Dubai is investing $14 billion in building The World (a collection of luxury tourist resorts and private estates built on man-made islands). They are diversifying because their oil is in decline and it is expected their oil revenues will run low in 2016. But is this a sensible plan? In the future when the world is short of energy, the associated air travel, water purification and shipping of supplies will become ever more expensive so only the super-rich will be able to afford to live or holiday there. I believe the present construction is a waste of finite resources and the resorts will be mostly deserted in the future.
Without cheap and plentiful supplies of fossil fuels, Dubai will not be a pleasant place to be. Under natural conditions it would only support a small population of people used to the harsh conditions. As Dubai’s oil goes in to decline, it is expected that the same thing will be happening to other oil suppliers, making oil very expensive as supply fails to keep up with demand.
So to build a massive resort in a place that will need extraordinary amounts of energy to fly in the visitors, desalinate the water, bring in the food and keep everyone and everything cool in the normally unbearable heat seems a strange way to prepare for the decline of oil.
July 31st, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Dear John
I think you are a little naive in your analysis and assumption there.
All you need to do is to see the latest Megastructures episode from National Geographic channel on The World project.
It is not only environmentally sound (the episode says they have attracted fish to the region) but also there’s huge demand.
The way grand buildings work is they have a life of their own. When the Taj Mahal or the Pyramids were built, they were not built to attract people, yet they are the most visited structures today.
People will go there to see a phenomena.
August 8th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Debbie
Thanks for your comment. The reason I think it is a bad project is that it needs vast amounts of energy to fly the tourists in, desalinate the water, transport all the supplies and keep everything cool.
As the world becomes short of energy and the need to reduce CO2 emissions becomes more urgent, such a place will become unsustainable.
Millions visit the Pyramids and the Taj Mahal each year but only because cheap oil allows them to.