Half buried in the dry, red earth of New Mexico, are a series of buildings, unconventional in appearance and radical in design. They’re Earthships — sustainable, self-sufficient homes — and the 50 or so that are scattered outside the New Mexico town of Taos constitute the Earthship world community.

Earthships are the brainchild of Michael Reynolds, a motorcycle-riding son of the counter-culture movement of the 1960s and 1970’s. Having trained as an architect in Cincinnati he moved to New Mexico to experiment with his designs, ride motorcycles and avoid the Vietnam War.

From building houses using aluminum cans in the 1970’s to the state-of-the-art Earthships currently being built around the world, Reynolds has devoted his life to building self-sufficient homes. It’s been an evolutionary process.

Steel and aluminum cans, tires and other reclaimed materials are all used in Earthships, but they are far from primitive frontier cabins. Rather they are self-sufficient, off-grid homes that provide their own water, power and heating.

Long time residents of Taos, Tony Marvin and his partner Katy Grabel are recent converts to Earthships, which seem to be a way or life as much as a place to live.

“Having been here for more than 18 months now, it really has exceeded all our expectations. It really is quite an art form, and we’re not roughing it by any means. Reports are that it is the best functioning Earthship to date utilizing all the latest technology,” says Marvin.

Self-sufficiency at heart

All Earthships are built around a few core concepts.

Water is collected from rain or snowfall and stored in large underground cisterns. It is then used a number of times, first for bathing or washing. It is then recycled into “gray” water, which is used to flush toilets before being taken out of the internal water system as “black” water. It is then treated and used to water the Earthship’s plants.

As Michael Reynolds says: “If water is falling from the sky, and it is on the majority of the plant, it’s crazy not to catch it.”

Power is supplied by solar panels and wind turbines and even in areas where sunlight is more likely to be caught through overcast skies, modern photovoltaic technology means that they can still be effective enough to make any Earthship anywhere in the world self-sufficient.

“It sounds sophisticated and it is, but really it is the profound simplicity of Earthships that means it really doesn’t take much for an average person to figure out how to work it and even build it themselves,” says Marvin.

“I’d known Michael Reynolds for a long time. I’d seen his early examples and was unsure of them at first, but a few years ago when we were in process of retooling our lives and looking for a new place to live, we saw this Earthship and were completely blown away by it.

“There really was nothing as beautiful in Taos at this price. We also really chose to live here to participate in the concept of Earthships — to live off-grid and be self-sufficient.

“It’s like in the olden days of the 1960’s — the drop out, hippie thing of not wanting to be dependent on huge energy companies. That ethos is still there, but now it’s also about conservation. And it’s not just a worthy project. People with lots of money are looking at buying them,” says Marvin.

Experiments and obstacles

If Earthships are now finding favor among people who wouldn’t normally adhere to a conservation or alternative lifestyle ethos, they haven’t had a smooth ride.

Reynolds’ architecture license was revoked in the early days of his experiments building Earthship — radical ideas of running sewage through the front room fell foul of the authorities — and he recently battled for three years to pass a law in New Mexico that allows more research into sustainable building projects.

At it’s most basic, Earthships can be simple shelters with their own water supply. Basic but essential, especially in the aftermath of natural disasters, where Reynolds has built Earthships on the Andaman Islands after the Tsunami in 2004 and New Orleans after the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina.

Kirsten Jacobsen has spent 14 years working with Reynolds and says that a completed system is possible within six weeks. With new Earthships planned across the world, a 16-unit project is scheduled to be built in Brighton, England, the hope is that whole towns are built from Earthships.

“As much as idealism there really is a pragmatism to Earthships. Even people working within the energy industry acknowledge that we have to adapt and need to look at decentralized systems in the future,” said Jacobsen.

“It’s been an evolutionary process. The systems used in Earthships are now more exacting and more reliable than ever before, so more energy can be put into creating beautiful interiors. I’d say were at the apex of what Michael’s been working towards,” says Marvin.

By Dean Irvine

http://edition1.cnn.com/2007/BUSINESS/08/29/skewed.earthships/index.html#cnnSTCText

             

Gordon Brown wants to build five new “eco-towns” with 100,000 environmentally friendly homes.

Households are responsible for about 27% of the UK’s carbon emissions and almost a third of the nation’s total energy consumption.

So what exactly is an eco-home? And what can you do to make your home more green?

LOCATION

Mr Brown wants to build 100,000 eco-homes on former industrial - or brownfield - sites to avoid swallowing up countryside or green belt land.

An ex-MoD base at Oakington in Cambridgeshire - an asylum seeker holding center - is already earmarked with councils invited to bid to host the other settlements.

Once a site is chosen, orientation is also important.

Building south-facing homes maximizes so-called “passive solar gain”, using the sun to heat rooms wherever possible.

