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Design and construct new buildings and restore and conserve old ones. Their work also involves planning the layout of groups of buildings and the spaces around them. When producing a design, architects take into account all of the clients’ requirements and a range of other issues including: budget; safety; social factors; building regulations; planning laws.
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Plants use photosynthesis to grow and produce biomass. Also known as biomatter, biomass can be used directly as fuel or to produce liquid biofuel. Agriculturally produced biomass fuels, such as biodiesel and ethanol can be burned in internal combustion engines or boilers. Typically biofuel is burned to release its stored chemical energy. Research into more efficient methods of converting biofuels and other fuels into electricity utilising fuel cells is an area of very active work.
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A measure of the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of green house gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide. The carbon footprint is calculated using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method. This established method has been standardised under ISO 14044.
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Refers to the variation in the Earth's global climate or in regional climates over time. It describes changes in the variability or average state of the atmosphere over time scales ranging from decades to millions of years. These changes can be caused by processes internal to the Earth, external forces (e.g. variations in sunlight intensity) or, more recently, human activities.
In recent usage, especially in the context of environmental policy, the term "climate change" often refers only to changes in modern climate, including the rise in average surface temperature known as global warming.
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Ecology is the scientific study of the distribution and abundance of living organisms and how this is affected by interactions between the organisms and their environment.
The word "ecology" is often used more loosely in common parlance as a synonym for the natural environment or environmentalism.
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The first principle of ecology is that each living organism has an ongoing and continual relationship with every other element that makes up its environment. An ecosystem can be defined as any situation where there is interaction between organisms and their environment.
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A concern for the preservation, restoration, or improvement of the natural environment, such as the conservation of natural resources, prevention of pollution, and certain land use actions. It often supports the struggles of indigenous peoples against the spread of globalization to their way of life, which is seen as less harmful to the environment.
The term environmentalism is associated with other modern terms such as greening, environmental management, resource efficiency and waste minimization, and environmental responsibility, ethics and justice.
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A preliminary study undertaken to determine and document the viability of a project. It starts with a needs analysis. The study examines possible alternative solutions to a problem and recommends the best option. The results of the study are used to make a decision whether to proceed with the project. If it leads to a project being approved, before the real work starts the study will be used to ascertain the likelihood of success.
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Energy obtained by tapping the heat of the earth itself, usually from kilometers deep into the Earth's crust. It is expensive to build a power station but operating costs are low resulting in low energy costs for suitable sites. Ultimately, this energy derives from the radioactive decay in the core of the Earth, which heats the Earth from the inside out.
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A machine or device that moves heat from one location to another via work.
The common domestic fridge has a heat pump in it, which extracts heat from the air inside the fridge, and ‘loses’ the heat outside, at the back of the fridge - check how warm the back of your fridge gets.
One of the most commonly-available heat pumps for domestic use now uses the heat from the soil. The soil is an excellent heat store, and effectively stores heat from the sun at approximately 10-12 degrees Centigrade all year round. This type of heat-pump is known as a Ground Source heat-pump, because that’s where it picks up its heat from.
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| Hydroelectricity or Hydropower |
The capture of the energy of moving water for some useful purpose.
Hydroelectric power now supplies about 19% of world electricity. Apart from a few countries with an abundance of it, hydropower is normally applied to peak load demand because it is readily stopped and started.
Hydroelectric power can be far less expensive than electricity generated from fossil fuels or nuclear energy.
Hydropower produces essentially no carbon dioxide or other harmful emissions, in contrast to burning fossil fuels, and is not a significant contributor to global warming through CO2.
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An electronic circuit for converting direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC).
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Landscape architects, sometimes known as landscape designers, design, plan, create and manage landscapes in areas such as public parks, areas around public buildings, reclaimed industrial sites, new roads and motorways, and housing estates.
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The goal of LCA is to compare the environmental performance of products and services, to be able to choose the least burdensome one. The term 'life cycle' refers to the notion that a fair, holistic assessment requires the assessment of raw material production, manufacture, distribution, use and disposal including all intervening transportation steps. This is the life cycle of the product.
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Photovoltaics, or PV for short, is a solar power technology that uses solar cells or solar photovoltaic arrays to convert light from the sun into electricity.
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Help shape the way towns, cities and the countryside develop. It is their job to balance the competing demands placed on space by housing, business, transport and leisure, making sure plans meet the economic, environmental and social needs of the community.
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Planning permission is needed for most building works, engineering works and use of land. This is concerned with what a building looks like and its use. It is distinct from Building Regulations, which set standards for design and construction. Planning applications are assessed against Government Planning Guidance and policies in the relevant Local Authority Local Plan and Local Development Framework.
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Manage the costs of construction projects from initial design plans right through to the building's completion. They also deal with the maintenance, renovation and demolition costs of buildings and facilities once they are in use. Their main priority is to make sure that projects meet legal and quality standards, and that clients get good value for money.
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Energy derived from resources that are regenerative or for all practical purposes cannot be depleted. Renewable energy sources are fundamentally different from fossil fuels, and do not produce as many greenhouse gases and other pollutants as fossil fuel combustion. M
ankind's traditional uses of wind, water, and solar energy are widespread in developed and developing countries; but the mass production of electricity using renewable energy sources has only become more commonplace recently, reflecting the major threats of climate change due to pollution, exhaustion of fossil fuels, and the environmental, social and political risks of fossil fuels and nuclear power.
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A solar cell or photovoltaic cell is a device that converts light energy into electrical energy. Sometimes the term solar cell is reserved for devices intended specifically to capture energy from sunlight, while the term photovoltaic cell is used when the light source is unspecified.
Solar cells have long been used in situations where electrical power from the grid is unavailable. More recently, they are starting to be used in assemblies of solar modules (photovoltaic arrays) connected to the electricity grid through an inverter, often in combination with a metering system.
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Energy that is collected from sunlight.
Solar energy can be applied in many ways, including to:
- Generate electricity using photovoltaic solar cells.
- Generate electricity using concentrated solar power.
- Generate electricity by heating trapped air which rotates turbines in a Solar updraft tower.
- Heat buildings, directly, through passive solar design.
- Heat foodstuffs, through solar ovens.
- Heat water or air for domestic hot water and space heating needs using solar-thermal panels.
- Heat and cool air through use of solar chimneys.
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A technology for harnessing solar power for practical applications from solar heating to electrical power generation. Solar thermal collectors, such as solar hot water panels, are commonly used to generate solar hot water for domestic and light industrial applications.
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Most modern wind power is generated in the form of electricity by converting the rotation of turbine blades into electrical current by means of an electrical generator.
Turbines with rated output of 1.5-3 MW have become the most common for commercial use. The power output of a turbine is a function of the cube of the wind speed, so as wind speed increases, power output increases dramatically. Areas where winds are stronger and more constant, such as offshore and high altitude sites, are preferred locations for wind farms.
At the end of 2006, worldwide capacity of wind-powered generators was 74,223 megawatts; although it currently produces less than 1% of world-wide electricity use, it accounts for approximately 20% of electricity use in Denmark, 9% in Spain, and 7% in Germany. Globally, wind power generation more than quadrupled between 2000 and 2006.
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