The Next Time Someone Tells You How Extravagent Americans in Their Use of Energy

[MountainDon]

Tell them about this. Dubai is obviously not worried about using up petroleum products.

From an article from Building Science'''

Unfortunately, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, at least as far as building science is concerned, because what happens in Vegas from a building science perspective is rather good. Two of the hottest places in the world, where no one with any sense should build, are Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and Las Vegas in the United States. Who would ever have thought that Dubai could learn from Vegas?

The only reason Las Vegas exists is because of mobster Bugsy Segal, and the only reason Dubai exists is because of a pretty wise Sheik who recognizes that the oil is going to run out.1 The Dubai business plan is pretty sound,2 unfortunately, a lot of the buildings going up are not. They are not cheap, they use the best materials, the workmanship and project management are among the best anywhere, the architecture is second to none,3 and the structural engineering is state-of-the-art. So, what is missing in Dubai? Environmental control. It's something that often seems to be ignored or if it is considered at all, it is an afterthought that is "kludged" onto the project design after the primary architecture and engineering is complete. Sound familiar?4

Dubai makes the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz look like a slum. It is ultramodern. The scale of construction and development is staggering. The investment in infrastructure (power, water, transit, roads, bridges, communications) is unbelievable. You literally have to see it to believe it. Think of Manhattan, but new, clean, and with no graffiti. It's what New York City would be like if the Swiss ran it.

Complete article   BSI-032: Extreme Heat—A Tale Of Two Cities


Also interesting info; more on Dubai and how they struggle to produce enough electricity.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/business/2009/September/business_September472.xml&section=business


Remember this is also the place with the huge indoor winter snow skiing hills/jump.   

[archimedes]

Interesting article.

I live in FL and find it very interesting that wherever you go down here, indoors, it's freezing.  We're in one of the hotest places in the US and you have to bring a jacket or sweater with you if you plan on eating in a restaurant or shopping in a store because the A/C is up so high you would freeze otherwise.  What a waste.

[Onkeludo2]

Having spent a few weeks there in chunks of 3-5 days I have seen quite a bit of Dubai.  To be honest the comparisons with Vegas do not stop at the architecture.  Almost no one there is from there.  Things that are not legal in surrounding areas...yep, legal.

They are suffering from a bit of a split personality.  On the one hand, you have a ton of English and Scandinavian winter tourists (90F in the winter is not unusual).  On the other, this is the "Happens in ____, stays in ____" for the Muslim world.  Drinking...check.  Eastern European and SE Asian prostitutes...check.  Shopping for things you can't get in Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi...check.

To their defense, like many of the OPEC nations, they are diversifying in many ways.  Some have gone the route of environmentally dirty, energy intensive industries like aluminum smelting (Qatar and Oman).  Others have attracted major shipping, port control and financial industries (Dubai and Abu Dabi).  Lastly, Tourism is booming in places like Dubai, Abu Dabi and Jordan.

Personally, cannot stand Dubai because it is 100% artificial and there is almost no vestige of their history that has been saved.  Some of the others, in particular Jordan, are pretty nice.

Dubai is also building the first "0 energy" community.  The theory is that it will produce as much energy as it consumes plus enough to offset the embodied energy of their construction process, materials production and transportation.  My old company got the Engineering and Architectural award for that build but then lost in when they put the project on hold in 2008 and rebid all the segments after their construction bubble burst.

Mike