That's all well and good, but what about existing homes? I'd really like to see someone modify an existing house to be off the grid.

You could start with mine! (Just a suggestion.)

from their website:
Home Design
The concept that we have developed is a two-story, 3875 sq ft (two levels), with a walkout basement, five bedrooms, a nanny suite and seven bathrooms. (Note: the updates reflect the basement development).

Seven bathrooms??

It's nice that they're making this "showcase" home, but I gather the cost is extraordinarily high and I'm wondering how exactly they think there's a compatibility between sustainable home design and the fact that this building has 4,000 square feet and seven bathrooms.

so how about gas, water and sewage? And what climate is this designed for?

I think this house would be ideal for co-housing several families. It’s too big for one family to occupy. Maybe then it could also be become much more affordable for the general population.

sam,

According to the article the house will be south of Calgary (that's north of Montana for you Americans) - so a farily cold climate.

Gas - with geo-exchange heat pumps and solar hot water there won't be much need for gas. But there will probably be some need for to supliment the water heating. They could use a wood pellet furnace.

Sewage - with composting toilets and a grey water system there is no need for sewage.

I agree with the comments that the house is too big for a single family.

"Allowing for a totally emissions-free lifestyle"?

Are the occupents holding their breath? =)

Good one, Mike :D

I wonder how much CO2 is emitted (exhaled?) by the whole human population of Earth. It would be particularly interesting to compare that amount to others (from transportation, from industry, etc).

"I wonder how much CO2 is emitted (exhaled?) by the whole human population of Earth. It would be particularly interesting to compare that amount to others (from transportation, from industry, etc)."

Funny you should ask that, since I looked into it a little while back.

I found a short answer on a Oak Ridge National Laboratory page which said an average human exhales around 1 kg per day.

http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/pns/faq.html

When I tried to run the numbers myself, I saw a comment on some page that the average human exhales 5 liters of gas per minute which is 3.7% CO2. CO2 has a mass of 0.0019 grams/cc, so if you run those numbers, it comes out to about 185 kg per year.

So take as a range 185-365 kg/person/year.

There are 6,500,801,803 people on Earth, so their collective annual CO2 output from respiration is between 1,203 and 2,373 teragrams per year.

By comparison, the annual Net CO2 equivalent output of the US alone is 6,296.7 teragrams per year -- 3 to 5 times the above estimate from all human respiration.

http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/UniqueKeyLookup/RAMR6MBLP4/$File/06ES.pdf

Human respiration isn't considered additive to the greenhouse gas problem since it's part of the closed loop of eating plants which "inhaled" CO2 to make themselves into tasty things to eat.

Also, the US puts out roughly 1/4 of the world's greenhouse gases, and here is a chart showing the relative output from transportation, industrial, commercial, and residential sectors:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/images/New%20Fig%204.gif

That's indicating that both transportation and industrial sectors in the US are responsible for about 1/3 of the emissions each, so either one of those sectors is roughly equivalent to the global CO2 output from human respiration.

Not exact numbers, but I think you get a sense of scale among the things you wanted to compare.

Last note - the reason there's a difference in primary fuel energy use in a given sector is that, among the three main fossil fuels, coal puts out the most carbon per unit of energy (1.70x that of natural gas), followed by oil (1.36x that of natural gas), then natural gas.

Thanks, very interesting.

The biggest factor is obviously that transportation and industry emit fossil CO2 - adding it to the atmosphere - while humans are mostly carbon neutral (I suppose you could argue that part of the CO2 they emit comes from fossil fuel used in food production and such).

Thanks, very interesting.

The biggest factor is obviously that transportation and industry emit fossil CO2 - adding it to the atmosphere - while humans are mostly carbon neutral (I suppose you could argue that part of the CO2 they emit comes from fossil fuel used in food production and such).

