Dubai Burj al-Taqa skyscraper to generate all its own energy

A skyscraper in Dubai is being designed so that it generates all of its energy through renewable means such as wind turbines and solar panels. On top of the tower will be a 200 foot turbine that harnesses the power of the wind, and an array of solar panels on the roof and a series of islands that stretches over 161,459 square feet. The tower will also feature a massive solar shield to protect it from the sun, and vacuum glazed glass that will reduce the amount of heat absorbed from the extreme temperatures (up to 50 degrees C / 122 degrees F), presumably meaning less reliance on traditional air conditioning. Talking of air conditioning, the main system for cooling the air inside the tower uses a convection system which pulls in cold air at the ground level, and sucks it up out of the top of the tower. The air conditioning will use seawater, and underground cooling units lower the temperature inside to 18 degrees C / 64.4 degrees F. This building may be a technological beacon for environmentally friendly skyscrapers, but as a commenter on metaefficient points out, new building designs don't do much to solve the inefficiency of older buildings in cities. Although that doesn't mean we can't imagine what it'd be like to work and live in a sea of glass and metal without feeling slightly bad about it.

[Via Metaefficient]

[james @ May 14th 2007 8:44AM]

Hahahah lol thats clever. Hadn't thought of that one yet lol. Thumbs up to you!

[elan @ May 14th 2007 8:45AM]

Irresponsible?

[Kei @ May 14th 2007 8:45AM]

That tower looks like a total rip off of Qatar (Doha)'s Spiral Tower.

[Argot @ May 14th 2007 8:48AM]

Looks like the building "Turning Torso" in Malmoe - Sweden (link to pic below)
Wonder if it's the same architect?

http://www.dac.dk/db/filarkiv/5105/turning_torso_1.jpg

[Elliot @ May 14th 2007 9:37AM]

Argot- The architect of the 'turning torso' is Santiago Calatrava. Eckhard Gerber is the architect of this building. The resemblence probably stems from the fact that the torqued tower form seems to be in vogue these days.

[Gil @ May 14th 2007 8:51AM]

From the looks of it if the world infrastructure disapears this tower can still function normally. That's quite a feat.

[Salem @ May 14th 2007 9:27AM]

For those of you interested, Burj al-Taqa roughly translates to 'tower of energy'

[John @ May 14th 2007 9:31AM]

Regarding the comment in the article: "but as a commenter on metaefficient points out, new building designs don't do much to solve the inefficiency of older buildings in cities."
From a civil engineering standpoint, it seems silly to me that a new building would be designed with technology that improves efficiency in existing buildings. Why would you build something with a known problem and install a patch to that problem when you have the opportunity to build a far superior system to start?

The only reason new technologies must be developed to improve energy efficiency in existing buildings is because they are inefficent. If you can build an efficient building to start, you save time and resources, making it even more efficient than the alternative.

[spam_from_engadget @ May 14th 2007 9:34AM]

Well Dubai certainly seems like a more sensible place to clad your office building with solar cells than Manchester! Though actually being quite a lot nearer the equator the vertically-mounted panels don't have the ideal orientation in the middle of the day.

And why do they need to keep the temperature down at 18 C ? Can you imagine walking in from the street into that? I am reminded of Hong Kong, where I had to carry a warm coat around with me all the time to put on whenever I went inside.

[TVGenius @ May 14th 2007 11:50AM]

Trust me. I live in southwest Arizona... when it's 122 outside here, tell me you wouldn't want 68 inside.

[Karl @ May 14th 2007 9:43AM]

Huh - look at them go with their alternative energy...
And they actually have oil over there...

Ummmmm... shouldn't the US really be the ones looking for alternatives like this? Oh, that's right, Big Oil Bribes...

[AG @ May 14th 2007 9:55AM]

Kudos, even an attempt at conservation and efficiency deserves our praise. The multiple systems working in partnership to achieve this are an example of how we can do this "now", without having to wait for some miracle system.

[Tawakol @ May 14th 2007 10:26AM]

For those of you who don't know arabic, Taqa means energy. So its literal translation is the Tower of Energy (hmm, its sounds kinda weird to me in English :P)

Just my 2 cents :)

[JJ @ May 14th 2007 10:29AM]

Well you guys are missing a lot then.... there is a twin tower that is almost complete in Bahrain, next door to Dubai, thats called (surprise surprise) the "WTC" and uses wind powered technology... check it out

http://bahrainwtc.com/

[[e-mail] @ May 14th 2007 10:44AM]

Wonderfull.
I hope this sparks a lot of copying from the West.

[iptydafu @ May 14th 2007 10:45AM]

And when the lawn gets out of hand, they can just lay it on its side and mow it in half the time.

[ramy azzam @ May 14th 2007 10:54AM]

@ spam_from_engadget... I've lived in Dubai, in the summer it's intolerable to walk around in the streets, so people don't get to walk around that often, except maybe at the beach, so basically almost every means of transportation is air conditioned, the temperature fluctuation is hardly noticeable...

@ Karl... the idea here is not search for alternative sources of energy per se rather than searching for "environment friendly" sources of energy which, in this case, is obviously an alternative to oil...

[apeguero @ May 14th 2007 11:06AM]

This is Al Gore's new home. The way that man travels around, he sure as hell could use the energy efficiency of this building to off-set his carbon-credits.

[Jeff @ May 14th 2007 11:29AM]

There's a lesson here somewhere... Dubai makes all of its money selling oil and then uses that money to build structures which don't require it. Could you possibly ask for a clearer example of something we should learn from (and yet won't)?

