Solar Decathlon!

[errantember]

Evidence of actual alternative energy focus from the Bush Administration's Department of Energy!

http://www.eere.energy.gov/solar_decathlon/about.html

Very, very cool. As some of you may know, I intend to begin building my own cob house starting when I return from Burning Man in 2007. In the intervening year, I'm going to get plugged into the natural and passive-solar building communities to get the knowledge I need to do it right.

Comments

[stnuke.livejournal.com]

Love the idea if the solar decathalon, but I'd like it better if they had to live in them for a year. Typically, regulations prohibit this kind of research, which is a damned shame because it can turn up all kinds of unexpected things (this happened to GATech with the AwareHome project - nobody is allowed to live there, so we learn nothing deep from it).

Me personally, I just want to build a concrete geodesic that's thick enough to not require a lot of active climate-control. My time horizon for things is longer - I've said for a long time that if I build something I'd want to try to make sure that it could stand neglected for 1000 years: because something should survive, and given modern construction it's not going to be much. I have to wonder if it's even possible, and it's something of a materials and location challenge (standard concrete, for instance, degrades).

There are...

[errantember.livejournal.com]

..cob structures in Yemen that have stood and been used for 900 years, but they do require some maintenence.