green building – Page 55 – Natural Building Blog

Enough Wind to Power Global Energy Demand 20x

June 3, 2022September 13, 2012 by Owen Geiger

A Vestas wind turbine. Image credit: Vestas

Near-surface winds could provide more than 20 times today’s global power demand

There is enough energy available in winds to meet all of the world’s demand. Atmospheric turbines that convert steadier and faster high-altitude winds into energy could generate even more power than ground- and ocean-based units. New research from Carnegie’s Ken Caldeira examines the limits of the amount of power that could be harvested from winds, as well as the effects high-altitude wind power could have on the climate as a whole. Their work is published September 9 by Nature Climate Change.

BetterBuildingBags

June 3, 2022September 12, 2012 by Owen Geiger

“We want to create earth building awareness by running a campaign on Kickstarter.com. To do this we need a line of products. We want to represent the culture to the best of our ability by asking you first, what would you like to see?

Johnny Punish Earthbag Home

June 3, 2022September 11, 2012 by Owen Geiger

“First, I knew no matter what I did to study how to build such a thing, being a newbie never built a structure kind of guy from New York City, I would make huge mistakes. So instead of getting down and building the main home first, instead I first built a property wall. And boy oh boy, I am glad I did. The team I put together made horrific mistakes…Heck, we lost the wall twice! But I knew that learning curve would beat us up so it was cool. No worries.

Geosynthetics Magazine

June 3, 2022September 8, 2012 by Owen Geiger

Award of Excellence winner geotextile retaining wall along the Jinghe River in China.

There’s a whole industry that specializes in industrial geotextiles, and an excellent online Geosynthetics Magazine for building professionals. They use similar polypropylene fabric as earthbags (sand bags), but use it for industrial purposes such as highway projects.

Cob Kitchen

June 3, 2022September 7, 2012 by Owen Geiger

This natural building kitchen includes a barrel oven surrounded in cob to help hold the heat. Note the tiles embedded in the cob and other nice touches throughout the kitchen.

TreesWaterPeople Sustainable Homes

June 3, 2022September 6, 2012 by Owen Geiger

TreesWaterPeople Strawbale/Earthbag Homes at Pine Ridge, South Dakota

“Work on the third straw bale home at the Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center began on Monday last week and was nearly complete by Friday. Gathering materials for the building began a little earlier. Constructed mostly from locally available resources, straw bale homes are regionally very appropriate for Pine Ridge.”