In a Radically Green Earthship

Earthships, like a lot of things that came out of the '70s, marked a radical departure from the norm. The brainchild of New Mexico architect Mike Reynolds, these houses look like the dwellings of uber-environmental aliens who crash landed in the desert and decided to make a go of it. Today, many of these residences are now offered as vacation rentals.

"It's extremely efficient, smart design for a building," Boulder-based journalist Rachel Cernansky, who stayed in an Earthship while visiting Taos, N.M., told Discovery News.

The Earth-conscious, autonomous, passive solar buildings are made from recycled materials. Reynolds designed his original structures using old tires, glass bottles, and cans rammed with earth that are plastered with stucco.

Horseshoe-shaped Earthships maximize solar gain in the winter while thick interior walls keep the inside temperature stable. Natural ventilation from skylights, windows, and underground tubes help as well. Earthships have solar panels and wind turbines that allow them to function off-grid.

Earthship Biotecture Reynolds' firm, rents out five different Earthship houses in Taos, N.M., for fees that range from $120 to $295 per night. Vacationers can rent a wing of the house or the whole home. Each home can sleep between one and four or six people. They all have private baths and full kitchens to boot.

Despite the scorching summer heat, the interior temperature naturally stayed at 67 degrees, she said. "You can naturally keep the building in the middle of the desert cool, in the sun, with no air conditioning."

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She also described the house's extensive graywater system as conserving and fully using every drop of rainwater harvested from the roof. The Earthship she stayed in had a banana tree thriving in the south-facing greenhouse. Water is filtered and recylced so it can be used in progression. 

Water from the sink is filtered so it can run through the shower, then it's processed again for the toilet, and the final filtration sends greywater to the plants. Sewage treatment is contained, leaving groundwater untouched.

Cernansky said she and her husband are keen to return. "We keep talking about when we'll go back to Taos," she said. "We were actually thinking about building one ourselves."

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Posted in: earthship,environment,green

The Green Dream

Green Dream: The Specs House: 3,500-square-foot, four-bedroom contemporary Location: Greenwich, N.Y. Project: Install graywater recycling Cost: About $2,600 ($1,400 for the system; $1,200 for plumbing) Time to install: 2 hours Eco-advantage: Uses household runoff for toilets, saving water and work for the septic system. 

Just because residential water is cheap and plentiful here in upstate New York is no reason to waste it, and the average household does plenty of wasting: A single flush consumes three to seven gallons of water. Inefficient toilets and long showers are two of the biggest water wasters, together accounting for more than 40 percent of the 350 gallons of water used daily in a typical American home. But my eco-home is anything but typical—its graywater recycling system can save at least 110 gallons a day. 

Graywater refers to the runoff from sinks, showers and washing machines (as opposed to blackwater, which contains solid waste). With some basic plumbing and a storage tank, it’s easy to recycle that water to flush my house’s four toilets. By using the water twice, I’ll also save wear on my septic system.

The setup is pretty straightforward. Water from the bathroom sinks and showers goes through a chlorination filter and into a holding tank, where it can be pumped to the toilets. (I’m skipping the washing machine and kitchen sinks, since they require additional filtering and I’ll recycle plenty of water from the bathrooms alone.) It’s not difficult to DIY, but the central challenge is monitoring and controlling the level of chlorine in the storage tank. Too little, and you’ll get bacteria in the tank. Too much, and it will kill the bacteria your septic system needs. So I’m using a new setup from a company called Blue Eco Systems that funnels water through a chlorinator to carefully control how much chlorine goes in. Carbon filters on the overflow and bypass lines prevent chlorine from getting back into the septic tank and the toilets, lest my bathroom smell like a swimming pool.

The system uses a pair of 25-gallon tanks—enough for my family of four—but I can easily expand it with more tanks if we have more kids or the in-laws move in.

How the Green Dream's Plumbing Works

Fresh water in: If there’s not enough graywater in the tanks for a flush, the system pulls in regular street water.

Graywater in: Water coming from bathroom sinks and showers

Graywater to Toilets

Carbon filters: Remove the chlorine from the water before it reaches your toilet or septic system so it doesn’t kill the bacteria the septic system needs

Chlorinator: Cleans the graywater to prevent bacterial growth in the tank

Vent

Overflow: Carries extra water out to the septic system so the tank doesn’t overflow

Pump: Sends the water from the tank up to the
toilet tanks

Flow sensor:If the system detects no water flow in 22 hours, it dumps the contents of the tank so it doesn’t sit long enough for any remaining bacteria to grow.

Four More Ways to Save Water at Home

Sprinkler Shutoff
A broken sprinkler can waste 100 gallons in 10 minutes when the irrigation system kicks on in the early-morning hours. This automatic shutoff valve prevents waste by holding water in the irrigation tubes if the sprinkler head is broken, saving about 65 percent more water than a system without one. From $4; dry-planet.com

Greener Grass
Most grasses in America are indigenous to Europe, so they need more water and maintenance. The University of Nebraska is developing a new type of buffalo grass, native to the U.S., that will require between 40 and 75 percent less water than foreign species like blue grass or fescue. It will be available next January. From 50 cents per sod plug; toddvalleyfarms.com

 

Low-Flow faucet
Install Niagara Conservation’s simple aerator in your bathroom, and choose among three flow rates—0.5, 1.0 or 1.5 gallons per minute—depending on your task. All three settings use less water than the standard 2.2-gpm fixture, and the lower two even best the EPA’s 1.5-gpm high-efficiency faucets. $11.50

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Posted in: ecological footprint,gallon tanks,graywatergallons,green,green dream,house,water

The Future of Green Architecture

Physalia A museum, nightclub and filtration system, Physalia uses its hull and rooftop plants to scrub away pollution. Physalia is half-boat, half-building, and all green. This mammoth aluminum concept by Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut is meant to travel Europe’s rivers, making filthy water drinkable. At the same time, the ship generates more energy than it uses. 

