Charlie Paton, from London, is managing director of Seawater Greenhouse, a concept combining natural processes, simple construction and mathematical computer modelling to provide a low-cost solution to one of the world's greatest needs, fresh water.
Where did the idea for Seawater Greenhouse come from? During the 80s, I worked in special effects, specifically lighting, and pioneered a lighting system that got me interested in photosynthesis, particularly how it is driven by red and blue light, but not infrared. Then, during my honeymoon in Morocco, I was on a bus and it had been raining outside. People were getting on with wet, steamy clothes, and condensation ran down the windows. I started thinking about using heat to make water, specifically in hot, arid countries like the one I was sitting in. I knew that using seawater was the answer, because it's abundant, but it's generally poisonous to plants, and even by distilling it, plants need more water than we could easily provide. The trick was working out not just how to create water, but how to create an environment where plants don't need nearly as much of it, yet grow better; the answer was using seawater to cool and humidify the climate.
How did you get it off the ground? Initially, I asked a lot of people for help and advice. I joined forces with engineer and physicist Philip Davies and Phil Harris, professor of plant science at Coventry University. We developed a plan to take the idea forward and, in 1995, built a pilot greenhouse in Tenerife to test it out. It worked. The crops were excellent and there was lots of interest in our idea. We'd been awarded part-funding from the European Commission, but when the project was administrated by the Agricultural Directorate we hit a major stumbling block. I believe we didn't get all our funding because they considered that European farmers would face competition from arid countries if our project succeeded. I appealed to the European ombudsman, who concluded that commission officials failed to supply reasons for not meeting our costs, but struggled to rebuild the project. In 1999, however, we won a Design Sense Award for best practice in sustainable design, and the £40,000 cheque enabled us to get going again, building greenhouses in Abu Dhabi and Oman. Do you think your project will change the world? In theory, our simple technology could turn the Sahara back into a forest, as it was 6,000 years ago. The question is, whether the political agendas of various countries would want that. It's challenging to convince people in hot, arid countries that growing tomatoes and cucumbers is possible, let alone a good idea. In many countries food and water is subsidised by the government, so we have bigger hurdles than our own funding to tackle, and need government approval as well as commercial involvement. But climate is creeping higher on the agenda for most governments and Seawater Greenhouse offers a different way of doing things. I'm not pushing a product; our technology consists of simple pumps, fans, cardboard and plastic tubing. I'd love to take on the challenges of greening-up north Africa and helping people identify a political language for sustainability. About 90 per cent of the things politicians talk about doing are greenwash: putting solar panels on your roof and recycling rubbish barely scratches the surface. Global growth and wealth creation is at the heart of the problem, and the consumption rate it fuels is unsustainable. That's why we'll continue to use our environmentally friendly process to create better conditions for life to flourish.