, MIT officials are meeting with planners of a city in the Persian Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi that will do exactly that.

It's part of a daring plan by the emirate -- the world's third biggest oil exporter, with 10 percent of the world's known reserves -- to transition to leadership of the world's expertise and funding in alternative fuels as well.

For the past 2 1/2 years, MIT has been working with Abu Dhabi on its Masdar initiative -- an institute for science and technology that will rise in this zero-carbon city. The first 14 professors for the new institute, nearly half of whom are MIT doctorates, have been on the Kendall Square campus preparing for the soft launch of the new institute in August and a first formal class in August 2009.

"There are very few relationships that offer this level of seriousness, and this level of potential,'' MIT President Susan Hockfield said this morning in introducting the daylong conference. Hockfield said the goals of the initiative mirrored that of MIT -- clean energy and sustainable cities, with the commitment and the confidence to make a difference.

The bold Abu Dhabi effort comes at a time when Washington hasn't decided whether to extend its own tentative support for alternative fuels -- a mix of tax credits and subsidies -- beyond the calendar year.

To Masdar's CEO, the lanky Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, a commitment of $22 billion to build the city and billions more in funding solar worldwide is part of his West Virginia-sized emirate's mandate. In the 1960s, Abu Dhabi didn't even have paved roads, he said this morning, but it had a vision that extended beyond its geological forture.

And vision without action, he said, is absolutely meaningless. "We are applying skill and technology to drive down the price of alternative energy,'' Al Jaber said.

Blocks away from a Frank Gehry creation, Al Jaber invoked the architect's name in recalling what he said when asked to build a new Guggenheim Museum in the emirate. "In Abu Dhabi,'' Al Jaber quoted Gehry as saying, ''you can do things that would be considered unthinkable anywhere else.''

There is an excellent NPR report this morning on the initiative here. And here's the official website.