A coat of titanium dioxide paint brushed onto the silvery shell will neutralize pollution by absorbing ultraviolet rays, enabling a chemical reaction that decomposes organic and inorganic toxins. (It’s the same technology used in certain high-tech concrete that breaks down airborne particulates.)

As the vessel whips along, purifying waterways, it can draw on both solar and hydro power. Turbines under the hull transform water movement into electricity, and rooftop photovoltaic cells harness energy from the sun. The roof doubles as a nursery, whose carefully selected plants help filter river gunk, whether from the Thames, Rhine or Euphrates. 

But Physalia isn’t just designed to be a working ship. The vessel will also be a floating museum of sorts. Scientists who study aquatic ecosystems can hole up in the dedicated “Earth garden” lab, and tourists can visit temporary exhibits in a “water garden” or settle into a submerged lounge that could easily pass for a London nightclub.

Callebaut, 33, dreamed up the idea after last year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen shone a long-overdue spotlight on global water issues. He has some lofty terms for his project: It’s a “nomadic hydrodynamic laboratory,” a “fragment of living earth,” and a “floating agora” on a “geopolitical scale.” Others might just call it a cool idea.

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Posted in: architecture,boat,building,climate change,future,green,hydro power,water

Green Architecture

At first glance, the plans for the 10MW Tower have all the trappings of pre-crash Dubai: the improbable height, the flashy facade, the swagger of a newbie in a crowded skyline. On closer inspection, however, it’s an eco-machine. The A-shaped, 1,969-foot concept skyscraper is designed to turn out as much as 10 times the energy it needs, enough to power up to 4,000 nearby homes. 

          Three separate systems make it work. First, a five-megawatt wind turbine in the hollow of the “A” generates energy in the powerful and unpredictable desert gusts. Second, mirrors dot the slanted, south-facing facade, beaming light to a molten-salt-filled collector that hangs off the building like an ultra-tall street lamp. 

          Cooked to 932ºF, the liquefied salt transfers heat to a convection loop that runs a three-megawatt steam turbine. Finally, a two-megawatt solar updraft tower produces additional energy in clear weather. Sunlight warms air in a two-foot-wide gap that runs the length of the southern face. The airflow from rising heat powers an internal wind turbine.       

          If it were built (at an estimated cost of $400 million), 10MW could pay off its energy debt in 20 years. Extra juice feeds the municipal grid, and other sources in the area would adjust for the tower’s output. The building could house offices or residences or both, says designer Robert Ferry, 35, who helms the Dubai architecture firm Studied Impact with his wife, Elizabeth Monoian. 

          The pair became interested in energy-generating skyscrapers on moving to the United Arab Emirates, where there are superstructures in spades but few that are any greener than their brochures. With the 10MW Tower, they hope to someday create a power plant you can live in. It may sound fantastic, but, Ferry says, “it’s only a matter of time before something like this is built.”

             

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Posted in: 10mw tower,architecture,dubai,green

Antarctica Green With Grass

Will Antarctica be the next market for lawnmowers? The rapid warming of the Antarctic has been a boon for two native plants. As the temperature warms ancient peat decomposes into a nitrogen buffet for the Antarctic pearlwort (Colobanthus quitensis) and Antarctic hairgrass (Deschampsia antarctica).

           A study by British and Australian scientists suggests that one of those plants, hairgrass, is able to absorb that nitrogen buffet up to 160 times faster than their mossy competitors.

         “We think of the Antarctic as a land of snow and ice. But in summer, on the Antarctic Peninsula and the islands surrounding the frozen center of the continent, the snow melts and many areas become green with mosses and two species of native flowering plant,” said one of the authors of the study, Bangor University scientist Paul Hill in a press release from the school.

         “Recently, as global temperatures have increased, and Antarctic summers have become longer and warmer, one of these flowering plants, Antarctic hairgrass (Deschampsia antarctica), has become increasingly widespread,” Hill said. Mosses formerly dominated the two percent of Antarctica that can support plant life.

          But the polar regions, including the Antarctic, have warmed far faster than the rest of the planet during the past 50 years. Now the vascular plants are taking over.

         “Plants need nitrogen to grow successfully. In coastal Antarctica, most of the nitrogen is locked in organic matter in the soil, which has been slow to decompose in the cold conditions. This is now becoming more available as temperatures increase,” said Davey Jones of Bangor University, another author of the study published recently in Nature Climate Change.

         The researchers found that hairgrass acquires nitrogen through its roots as short chains of molecules, or peptides, produced early in protein decomposition. That allows the plants to acquire nitrogen over three times faster than if they had to wait for bacteria to break proteins down into amino acids, nitrates, or ammonium.

Mosses just can't match nitrogen absorbing speed like that.

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Posted in: antarctica,grass,green