AIArchitect

With all due respect, Mr. Edgerton: 'Global warming' ISN'T "going away".

Even if one accepts the current models in use and the conclusions of the "scientific consensus", there is no human action - up to and including complete and instant extermination of the human species - that will stop climate change or reverse the warming trend. (For example, we have no control over solar activity - the most likely cause of the warming observed on Mars.) At this point, human actions will have a minor effect, at best, on where current trends peak.

Historically, humans as a species have flourished during warming periods and suffered greatly during cooling. (DNA analysis indicates that at one point, there were no more than 30-50 humans left alive during one of the prehistoric ice ages.)

China has far more coal than the U.S. and very few of the petroleum and natural gas resources we do. They will burn that coal to develop their economy and raise their standard of living. The emissions will dwarf ours.

How can it help to cripple our economies in what will be a futile effort to "stop" climate change?

Even if we were able to impose similar environmental standards on the developing world, it seems very shortsighted to propose slowing or stopping development in those struggling economies (not to mention the future generations in those regions who will suffer from the lack of, or reduced, development). We would, for a negligible benefit now, condemn future generations to continued poverty and backwardness.

Perhaps all this time, intellect and energy would be better spent on coping with and mitigating the effects of that climate change which is now inevitable.

The increasing scarcity of fossil fuels will force changes in our power-generation and transportation technologies and in our consumption patterns. The opportunity exists to change to sustainable technologies and habits, but an approach that embraces economic incentives is more likely to succeed than one based on a hectoring, moralistic environmentalism.

THE SOLAR IMPERATIVE

This document is based upon a speech prepared for Earth day 2000 by Dennis Hayes of Sun21. Revised and updated by Walker Architects February 2008.

The human organism needs to build shelter in order to survive. Human beings survive by manipulating the natural world. Humanity has a long and enduring history of major impacts on their local environments. These impacts have touched every continent and every nation. The Mesopotamian agricultural revolution converted the Fertile Crescent often called “the cradle of civilization” into the desert wastes of Iraq. We have long practiced the flooding of river valleys and the cut and burn conversion of forests into cropland.

We stand today in a new millennium and upon the threshold of great opportunities and greater challenges. We now have the power to communicate globally, build consensus across political boundaries and language barriers. We can now define with increasing accuracy the problems we face currently and in the future on a global scale. We have the power to reshape not just our cities, regions or countries but the entire planet.

There currently exist three related tracks to global disaster running in parallel. They can be defined as; Global Warming, Nuclear proliferation and the Population explosion. The consensus of the global scientific community is that human activity is a significant contribution to a rapidly changing global climate and other environmental changes. To complicate matters we simultaneously have an increasing number of nation states with nuclear weapons. Finally and just as serious we have a significant population explosion of global significance.

Human beings are at the core of global warming caused by greenhouse gasses accumulating in the atmosphere. Human activity of a different nature has inadvertently drilled two holes through the ozone layer. This is a separate effect with different causation from the global warming problem. Human activities of a wide variety have also triggered a catastrophic epidemic of extinctions – conservatively estimated at 25,000 species per year.

There are currently nine nation states that have successfully detonated nuclear weapons. Five are considered, under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty the (NPT) to be "nuclear weapons states". This conveys an internationally recognized status conferred by the NPT and in order of acquisition of nuclear weapons these are: the United States, Russia (successor state to the Soviet Union), the United Kingdom, France and China.
Since the NPT entered into force in 1970; three states that were not parties to the treaty have conducted nuclear tests: India, Pakistan, and North Korea. North Korea had been a party to the NPT but withdrew in 2003. Israel is also widely believed to have nuclear weapons, though it has refused to confirm or deny this. The status of these nations is not formally recognized by international bodies as none of them are currently parties to the NPT. South Africa has the unique status of a nation which developed nuclear weapons but has since disassembled its arsenal before joining the NPT. We have built an arsenal of powerful bombs capable of causing more destruction than an asteroid collision, with more coming.
The human population has expanded beyond the world\'s carrying capacity. We have a global population currently of at least 6.6 BILLION. We have not planned ahead for a population of this size. We anticipate continued rapid increases in the global population and the associated problems.

In short, our species recently has taken on the attributes of a planetary geophysical force.

ENERGY
Few human activities produce a wider range of impacts than our use of energy. Climate change – with its implications for agriculture, disease vectors, collapsing ecosystems, and (in the longer run) the possible collapse of the West Antarctic ice shelf – is an energy- driven phenomenon. So are creating acid rain, urban air pollution, hydroelectric flooding of river valleys, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. We are in trouble and running out of time.

