Going Quiet Kingman, Arizona · By Charlie Laurel Jack Ehrhardt and his contracting company, ACE Builders, built the first “Earthship” in Arizona for a client in Dewey in the early 1990s. An Earthship is a self-sustaining, passive solar home made from used tires packed with dirt, cans, bottles, and other discards. The home was designed […]
Badgersett Research Farms
Growing Nuts in Canton, Minnesota To most people, the term “woody agriculture” is an unfamiliar concept. Woody agriculture refers to the growing of domesticated woody perennial crops such as in the accompanying image of a hazelnut plant on Badgersett Research Farm. The nuts can be harvested annually as a staple commercial foodproduct. Domesticated plants and […]
Solar Design & Construction
Building for the People Flagstaff, Arizona · By Ashley Rood and Peter Friederici When Ed Dunn was a nine-year-old boy growing up in the then small city of Phoenix, his aunt came out from Kansas and rented an old adobe house for the summer. Ed still remembers how that traditional building was much cooler than […]
Wood Fuel Study
Reusable Refuse Biomass power is a renewable resource in plentiful supply in southeast Minnesota. Low quality waste wood works well as a heating fuel for outdoor chunk wood furnaces. There are many sources of biomass power that can be used to produce heat and keep costs low, including: wood slabs from sawmills old pallets tree […]