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| Submitted by Courtney McColgan on April 12, 2009 |
Max Perlman from the Green Dragon Film Project�is a man with many interests, much like myself. A uniting theme in his interests is China and the environment. He recently turned me on to a relatively new environmental movement hitting China by storm: building homes out a straw.
They call it strawbaling
What is straw-baling?
The idea is simple. Take straw, bundle it into straw bales, stack it up, coat it in clay and there you have it:a strawbale building.
Photo: Two strawbalers at an Adventist Development Relief Agency (ADRA)�site location in Inner Mongolia
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Why does it work?
Since straw is hollow, when it is bundled into bales and incorporated into walls for construction, it acts as an excellent thermal insulator. Straw bale buildings require 50%-68% less fuel to heat during the winter and eliminates the need for an airconditioner in the summer. The fuel savings and reduced pollution & CO2 release are the basis of straw bale building's economic and environmental sustainability.
What is the impact?
China is the world's largest Green House Gas emitter. One of the main reasons for this is China's heavy reliance on coal. Coal is the source for over 80% of China's energy. If China can decrease energy consumption, they can cut down reliance on coal. The easy "low-hanging fruit" way to do this is to look at housing construction. Homes are built with little focus on energy conservation and energy efficiency. With over half of the world's construction taking place in China between now and 2015, its time to start paying attention.
Rural areas allow an easy location to do this. They are interested in cheap and easy construction. The typical home is a red brick building (as shown below.) A straw bale building beats out the red brick building in terms of energy efficiency. Due to the added insulation the straw provides, strawbale buildings cut red brick home energy consumption by 75%. And the cost of building a strawbale building is even competitive, if not cheaper, than red brick buildings.
Photo: A typical red brick building found in rural areas in China.
Unfortunately, what is not competitive is the up front capital costs of strawbale machinery. A strawbaler is quite expensive, around 3,000-4,000USD. Since the income for a rural inhabitant averages around $300USD - and that is just enough to get by -then it would take a lifetime or two to save the total amount for one strawbaler.
How you can help?
ADRA is working with the Max on a project entitled Strawbaling in Rural China. They have developed programs to teach rural Chinese how to strawbale and are raising money to obtain the machinery to get them started.
Go on their site and make a contribution. Even one dollar will make a difference. Some interesting statistics:
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