Professor Peter F. Smith is Special Professor in Sustainable Energy, Nottingham University, UK. He sits on the housing committee of the Energy Savings Trust and wrote Architecture in a Climate of Change (Architecture Press). In this interview with GPM correspondent Richard Scrase, Smith discusses the pros and cons of several renewable energies including wind, wave/tidal, solar, and Stirling engines and the pressing need for them.
"If we reach a figure of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere of 440 parts per million (ppm), we reach what's called "the tipping point" then. After that we're into totally unknown territory. There is a step-change in the way climate change will work... now at the moment we're up to 382 ppm pushing on 383. The concentration is increasing by about 2 to 3 ppm a year, so we're going get to that 440 relatively soon. We've got perhaps 20 years before we really do start to face potentially catastrophic consequences."
The latest edition of Architecture in a Climate of Change includes new material on wind generation, domestic water conservation, solar thermal electricity as well as international case studies, encouraging readers to consider new approaches to building making minimum demand on fossil based energy. Peter recently spoke at a session organised by the British Antarctic Survey at the 2006 British Association Festival of Science. Called Buildings for the Future, he argued the fastest reductions in CO2 could come from reducing demand and the prime candidate is the built environment, responsible for almost 50% of UK emissions. Peter states it is a realistic aim is to make buildings net producers of clean energy.