I've never heard of "fossil" CO2 versus "carbon neutral" CO2. If you've got CO2, carbon dioxide, then chemically speaking you've still got CO2, regardless of the source. Perhaps you're thinking of CO, carbon MONoxide, which *is* a poisonous emission into the atmosphere. :)

Lisa, what I meant is that some CO2 increases the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and some doesn't ("carbon neutral").

CO2 that comes from fossil fuels has been sequestred undergroud for hundreds of millions of years. When you extract it and burn it, you add CO2 to the atmosphere (which leads to climate disruptions, etc).

But when you burn a tree or a plant, you do not introduce new CO2 to the atmosphere because the carbon contained in that plant was taken from the atmosphere in the first place.

"Carbon neutral" is like substracting 1 from the total, and then adding 1 back. While with fossil fuels, you just add to the total...

"I've never heard of "fossil" CO2 versus "carbon neutral" CO2. If you've got CO2, carbon dioxide, then chemically speaking you've still got CO2, regardless of the source. Perhaps you're thinking of CO, carbon MONoxide, which *is* a poisonous emission into the atmosphere. :)"

I think you're misunderstanding what was said. The point is that the CO2 expired in human respiration has no net effect to the atmosphere, since it is sourced from biomass which pulled CO2 from the atmosphere in the first place -- thus it is a "closed loop".

This is in contrast to pulling fossil fuels out of the Earth's crust and then combusting them, which is a net addition to the atmosphere from what would otherwise be a permanent sequestration of carbon.

The whole basis of climate change theory is premised on net additions and their impact, not the normal equilibrium that occurs without industrial age impacts to the atmosphere with greenhouse gases.

What is the point in building such a monstrosity to save energy?

All these "systems" to maintain our unsustainable lifestyles.

Say it with me, we cannot BUY your way to sustainability. You cannot surround yourself with piles of Embodied Energy and congradulate yourself on being 'green'.

In regards to people's thoughts that this home is 2 large, here are 3 possible reasons
1.) realisitcally, on the current real estate market, this will be a fairly expensive home considering you are essentially paying for all your heating and cooling etc. "up front" as a trade off for the lack of bills since it's off the grid. For whoever buys this home, it will be a long time until this investment starts returning anything monitarily speaking. Anyone who has the money to pay for the costs of these systems is probably going to be a fairly wealthy person (at least a millioniare) and is therefore probably looknig for a big house.

2.) It just goes to prove that even a house of this size can be maintained without the grid. There are certainly already existing homes that can claim the title and the size of this one makes it more unique and innovative.

3.) Money-wise again, it is frankly a waste of power/money of the technologies utilized here on a small home. Most of these systems would end up needing 2 small homes to be sharing them in order for them to optimize cost efficiency in a respectable amount of time.

"Most of these systems would end up needing 2 small homes to be sharing them in order for them to optimize cost efficiency in a respectable amount of time."

Granted, so if they're out doing this in a new subdivision on raw land, why don't they just build the systems at an economical scale and use it on multiple dwellings? Pretty easy to do if you sell it as a co-op, condo, townhouse, or even as conventional single family homes within a subdivision with a homeowners association.

I think what people are seeing is a disconnect between a lot of fancy technology and a gross disconnect with home much functional space is actually needed. If the point of this structure is to be a model for something, and it's supposed to be "sustainable", then it can't just appeal to an extremely narrow demographic -- like high net worth and/or extra large families, each of which compose probably 2% or less of the population.

To all the people commenting about the size of the house and un-treehuggerish nature of such extravagance...

1) This eco and hybrid and green stuff is expensive. It has to find a market and buyers willing to pay the premiums before the costs can come down. Guess who can most easily afford it right now? The rich.

2) Some people will continue to live in large houses no matter how you feel about it. Wouldn't you rather have these houses not consume even more resources than they otherwise would?

3) Make something popular with the rich and famous. Now watch it slowly rise in popularity with the general public. Sad, but undeniably true.

4) Lighten up. Not everyone quite has the grasp of environmental impact that many of us have. People won't learn overnight. Be happy and encourage each small step in the right direction. Would you harshly critique the first knots of a child learning to tie their shoes?

