Howdy Y'all,

While in Texas I got a look at several possibilities worth delving into:  1)  waterless toilette, 2) domes, and 3) self-sustaining villages, and 4)  a land-lord and tenant friendly building material.  

   1.     Incinolet is the name of a company that manufactures a water free toilette.  One unit (potty) costs just under $2,000  which is cheaper than a septic tank and better for environment.  The company is privately owned so you have to buy from them altho they are negotiating to sell units thru Lowe's.  To use one, you put a sort of coffee filter looking piece of paper down, do your business, then push a button.  The unit heats up to 1800 degrees leaving a small amount of ash, and then every week you empty the ashes.  Dunno how much electricity it uses...but only 110 volts.  For off the grid, perfect.

  2.  David South of Monolithic Domes drove me around his factories and housing developments for about two hours.  He puts up domes all over the world and makes small ones for rental units, too.  A school built out of one of his domes will pay for itself in twenty years due to energy savings, and a tornado won't hurt it.  He swears that a mobile-home park made of these will generate net income from day one.  Google monolithic domes. 

  3.  Fred Howard of saladacres.org  (.com?) and evergreenfarms.org has plans for a power plant that burns cardboard, biofuel, etc. and generates electricity by consuming what would otherwise go into landfill.  But interestingly, he couples this power plant with a hydroponic set-up pioneered by a Canadian (see saladacres) and low-cost SIP panel houses.  His concept is to create and "evergreen" (for selfsustaining) village or town with built-in power generation, food, and sustainable housing.  Just add supermarkets, workshops, gymns, and places of worship.  (By the way, he is looking for investors.)

  4.   A new product worth looking at is magnesium oxide board.  Used as the skin for SIP panels (you know, they look like foam between two pieces of plywood) they create a new building material cheaper (by about 30% near as I can figure) than the regulary SIP panels but one that 'breathes" so it won't grow mold, and can dry out, and which will not dent or break.  At the seams, you spread a slurry of paste of magnesium oxide which dries and is paintable in about 90 minutes.  No papering the joints!  You can make the panels 3 1/2 inches wide to fit round a stud and you have your outer and inner skin ready made, sheet-rock or stucco not required.  The initial reports of costs are so low I am double checking, anyhow, good but maybe stellar.

   5.  I continue my quest for the house that 20-somethings and retired people can actually afford.  Would the world stop turning if the middle class/working poor could live in a house that didn't ruin them financially?  Give me a shout if you are interested.  I am back in Fresno till maybe March or April.

Jim Comegys