Two billion people — 70 percent of the population in the developing world — still rely on fuel wood, animal dung, and kerosene for energy. These fuels can have profoundly negative consequences for economic development and the environment. In these 400 million Third World households, noxious fumes from interior fires are a serious health risk.

My here is to sketch the contemporary energy issue in a global context. Others have examined these issues in greater detail and the potential solutions. We need everyone to help. My overview will strive to provide a sense of perspective. My discussion is a bit different because it is a broadband view.

THE REAL ENERGY ISSUE

The world today uses commercial energy at a rate of about 12 Terawatts according to Denis Hayes of Sun21.
DEFINITION: (One Terawatt-Year equals the electrical energy output of about 1 billion tons of High Quality Coal, so each year we use the energy equivalent of about 12 billion tons of coal.)

Notice the term I used: \"commercial energy.\" This consciously excludes much energy that is vital to life and civilization, but is never bought or sold. The hydrological cycle that purifies our water and grows our crops is not counted. The sunlight that drives all photosynthesis is not counted.

If the sun did not shine, your home would be a few hundred degrees below zero when you turn on your furnace. Solar-designed buildings collect and store more of this solar energy than standard buildings, but all buildings get most of their energy from the sun. That is the source of almost all the energy on earth including fossil fuel.

The flow of energy from the sun is so huge that it dwarfs all commercial energy sources. Moreover, it is so dependable that we can take it for granted. The amount of sunlight is not at issue; the only real question is how well we will harness it. Is it economical? The answer is that if not now affordable it definitely had better become very economical very quickly!

ANALYSIS:
This is an analysis of the current design problem. Again, we currently use about 12 terawatts of commercial energy. How much energy will we need in 2050 a half-century from now?

Today, the average American uses energy at a rate of about 12 kilowatts. (That is all commercial energy for all uses by all sectors of the economy, divided by all the people in the country.) (year 2000 data) Comparatively the average Swiss uses about 6 kilowatts.

The important question is; How much will we need in 2050 42 years from now?

I want to be robustly optimistic here so I can defend the analysis. Let us assume that within 42 years, all the buildings in the world have been replaced by new, much more efficient buildings using passive solar design and smart energy-saving devices. I am assuming that the 2030 challenge is totally successful.

Let us assume the transportation systems have been entirely replaced globally by much more efficient new systems, and there is no longer any dependency on gasoline anywhere.

Let us assume that the world's industries are employing new super-efficient technologies that have not yet even been dreamed of, powering businesses as foreign as Microsoft or Nokia would have seemed in 1950.

If we achieve the sort of energy efficiency revolution that will be described in detail by others speakers at this conference, the average person throughout the world could be prosperous, comfortable, and productive a half century from now using about 25 percent as much energy as the average person uses wastefully in the United States today -- or roughly half as much as is used by the average Swiss. These are huge assumptions but there is a point to it.

If we accept these assumptions, and do the math the answer for the year 2050 is 3 kilowatts/person -- worldwide.

We need to look at the population impact on the energy problem. Meanwhile, what is likely to happen to population? Let us continue to be optimistic, and assume that the world's population levels out at 10 billion people. Note: This requires lowering the fertility rate down to replacement values (2.1 children per woman) for the whole world by 2025.

This means overcoming fanatical religious, cultural, nationalistic, and probably racial opposition. However, if we fail to solve the population problem – and in the long run that means reducing the human population to within the long-term carrying capacity of the planet -- we cannot hope to solve the energy problem.

THE MATH
OK, Let\'s do some simple mathematics.

(Population) X (kW/Person Total Terawatts)

10 billion X 3.00

In this scenario, which probably errors on the side of radical optimism on all counts, we will need 30 Terawatts, worldwide 50 years from now.
The question that counts is; Where can we get it?

OIL

About two-thirds of all unrecovered oil is now in the Middle East. There has long been something approaching a consensus that world oil production will peak sometime between 2005 and 2015 and then decline. Oil will be a minor contributor by 2050.

CONVENTIONAL GAS

Similarly, conventional natural gas will be a minor contributor by 2050.

UNCONVENTIONAL GAS

This is a very limited potential. There is a lot of methane stored in unconventional deposits, as \"deep" gas or \"tight" gas or in “geopressurized” brines. Such gas will be neither inexpensive or environmentally clean, and its many problems will probably limit it to a minor role in 2050 as well.

