Housing

Reading the book The Straw Bale House got me thinking about all sorts of various housing ideas, or even environmental living ideas. my current first house plan has to do with a few shipping containers - even just three 9x9x40 containers makes for a fairly decent living space (that's 810 feet right there, plus another 270 per container) at a fairly cheap price. Of course, while shipping containers are similar to strawbale in terms of being a waste product (in the container's case because its cheaper to make them in China than ship them back empty), the insulation properties are completely different. Not sure which one is more expensive, of course. Strawbale certainly intruigues me, but I would have to know more to be sure what I think of it. I don't like having to worry about the straw getting damp, for instance. Who knows - I might combo with a container house with straw bale insulation.

While I was reading, Edelweiss picked up a book on self-sufficient living. We talked a bit about my tropical island scheme, where I exploit the ocean's temperature differencial for fun and profit. The basic idea revolves around the fact that even in tropical areas, as one goes deeper into the ocean, the temperature drops to 4C fairly quickly. What you then do is pump up the cold water in a closed system, and use it as a super heat-sink, along with other uses as a cold thing. For instance: Fresh water can be supplied by running the cold water through V shaped pipes, and collecting the condensation (this is part of why it is a tropical island scheme). Houses are cooled by the same thing (in fact, you probably could put the condensing pipes on the walls of the house). Electricity is generated using temperature differencial engines. Kelp farming and marine permaculture provides food. And then eventually the water goes back down to a little higher than it's original depth and is released - this cuts down the strain on the pump, as it really isn't 'raising' water overall. The whole thing is more or less sustainable. The main problem is initial investment - the pipes have to be coated on the inside so that seawater does not cause problems. When the cost of teflon coating is a bit cheaper, this may get a lot easier. (The alternative is a purely closed system that pumps the same fluid down to the depths to cool it, and then uses that - this may be easier in a number of ways.)