Natural resources are about to finish. The most pessimistic experts, or maybe the most realistic, say that by 2050 we are going to need another planet Earth, since there will not be any water, animal or rich soil left. This tragic situation is mainly caused by the UAE (United Arab Emirates) and the USA, but the recently industrialised countries such as China, India and Brazil also have their share of guilt: what will happen if all Chinese people, who for the most part still travels by bike, start using the car, the fridge or to consume as much as an average American or European? It will be the beginning of an untold-sized ecologic disaster.
At the same time it would be unfair not to allow Chinese or Indian people assume a westernized life-style ,so this is why citizens of the so-called “first world” will have to give up some of their consumes or face the inevitable collapse of the planet.
Fortunately thank to the principle of the conservation of species, which generally applies to all animals, human being included, we can imagine a better future and hope for a revolution in the current system that should focus on the so-called renewable energy resources.
A possible revolution, or simply evolution, might be the building of “off grid” houses, that means houses entirely self-sufficient, not connected to any network and able to manage the energy, gas and water requirements of the household. This kind of building would exchange with the environment only sun, wind and rain, without wasting any resource and without polluting.
Projects like the above exist already and many architects are working on the concept of “self-sufficient” houses, aimed to reduce consumes, wastes and costs both economics and environmental.
How does a self-sufficient house work?
The new “independent” houses will generate electric power through solar panels and wind powered blades, it will accumulate rain in wells and tanks that will afterwards be purified to become drinkable water, it will get gas from organic wastes’ decomposition, in order to use the telephone and Internet there will be a point-to-point radio bridge with a provider and as far as the room temperature is concerned, it will be regulated by the buildings forced caulking and some heat pumps.
This type of house will be provided with all the comforts, the building will not have to be connected to the power network, gas provider, waterworks, telephone line and sewage system, so that it becomes eco-friendly.
The energetic system building’s costs of an off-grid house are more expensive by the 10% if compared to a traditional house ones, but it is estimated that this expense will be written off in 10 years.
The only real problem with these buildings is space; in fact a family house –suitable for 4 people- in order to be self-sufficient needs around 2 hectares. On the other hand, experts say that even now we are using more space than we actually need since we consume more than we should. The solution is to be found in the creation of a balance between the use of necessary resources and their availability. If in autumn, at the climate-change summit that is going to take place in Copenhagen, the world economic powers will not find an agreement about this balance, our last chance to save the Earth will be blown.
For further information on “off-grid” technologies:
http://www.off-grid.net/ (in English, Spanish and German- site about off-grid technologies)
http://www.dinaviaenergy.com/ (in Spanish, English, German and Finnish- Spanish company that deals with eco-friendly technologies) http://www.lafabbricadelsole.it/ (in Italian and English- Italian company that deals with environmentally and energetically sustainable projects) Should you have any further enquiries, suggestions or opinions on eco-friendly projects write at
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or have your say on our forum in the Environment page. Translated by Saul Bassanello |
Environment 
