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[Michaelangelica]

It looks like an upside-down Apollo spacecraft and serves as a testing ground for ideas dreamed up by the 63-year-old solar architect. The home slowly turns with the sun to charge a billboard-sized solar panel on the roof, and the waterless toilet emits an occasional malodorous whiff.

Hanna Lehmann, Disch's wife, says she doesn't mind these features but admits she'd like to have a freezer, except that it would eat up too much electricity for her husband's liking.

"I miss my Campari on ice," she said.

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POLITICIANS WITH VISION!!!

Germany as a whole has followed Freiburg's lead in trying to save energy, encouraged by the environmentally friendly Green Party that was in former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's governing coalition. In 2000, Germany decided to phase out nuclear plants by 2020, and it has adopted legislation promoting the development and use of renewable energy sources.

Renewables made up more than 5 percent of Germany's total primary energy supply in 2006, according the Environment Ministry. The government's goal is to increase the share of electric power from renewables to 12.5 percent by 2010 and 20 percent by 2020.

Wind energy remains the country's leading renewable source of electricity, but solar power use has increased to about 750 megawatts installed in 2006, up from 83 megawatts in 2002, according to the German Solar Industry Association.

The solar industry is now becoming a $6 billion a year business that builds more than 50 percent of the world's installed solar panels. About 43,000 people work in the industry, according to the association.

Optimum Online - News - AP News - German City Pioneers Use of Solar Energy