Earthship on ABC TV

[Eclipse Now]

Hi all,

"Grand Designs" 8:30 Tuesday ABC 1

Covering the off-the-grid "rubbish homes" built from recycled tyres packed with earth for load bearing walls, and coke-bottle & tin packed walls for internal private (but non load bearing) walls... with their own water & sewerage recycling & energy systems.

Living mortgage free, off the grid, no utility bills whatsoever, warm in winter, cool in summer.... ahhhhh, I can have my dreams!

These homes are a fusion between hobbit homes and something Anakin Skywalker might have lived in, maybe with a Spanish twist.

We could do a lot worse than give local townships the power to approve sturdy buildings like these.

Earthship Biotecture Sustainable, Independent Buildings

[lawcat]

So, back to the Stone Age. The big question is: How do we structure cities, factories, universities, hospitals etc.? The question is not, it seems to me, how a lone wolf can adjust to environnment.
By the way, I love the mountains in the background.

[Eclipse Now]

Yep, I'm with you... we've got to save everything and everyone or social instability could lead to a "Mad Max" scenario. I've spoken with real "Doomers" that believe society is going Mad Max in 5 years due to peak oil. I ask them why they haven't left to set up an Earthship permaculture farm? (Which CAN be internet connected and very warm and comfortable inside... that's a construction image above, NOT stone age).

They tell me, "What's the point"? The "Road Warriors" fleeing the collapsed cities will walk a LONG way to find food for THEIR starving kids, even if it is on your property... or somehow involves YOU. (Read "The Road"?)

So, a mix of these for a good start, but ultimately society will need a LOT of different solutions and I'm not a doomer. (Any more... I still think that a Greater Depression is inevitable but that's optimistic amongst peak oilers.)

A mix of renewable energy, rezoning our cities, RAIL (trains, trams, and trolley buses as appropriate), and some BOLD plans for getting off the fossil fuels quickly will do it. It will take government leadership, high technology, market responses, entrepreneurs (like Shai Agassi's "Better Place" electric car scheme being unrolled in Israel and Australia), cultural changes, business behaviour changes, and an "emergency, war-time economy"... but we'll get there. I hope.

Hey, if you're in the states why not visit one of these places? They have holiday versions. They're off the grid and are very efficient with their own water, power, etc... and so there is no utility bills. Sounds great! I must pay over $3000 annually for all my sewerage, water, and power.

[lawcat]

I just do not understand for the life of me, how energy conservation demands dirt construction. Can't we just build a house to look nice, from wood and stone, and still have electricity and water independence? Is that too much to ask, or must we reuse soda cans to build interior walls? Must we live in garbage?

[Eclipse Now]

2 words
Thermal mass

More words
Cost effective.

Eco-homes can be very expensive... this is a hippie kind of aesthetic, but some very corporate types are starting to live this way and say they'd never go back! They're durable, easy to repair oneself, go up VERY quickly, and can be a community project. The costs are quoted at around $150 grand for a smallish one, but that's also ALL your utility bills forever (apart from repairing pumps & equipment and stuff). Extra energy equipment like a small micro-wind turbine would off course cost more.

Besides: I like the aesthetic. Stones... yeah, if you've got the money and time for the increased labour costs and craftmanship. I'm all into New Urbanism as well. But we're talking about thinking outside of the box to adapt to a changing world, and I like this brand of thinking. No power, water, or sewerage grids for these communities! Amazing. The no sewerage is important to, because it creates a nutrient cycle flow that will recycle all the phosphorus, getting us ready for peak phosphorus occurring in the next 20 years or so.

Podcast...

Peak phosphorus: the sequel to peak oil ? - RN Fora Radio - 6 May 2009

Phosphorus isn't quite at the top of the list of fashionable causes, but perhaps it should be. Dana Cordell warns of a looming problem, we've become addicted to it and, like oil, it's believed it will run out.

Phosphorus has been used extensively for over 100 years as a fertiliser in modern industrial agriculture. The widespread use has lifted crop yields and helped feed the world's growing population, but what happens when production reaches a peak?

Highlights from UTS Speaks Eating the Earth: how should we eat to ensure a sustainable future?

We've got to think outside of the box to solve peak oil, peak gas, peak coal (2025 or just after?), peak phosphorus, peak fisheries, peak forests, peak climate, peak topsoils, peak metals, peak rare earths, peak fresh water, peak glacial melts (600 to 800 million people losing water across India & China), peak ground water (fossil water), peak farmlands, peak social stability.

But I remain an optimist. (on that thought goodnight, catch you tomorrow).

[lawcat]

Good night, and sleep tight. Everything will be alright. The title is entertaining: Grand Designs. ;-)

[Mercedes Benzene]

These may be incredibly earth-friendly, but I do not personally know a single person who would want to live in one of these. We're far too obsessed with extravagance for this to ever catch on as something bigger than a hippie community.

Now, what's more likely is that we'll make advances in green materials and build energy-efficient homes that look exactly like the McMansions that Americans love. The vast majority of people are not going to want to live in trash.

[Eclipse Now]

These can be extravagant!









Or cute.

[Eclipse Now]

Any Aussies just watch it? They already had bought the land in Brittany, France, 10 years before quite cheap. They built the tyre walls with the help of hippie permaculture activist types looking for some solid exercise, good food, new activist friends and a "learning experience" and certainly got that. (1000 tyres, 30 minutes packing earth per tyre, and that's just for the walls).

But in the end I thought the inside execution was quite professional, integrated, and beautiful. The finishings were smooth, tidy, nice, with plenty of country Hobbity-charm but also respectable. I liked it! The fact that they were pretty much mortgage free and utility free from here on in was inspiring.

Now the plan is to move to a country farm somewhere, build a few Earthships with hippie love, build a communal concrete bomb-shelter to escape global warming induced Aussie "MEGA-FIRES" (which act as a slow-moving nuke, well, 110km / hour is slow for a nuke!)

If I could only get the rest of my family to agree (the extended family stuck here in suburbia that is. Sighs....)

[Zythryn]

Quite nice.
We built our home with energy conservation in mind without cutting into our lifestyles. It is painfully easy to do.
Our home uses about half the energy similar homes nearby do with the same benifits. Then we added solar panels on top of that. Now we use about 10% of the energy of our neighbors.
With some of the building techniques used in these houses, I bet we could cut our use (before panels) in half again.
And yes Lawcat, we have running water and electricity