UAE: Masdar development ploughs on

Masdar City, an eco-town on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, is only slowly rising from the desert and remains a long way from resembling the state-of-the-art project touted in glossy presentations, but other elements of the emirate's effort are gradually being fleshed out. Carbon emissions from a new steel plant at Mussafah are expected to be captured from 2012, marking the first step towards wider adoption of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology in the Emirate. Initially some 0.8m tonnes a year (t/y) of carbon dioxide from the steel mill will be captured. By 2014-15, the plan is to capture 5m t/y from that steel plant, plus a gas-fired power plant and aluminium plant, both at Taweelah. T