Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
captured. But as renewable energy techniques improve, the costs of these sources
are decreasing. So many national and city governments are seeing the wisdom of
subsidizing such costs, especially through district heating schemes, such as those
that are so popular in Scandinavian countries (see Chap. 6). Also, the use of solar
panels is gradually spreading, despite their cost and their disadvantages in peri-
ods of winter darkness—although they have advantages in the long summer nights,
which would be even greater if more effective ways of storing the energy generated
can be created. In the new suburb of Viicks, outside of Helsinki, 40 % of the power
in one area of 3,000 houses is provided by solar sources. Perhaps the greatest ad-
vance in new energy sources and district schemes has been made in Iceland where
geo-thermal power
is now used extensively, with over 80% of dwellings in the
capital heated from this singular geological resource. Until recently it was assumed
that only limited areas on earth had the capability of tapping this potential resource.
However research by a group at M.I.T. led by J. W. Tester and B. J. Anderson (
2007
)
has claimed that there are far more economically feasible geothermal sources avail-
able in the United States, due to the use of new drilling techniques and rock fractur-
ing at depths well below 5,000 ft, making them a potentially important source for
even base load electricity, at least in larger settlements.
The third and far more immediate and less costly approach to adapting buildings
to winter is to use more careful designs to improve the
micro-climate of spaces
around buildings
, using wind tunnels to model the effects of different building sizes
and placements (Kuismanan
2005
). Towns in Scandinavian countries in particular
are now full of examples where small courtyards or squares are being orientated to
the south to maximize solar input and create suntraps with exposure to the limited
northern sun and shelter from the harsher winds. Indeed, two Scandinavian planners
(Culjat and Erskine
1988
) estimated that the period of comfortable outdoor living
could be extended by approximately six weeks in the sheltered squares through
careful micro-climate policies, such as those outlined above, with a main building
acting as a shelter. In Reykjavik a housing development has been built in a crenu-
lated form. Each section has three sides of open garden-like courtyards facing south
and connected by a single row to another open block to the south, which means
that the alternate, corresponding open cells face north, are colder and are used as
parking areas. Access to buildings in areas with extreme winter conditions is also
improved if entrance ways have a three-fold sequence, a solid outer door against the
elements, a lobby area to take-off/add outer clothes, and inner doors to protect the
interior against cold spurts from the outside. It is also important to
reduce shading
and
increase the sunlight into buildings
, which may not be easy in low angle winter
sun conditions. Again public policy in Sweden has been far in advance of most other
countries. Since the 1950s the Swedish national building code requires at least half
of the windows in new residential structures to face south, and developers of new
apartment blocks are encouraged to have apartments that run through the buildings
so that morning sun is found on one balcony and evening sun on the other. Certainly
these balconies will not be used in severest winter conditions, but there are many
days in winter, and certainly in the transition periods, where such exposures result
in a real bonus of extra daylight and exposure to the sun, as well as being especially
