Termites? Water seepage? Upstairs newly-weds?

"seepage" has a whole different context and meaning to me, just sayin

Glen Beck does indeed lead to brainal seepage.

*WARNING*the surgeon general has stated that the misuse of the prescribed anti-psychotics prozac/geodon and paxil can cause:irrational arguments,racism,heightened emotional state,flailing arms,irreversable stupidity,beady eyes.this misuse tends to concentrate in shock-jock entertainers pretending to be newsmen and can lead to anal seepage.

Very interesting designs. There was some initial concerns about the tires breaking down and causing seepage into the ground; however, they were able to prove that the breakdown of the tires is primarily caused by sunlight. Since these tires are not exposed to sunlight, this eliminated that concern. There is also the benefit that these "pounded earth" houses are extremely hardy against adverse weather.

Here is their main website (looks like they've revamped it quite a bit since I was there last):
Earthship main website

Two videos with more explanation on the construction:
Earthship construction part 1
Earthship construction part 2

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If you are interesting in intelligent house design, there are many websites out there. If you are looking for a more conventional house structure that is still decently self-sufficent, you should take a peek at the site below. It uses multiple method to control the internal climate. Very interesting read that hopefully many help some people include some items that increases the efficiency of their homes.
David Allan's Solar Home

Part of the appeal of the earthship is that you can grow a portion of your own food using the resources. Another alternative would be using a dome greenhouse. There are many different designs/companies that use dome greenhouses with a large pool for thermal mass and either a solar/electrical driven fan or expanding wax tubes (to push open vents) for ventilation when it gets too hot. I'm completely unaffiliated, but here is one website of a company that makes domes:
Growing Spaces' dome greenhouses

Personally?... Well, I would like to build something more along the line of David Allan's home, but include some of the ingenious water use/control of the earthships.

First off, I'm not a Fox Fan, and while they didn't site the source of this 63% Natural Seepage figure, it appears to be a valid number from a National Academy of Science study called "Oil In the Sea III: Inputs and Effects". An excerpt of which can be found here:

http://www.noia.org/website/article.asp?id=129

However, from that same study:

"Recognized by geologists for decades as indicating the existence of potentially economic reserves of petroleum, these seeps release vast amounts of crude oil annually. Yet these large volumes are released at a rate low enough that the surrounding ecosystem can adapt and even thrive in their presence."

While offshore drilling technology continues to improve, and can be done somewhat "safely" when proper controls are in place (depends on your definition of safe), it is not going to solve any of the US's energy problems in the short or long term and therefore not worth the environmental risk. Here's why:

1) Even if new off shore drilling was approved, and even if companies found reserves worth tapping, it would take many years before even a drop was extracted (EPA approvals, building infrastructure etc)

2) Even with the extraction hurdles overcome, refining capacity is at roughly the same levels as in the 1980's, thus requiring additional infrastructure investments.

3) Massive economic growth in countries like India and China has caused DEMAND for oil to skyrocket while supplies have remained constant (or even declined depending on who you ask). This is the main reason oil prices continue to climb; the rest of the world wants to live like Americans too!

When you factor in that these two countries make up about 1/3 of the world's population (and are expanding quickly), the amount of NEW oil required to lower oil prices is STAGGERING.

Conclusion:

So even if Fox got the numbers right here, the REALITY is that it doesn't matter if offshore drilling is safe because it's won't help anyone in a pertinent time frame and is thus not worth risking further damage to already fragile ecosystems. The ONLY answer is 1) Conservation + 2) Innovation and for that we need to start pumping more money into R&D and stop dumping money into nation building.

Science, it works bitches!



(sorry, not sure where that came from, it started as innocent research and went terribly terribly astray!)