"from biomass which pulled CO2 from the atmosphere in the first place -- thus it is a "closed loop".

This is in contrast to pulling fossil fuels out of the Earth's crust and then combusting them"

I see. We're not talking about CO2 in and of itself, we're talking about a balance. :) Thanks.

"Would you harshly critique the first knots of a child learning to tie their shoes?"

Your line of argument would have validity if you were actually addressing now instead of, say, 30 years ago. We're not at the point of these technologies being outrageously expensive, poor quality, etc. You take a look at LEED building, for example, and the cost premiums of CONSTRUCTION itself are pretty much at or very near parity with conventional buildings.

This belief that somehow all green things must first start with the affluent then slowly become the norm among the "masses" is a false belief. As I said, we are not at the point of such massive differences in quality and price that such beliefs are justified any longer.

But this isn't really relevant to this specific building.

If they are going to go to great lengths to characterize this as some model of sustainability, then they're leaving themselves wide open to critique about a 4,000 sqare foot personal home with 7 bathrooms. There's absolutely no need for that many bathrooms for a house of that size -- unless somehow the owner has chronic incontinence or something. It makes no sense whatsoever when the main design intent is to make the ecological footprint of the building as small as possible.

It has nothing to do with value judgments about wealth or anything like that. It's simply a normative judgment based on a grounded understanding of what "sustainable", "green", etc mean and imply.

Take a look at their claims that is "emission-free". Is that true? Only if one takes a blinders view of things and ignores the context of the setting of that home, as well as the fact that it was constructed from scratch.

I can certainly applaud efforts to advance green technology, but showcasing something like this, in my opinion, reinforces beliefs about "limousine liberals" and "rich enough to afford having a clear conscience" -- which I will gladly debate about with anyone.

One needn't have gobs of cash to live green and well. In fact, it's just the opposite.

How much energy actually went into producing the (cool) technology in this house?
It's great for people with $ and want to make a statement, but, not really really a NET benefit. ?

A house like this is to build so to share knowledge to other, so some one can come up a better idea, or better solution, or else we all still living in the cave some where, and use couple of rock to light up the fire.

I live in Charlotte but drive to Durham often for work. I'm very interested in the self-sustaining home. Will there be an open house?

My dream home! Awesome! :)

If they could make a geodesic dome like this, that'd be even better.

A home like this could be considered very environmentally responsible in several different scenarios.
For instance: A married couple with 2 young children, hosting four retired inlaws. This gives us approximately 500 square feet per person, and less than one bathroom each. The size of the house, and it's amenities allow it to be a comfortable decision for an extended family to live like this. Compared to this, a single person living in a 1 bathroom 900 square foot apartment is a glutton.

What many of us have overlooked in favour of arguing the feasibility and liveability of the house is that house planners now design with sustainability. Yes, it is right to say the house is not 100 per cent ‘tip-top’ yet let’s not forget Rome was not built in a day. It’s term to applaud the house, our architects, house builders, town planners who are now waking up to the fact that global warming is here to stay and we’ve got to plan for a future with this at the forefront of creative design. It’s another step in the right direction to minimise our environmental footprint on this planet.

Greetings all;

Despite the fact that the house is too large for one family and that part of becoming environmentallly aware is to create and conserve green space and not take it up, I personally feel this house is a WONDERFUL opportunity for the greater public to see where our future needs to go. I say scrap the bad talk and forward it on. One step forward is better than no step at all. Green thinkers should be promoting something green not finding all the bad issues with it. Good luck to them and can't wait to see it.
zo

Lyptus aint all that great: http://understory.ran.org/2006/10/12/lyptus/

Aloha,

I work with alot of influential and rich people who build homes, to the scale of this one. I applaud any movement toward environmentalism. We all know that a home this large is unnecessary but let's face it. It's very expensive to build a completely sustainable home. If wealthy people take steps, it may become trendy and more mainstream...and there is nothing wrong with that.