Page 19 - Solar Power in Building Design The Engineer's Complete Design Resource

INTRODUCTION

Since the dawn of agriculture and civilization, human beings have hastened defor-
estation, impacting climatic and ecological conditions. Deforestation and the use of
fossil fuel energy diminish the natural recycling of carbon dioxide gases. This accel-
erates and increases the inversion layer that traps the reflected energy of the sun. The
augmented inversion layer has an elevated atmospheric temperature, giving rise to
global warming, which in turn has caused melting of the polar ice, substantial changes
to climatic conditions, and depletion of the ozone layer.
Within a couple of centuries, the unchecked effects of global warming will not only
change the makeup of the global land mass but will affect human’s lifestyle on the planet.
Continued melting of the polar ice caps will increase seawater levels and will grad-
ually cover some habitable areas of global shorelines. It will also result in unpredictable
climatic changes, such as unusual precipitation, floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes.
In view of the rapid expansion of the world’s economies, particularly those of devel-
oping countries with large populations, such as China and India, demand for fossil fuel
and construction materials will become severe. Within the next few decades, if con-
tinued at the present projected pace, the excessive demand for fossil fuel energy
resources, such as crude oil, natural gas, and coal, will result in the demise of the ecol-
ogy of our planet and, if not mitigated, may be irreversible. Today China’s enormous
demand for energy and construction materials has resulted in considerable cost esca-
lations of crude oil, construction steel, and lumber, all of which require the expendi-
ture of fossil fuel energy.
Developing countries are the most efficient consumers of energy, since every scrap
of material, paper, plastic, metal cans, rubber, and even common trash, is recycled and
reused. However, when the 2.3 billion combined populations of China and India attain
a higher margin of families with middle-class incomes, the new demand for electricity,
manufacturing, and millions of automobiles will undoubtedly change the balance of
ecological and social stability to a level beyond imagination.
The United States is the richest country in the world. With 5 percent of the world’s
population, the country consumes 25 percent of the global aggregate energy. As a
result of its economic power, the United States enjoys one of the highest standards of
living with the best medical care and human longevity. The relative affluence of the
country as a whole has resulted in the cheapest cost of energy and its wastage.
Most consumption of fossil fuel energy is a result of inefficient and wasteful trans-
portation and electric power generation technologies. Because of the lack of compre-
hensive energy control policies and lobbying efforts of special-interest groups,
research and development funds to accelerate sustainable and renewable energy tech-
nologies have been neglected.

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