COAL

Although the earth has ample coal for coal to remain a major energy source in 2050 it is very dirty and environmentally damaging, we should not burn it. Let me explain; Thirty terawatts would require the combustion of 30 billion metric tons of coal a year, increasing atmospheric CO2 over today's base by about 3 percent per year -- enough to alarm even those who deny global warming and other climate changes are caused by human activity.

The other issue is that coal is even more unevenly distributed geographically than oil, so a heavy global dependence or a “coal age” would imply political difficulties and balance-of-trade problems for much of the world.

NUCLEAR

There is nowhere near enough Uranium-235 to meet a 30 terawatt demand, so a global nuclear power strategy would require a substantial commitment to breeder reactors the far-more-abundant U-238 into Plutonium-239.

Beyond the safety problems with breeders, they produce fissionable isotopes that can be easily separated by chemical means to make bombs. This much nuclear energy would require enough plutonium to produce several million nuclear bombs per year.

As India and Pakistan have demonstrated, and Iran and North Korea demonstrated recently, nuclear power, sooner or later, leads to nuclear weapons research, testing and possible manufacture & use. A nuclear armed & powered world would be a terrifying world where error or hostility could result in massive loss of life.

HYDROPOWER

Hydropower now yields the thermal equivalent of 0.8 Terawatts. Ultimately, hydropower is unlikely to yield more than 1 to 1.5 Terawatts. We should build additional hydropower plants with great care to safeguard the natural environment.

WIND

We could and should Harness wind at acceptable locations and such energy sources will probably grow to 1 to 1.5 TW -- the same order of magnitude as hydropower.

Incidentally, in 1997, more new wind power capacity was installed around the world than new nuclear capacity. Germany is now the world leader but more will be built in the US.

FUSION

Fusion reactors will not make a significant contribution to a 30-terawatt world energy budget within 50 years -- if ever. Currently this technology is beyond our reach. The first generation will be deuterium-tritium reactors with many of the same problems as conventional light water reactors -- and they are likely to run into the same opposition for the same reasons: radioactive waste plutonium breeding, etc.

Moreover, it is impossible to imagine ways such awesomely complicated devices could be made economically affordable.

SUNLIGHT

We choose to ignore the sun as the potential major source of electrical energy in the future. However, in 2050 commercial solar energy will almost certainly be our brightest energy source. There exists right now a solar imperative embodied in the basic logic of the design problem.

26,000 TW of sunlight falls on land. If we convert 1/2 of only one percent of that at 20 percent efficiency, we can harness 26 TW -- almost enough to meet our optimistic projections.

It is the only source available likely to be able to make a contribution of this magnitude.

Solar energy can be harnessed in many ways. I need to say a few words about what I consider the most promising solar prospect – a technology to which I have devoted much of my research and design effort as an architect: solar photovoltaic cells.

Solar cells are an astonishingly attractive energy source. They consume no fuel; produce no pollution; generate no radioactive waste or bomb-grade materials; have long lifetimes; have no moving parts to break; require little maintenance; and produce zero carbon dioxide – the principle greenhouse gas.

But solar cells are expensive. How do we make them affordable soon enough to complete such a massive, global transition within 50 years?

The model to follow is that of the integrated circuit.

In 1961, a company named Texas Instruments began producing integrated circuits for very small, specialized applications. The private sector heaped scorn on those early efforts. Referring to an early integrated circuit, a director of Philips Electronics commented, "This thing only replaces two transistors and three resistors and costs $100. That is just crazy!"

But the American military recognized the potential importance of small, lightweight, low-power integrated circuits. It proceeded to purchase them in such quantities that the price fell dramatically. From $50 dollars a unit in 1962 to $2.33 a unit in 1968.

By 1971, The year I graduated from high school, a substantial commercial market had been built for microelectronics; Intel introduced the first central processing unit; and the personal computer revolution was born. I watched this amazing transformation take place, and it can happen again.

Today, millions of people have more computational power sitting on their desks than NASA had available for the entire space program in the 1960s. This was possible only because the government purchased truckloads of expensive integrated circuits in the 1960s until economies of mass production began to drive their costs down.

The same basic strategy -- government and private sector procurement pulling the prices down the learning curve -- would work for solar cells (which coincidentally are made of the same semiconductor materials as computer chips).

A well-designed program to spend $8 billion on cost-effective solar cells over the next presidential term could make solar cells commercially viable for a significant fraction of all new electrical applications worldwide. Every US military base globally should retrofit for photovoltaic back-up electrical power generation. Every federal facility in the US should meet the same standard and operate on 100% renewable energy. This is a critical strategic advantage which we must acquire and the cornerstone of an enduring military capacity to defend democracy.