Spaces prone to over-heating, like offices, can be built with a north-facing aspect to reduce the need for air conditioning.

Diagram of an eco-house (below)

Eco-homes are not a new idea and there are many already across the UK.

Avoid plasma screen televisions, which just eat electricity Samantha Heath London Sustainability Exchange

One example is BedZED - the Beddington Zero Energy Development - completed in 2002.

There, homes and offices were built on reclaimed land owned by the Sutton Council in south London and sold to the developers, the Peabody Trust, at below market value to support the planned environmental initiatives.

MATERIALS

Wherever possible, eco-homes are built using natural, recycled or reclaimed materials.

Any wood should be from a sustainable source and approved by the Forest Stewardship Council or similar organisation.

Sue Riddlestone, executive director of sustainability solutions company BioRegional, which consulted on BedZED, says materials should have a low “embodied energy”, meaning the amount of energy required to manufacture them.

“Materials should be sourced as locally as possible to cut the energy used to transport them to the site,” she adds.

BedZED’s buildings are constructed from “thermally massive materials” which store heat during warm conditions and release it at cooler times.

ENERGY

Energy for eco-homes should come from renewable sources, and wherever possible be generated on the buildings themselves or the site.

BedZED is powered by a small-scale combined heat and power plant (CHP), fed by off-cuts of wood from tree surgery which would otherwise go to landfill.

Traditionally, heat produced as a by-product of electricity generation is lost, but CHP harnesses it and puts it to use.

At BedZED, it provides hot water, distributed around the site via super-insulated pipes. In individual homes, there is also a hot water tank which doubles as a radiator.

This is a community-scale solution, but individual houses can also make a difference.

Like Conservative leader David Cameron, you could have a wind turbine installed. It costs from £1,500, but grants may be available.

Solar panels, costing from £2,000, can also be fitted on the roof of an eco-home and can provide 100% of heating and hot water needs in summer.

Photovoltaic cells, at £4,000 or more per home, also use the sun’s energy to generate electricity.

Eco-friendly energy could even come from the earth itself, using a ground source heat pump to warm water and contribute to central heating. This costs from about £6,400.

But if all this sounds expensive and difficult, even simple fixes make a difference - double glazing, for example, halves heat lost through windows.

Loft and cavity wall insulation too, can cut heat loss from walls and roofs by a third, according to the Energy Saving Trust (EST).

Even just turning the thermostat down by one degree can cut heating bills by 10%.

LIGHTING AND APPLIANCES

Low energy lighting and energy efficient appliances are key to cutting back on household carbon emissions.

Environmental groups say that although these do cost more initially, that expense is more than repaid longer term by the amount of energy saved.

Samantha Heath, director of the London Sustainability Exchange, says: “A fridge is one of the greediest appliances, so make sure it’s as efficient as possible. And avoid plasma screen televisions, which just eat electricity.

“We should also be thinking about using appliances like dishwashers and washing machines one at a time to avoid an energy overload.”

She adds: “One of the most helpful new gizmos is a device which turns everything off but the one appliance currently in use.”

It’s no good saving energy in the home if you then get in the car every time you need to go shopping Sue Riddlestone BioRegional

The Energy Saving Trust says the average household has up to 12 gadgets left on stand-by or charging at any one time, and more than £740m of electricity is being wasted this way.

So turn off your TV, unplug your mobile charger and switch off lights when you leave a room.

Also, try washing clothes at 30C instead of 40C - it uses 40% less energy.

WATER AND WASTE

“Water is a big issue, especially in the south of England,” Ms Riddlestone says.

“At BedZED we have cut water use by half by using more efficient appliances like washing machines and using rain water to flush toilets.”

Again, if you cannot stretch to those fixes, you could buy a water butt to collect rainwater to use on your garden.

Ensuring no water is wasted goes hand in hand with recycling of all kinds.

“An eco-community can recycle up to 65% of its waste,” Ms Riddlestone says. “And what’s left shouldn’t go to landfill - you can find other ways to recover energy from that as well.”

TRANSPORT

“It’s not just about building houses. The approach we take is to look at the whole community and how people live in it,” Ms Riddlestone says.

“It’s no good saving energy in the home if you then get in the car every time you need to go shopping.”

So, an eco-home has to fit into an eco-community.

Mr Brown said eco-towns would have bus routes and cycle lanes designed in a way to make them carbon neutral communities overall.

At BedZED, a car pool has been set up for residents and a ‘pedestrian first’ policy in the design means there is good lighting, drop kerbs for prams and wheelchairs and a road layout that keeps vehicles to walking speed.

There are also local shops and a nursery, and good public transport links to enhance quality of life and cut car use.

By Victoria Bone

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6653687.stm#map