Visitors

I was asked to host a tour group of Chinese college students and their tour guide and American instructor, a summer travel course from Thomas College here in Waterville, Maine.

We toured the new Terra Haus project, our second passive solar campus building.

We toured the Unity House, the first.

We looked at an anemometer tower under construction, we looked at wind maps and anemometers, and we played with my concentrating solar power demonstrator -- a converted satellite dish that focuses the heat content of about three square feet of sunshine onto a tiny focus of about four square inches, and gets to temperatures above 600 degrees F.

They seemed to have fun, but the language barrier prevented me from properly answering some of their questions, I'm sure, so if I write them down here, they might yet get the answers they were looking for, possibly with the use of a Chinese-English/English-Chinese dictionary.

Possibly the most interesting question, "How long will it take for the ideas expressed in our solar-heated, solar-PV buildings to spread to the rest of America?"

I said, "It depends on the price of oil and other heat fuels."

Demand for oil in emerging economies is rising faster than the world as a whole can develop new supplies, which is why the price is so high right now. China and India together now demand 20 million barrels a day. Americans in general and Mainers in particular will abandon oil heat in larger and larger numbers every year these trends continue. The passive solar houses we are demonstrating at Unity College are one answer to the problem.

Another question: "How cost-effective are the prototypes?"

Bensonwood's Unity House is now available in several options as a factory-built modular home beginning around $300,000. This is cost-effective if you take into account the lack of need to buy an oil bill.

The Terra Haus type of homes that G.O. Logic are putting together start at around $160/square foot, a good deal cheaper than Bensonwood.