In "A Zero-Emissions City in the Desert", Kevin Bullis, Technology Review's energy editor, writes of a nearly empty, dusty building site in the Persian Gulf: "[It] is the start of a vast experiment, an attempt to create the world's first car-free, zero-carbon-dioxide-emissions, zero-waste city. Due to be completed in 2016, the city is the centerpiece of the Masdar Initiative, a $15 billion investment by the government of Abu Dhabi ... . The new development, being built on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi city, will run almost entirely on energy from the sun and will use just 20 percent as much power as a conventional city of similar size."

Nothing like Masdar City has ever been attempted. Although zero-emissions residences and commercial buildings already exist, larger clean buildings have never worked very well. ­Oberlin College's Lewis Center already has some of the features that Masdar City's designers wish to deploy on a grander scale; but the center consumed far more energy than its architects had anticipated, and only the addition of a solar array in a nearby parking lot allowed the college to claim, dubiously, that the building itself produced as much power as it used. Certainly, no one has ever raised a small city to these standards.