For pocket change – literally $1 per person on Earth – we could fundamentally alter the human prospect.

The world's governments should commit to buy $1 billion worth in 2009 at $3/watt or less; $1.5 billion worth in 2010 at $2/watt or less; $1.5 billion worth in 2011 at $1.50/watt or less; and $2 billion worth in 2012 at $1.00/watt or less.

Such a program would do for solar cells what Defense Department procurement did for integrated circuits. We are running out of time. We need a design solution. We must transform the American city into the sustainable city of tomorrow. Now is the time to empower solar rooftop power plant nationwide. We must drive the implementation cost down. I urge the AIA to support a bill to the congress of the United States to build the technological bridge to a sustainable future.

When large-scale purchases lower the price of a product, the change is permanent. Unlike tax credits and other legislated loopholes, economies of mass production cannot be repealed. We need an enduring change.

Part of the beauty of this "computer chip" solar strategy is that, after a few years, no additional government action would be needed. We have constructed a new industry around the capacity of the integrated computer chip and our technology is transforming the world.

But this initial governmental action will require a vast outpouring of intense public support. The oil energy industry is fiercely competitive and incredibly powerful.

Twenty Eight years ago, conventional fuel companies successfully crushed government programs that were aimed at dramatically accelerating the solar transition. Ten years ago in a talk with an oil industry trade association, the Majority Leader of the United States Senate dismissed solar energy as the "hippie energy source." Now we must overcome this opposition because there is a clear solar imperative.

ELECTION DAY

One important instrument could be Election day. The presidential debates will focus on a variety of global issues – and energy must be included among the most vital and critical imperatives of the new administration.

The election campaign of both parties must empower positive change, must advocate and deliver a new energy policy for Americans. Built environment must be transformed to meet the zero carbon challenge and with it we must replace fossil fuel energy sources with photovoltaic power plan with-in the next ten years.

Let us work together to make election day 2008 the largest event in history to change the course of this nations destiny and to demand that this millennium be a true turning point in our stewardship of the Earth.

We would be gratified if Western Europe were to make a similar commitment to create a balanced, healthy, sustainable future. If you are interested, get out a pen, write your congressman and the candidates of choice. Take action.

CONCLUSION

The world is entering a time of unparalleled opportunity. The East-West conflict that shaped and defined the last half-century is now over. It is possible now to dare to dream of replacing the Cold War with a Golden Age. It is time to design a new future.

One can envision an attractive world in which:

- all energy is derived from renewable sources powered directly or indirectly by the sun;

- the recycling of basic metals approaches 100 percent;

- paper is routinely recycled several times before being consumed as fuel;

- a stable human population eats healthy, low-meat diets that are within the biological carrying capacity of the planet;

- information-dense, super-efficient, pollution-free technologies guide commerce, transportation, and residential living;

That is not the direction we currently are heading. But Election The future of the city belongs to us. We are the change agents who can usher a sustainable Solar Age into a global reality.

The prayer that can change the world is what we do every day.

ELECT YOURSELF! ACT LOCALLY - ACT GLOBALLY.
TLW

Ed's most recent webcast
http://www.architecture2030.org/faceit/webcast.php
is worth viewing.

In it, Ed notes the immediate need to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere caused by the heating and cooling of buildings (within seven years!) precludes relying on so-called "clean-coal technologies" (twenty years away!). Ed also notes that we do not have the time or the money to solve our problems with nuclear.

We HAVE the technologies (through conservation and renewables) NOW to provide ALL the energy needed in our buildings without relying on fossil fuels or nuclear. ALL that is missing is the leadership and the courage to stand up to the "business-as-ususal" fossil fuel and nuclear lobbies.

I would hope that the AIA would continue to help provide both.

Global Warming will NOT go away without ACTION NOW BY ALL OF US.

Why is it that the AIA never entertains debate? It appears to have swallowed a generous helping the the Gore Kool-Aid.

Does the AIA have an official definition of "sustainabililty" and "environmentally
responsible design?"

The winners in the "greening" of B101 (and related documents) appear to be the trial lawyers.

The French, with their increased use of nuclear power, took the correct path long ago. We should follow them. Wind power can carry some of the burden, but the heavy electric loads will require nuclear power to replace the coal and petroleum burning plants of today.

We were traumatized by Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, but ignore the constant health burden that coal and oil place upon us; less dramatic, but far more dangerous.