[andy c @ May 14th 2007 11:47AM]

Actually oil represents about 3% of the UAE revenue. Their oil reserves are also expected to be dry in about 20 years. They know this, which is why you have seen them going around spending all of their oil money on other investments in the past few years. They have been trying to diversify. This tower is meant to get attention (which I guess it rightfully deserves) so people just think of Dubai in a good way which might bring more business and tourism to the state. Whether the energy savings in the long run are greater than the extra construction costs which would save them money, I have no idea. But good luck to them anyways.

apc

[Andy @ May 14th 2007 11:45AM]

Hmm... Interesting idea, although has anyone actually figured out how much energy will go into the process of BUILDING the structure? Solar power is an extremely inefficient method of saving energy, since it usually takes more burning of fossil fuels to create solar panels than they save in the long run. I would imagine that this tower would have similar drawbacks.

[spam_from_engadget @ May 14th 2007 11:57AM]

Well I don't know what those numbers mean, but my experience of the U.S., Australia and Hong Kong has been that I have needed to carry around a warm coat to put on when I enter air conditioned buildings. I have the impression that there is some "status" associated with having your building colder than your competitors, like having an unnecessarily-large car to prove how rich you are.

Right now, here in my house it's 21.5 C. It would be more comfortable if it were a couple of degrees warmer. 18 C is a ridiculously cold temperature.

[Sotheby @ May 14th 2007 11:52AM]

I totally disagree that this proposed tower is a rip-off of the Calatrava Turning Torso. If anything, it looks like an exact replica of the IM Hyperboloid that was proposed to go where the current Met Life tower resides, adjacent to Grand Central. Take a look:

http://www.pcfandp.com/a/v/tb/body_00hy.html

[Omar @ May 14th 2007 11:58AM]

Though this has been mentioned before, and allowing for a translator's liberty, "Taqa" as it was written could be translated as "energy," "strength" (usually not in this context), but best of all "power." Thus Dubai will have, yes, "The Tower of Power." Though I would put it past them to not notice that at all, and it will likely be translated as the previous posts mentioned.

[Eddie Lee @ Sep 11th 2007 9:57PM]

Hello,
we are selling our Burj skyscraper domain names for whatever price
they go for & thought you might be interested, here’s ebay link:

1: BurjSkyscraper.com
2: BurjSales.com

http://cgi.ebay.com/BURJ-DUBAI-domain-names-business-investment-com-website_W0QQitemZ250163683100QQihZ015QQcategoryZ46689QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

We’re changing direction of our business and letting go all our Dubai
domains, therefore here’s a perfect chance for someone to take over
these great domains.

___________________________________________________
Eddie Lee
[e-mail]

[SumYungGai @ May 14th 2007 1:10PM]

"Ala-Aqbar skyscraper to generate its own energy" -- *COUGH* and more importantly all the $3.50 per gallon gas bought by the U.S. and China from those sheiks is what generated this tower.

Electric cars, "energy efficient" houses - its all BULL$HIT.. The dirty truth is this: its really all just "pollution ELSEWHERE"

[Andy @ May 14th 2007 3:05PM]

Actually, electric cars (or, even more appropriately HYBRID cars) are extremely efficient at delivering the required torque for driving than combustion engines. While petroleum stores a massive amount of energy, combustion engines waste much of that energy when trying to convert it to torque. It is great, however, for storing energy.

Hybrid technology works so well because the weaknesses in each engine are countered by the strengths in the other engine. So while there is still pollution, the energy is definitely being used more efficiently.

[Fred Thompson @ May 14th 2007 1:58PM]

"we can't imagine what it'd be like to work and live in a sea of glass and metal without feeling slightly bad about it."

Oh, puhleeease, spare us your self-congratulatory angst. Dig a hole in the ground and blog from there, you fake.

[John @ May 14th 2007 3:45PM]

Actually Andy, in the last few years, solar cells have gone positive: producing more energy than it takes to creat them. There is also a big push in the scientific world to clean up the materials with which they are made.

As for Sum YungGai's comment: though is it vital to consider the polution being created by any process, electricity generation is still more efficient than individual power sources (electric car vs. gas-powered, for example. plus there are many relatively clean sources of energy (my computer is presently being powered by niagara falls for example). Just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean it's not an improvement.

[Tom @ May 14th 2007 3:50PM]

Interesting... a completely self-contained electric ecosystem, almost like a living thing. Now all we need to do is give it the ability to repair itself and speak, so 800,000 years from now the mutant people will worship it as a god.

[TAJ @ May 14th 2007 6:18PM]

While a commendable effort to have a clean energy building, imagine all the pollution that goes into manufacturing all the building supplies, and all the pollution from the machines and vehicles that are needed to build it.

Clean energy needs to be a process, not an end result.

But still a step in the right direction!

[Nathan @ May 14th 2007 8:12PM]

Why 18 degrees C they could save a lot of power by making it 4 degrees warmer and it would probably not be noticeable compared to outside.

[WareWolf @ May 17th 2007 9:30PM]

Yeah, lets get alot of skyscrapers in all the muslim nations.. Maybe we could 'hire' Ronald McDonald to fly a pig-shaped plane into one, talk about the fun we'll have.

[mark erceg @ Nov 15th 2007 5:59PM]

Hallo Dubai!
The Skayscraper in Dubai ist the best high Building
of the World. 900 meter high? And Chicagos "Sears"
is a just 350 meter high! This is a big diference!
But Dubai need one new "Sears" Skyscraper from
3.450 meter. 10 Chicagos "Sears." The Chicagos
"Sears" is old, but very beautiful Building!
Dubai need one new "Sears", but most biger!
The Building "Sears" is beder als Burj, not
a complicade in Architecture! Very simple,
and this is very important and modern.
"Sears" is a old Skyscrepar, but very
modern with Design! Most beder als Burj!
Dubai need one new "Sears", but most,
most biger als Chicagos "Sears."
Thank You! Mark!