Aaron Oakley

My wife and I use a bucket inside our 250 sf cabin for both urine and feces. We let it fill until it's full, and don't have any smell issue except when one of us is actively using it (just like in a modern bathroom). Of course, we keep the bucket contents covered with ample sawdust. We have never had to pay for sawdust. In fact, the local sawmill operators are happy to see us show up with our shovels and cans! For sourcing your sawdust, look in the yellow pages for log cabin/home fabricators, and/or sawmills.

Ernie, will you discuss the relationship between altitude and heat riser length, and the theory as to why it needs to be longer? Thanks!

I agree that consumers should have the choice to buy/use whatever light source suits their values, and that the government should not be regulating the light bulb supply. Peter, I don't know what energy source you are considering has no future shortage, but surely you are not talking about coal. Coal is a finite resource, albeit a very abundant resource here in the US.

Arlid, the US does have many circulating fluidized bed boilers used for power generation. They are typically used for burning lignite (a low BTU coal found predominately in the southern US) and other "waste" fuel sources such as wood chips, petroleum coke, etc. Also, there are many natural gas boilers in the US. In fact, there are quite a few coal-fired boilers being converted to natural gas combusters primarily due to new environmental regulations on the power industry. As far as carbon sequestration being too expensive, I think most of the population would agree that it is. As I mentioned earlier, there is an 80% cost increase just to capture the CO2, that does not include the cost of sequestration.

Peter, you are correct that base-load plants do not turn-down at night, but you are omitting all the load-following coal plants that will turn-down as low as 20% of full-load. These are the plants that are affected by using less electricity at home.

You also mention that coal emissions can be treated. Well, they are, but there's still that pesky CO2 issue that no plant is scrubbing. I've participated in the development of a CO2 capture technology, specifically designed for the coal-fired power industry; the technology is not ready for prime-time, and you will have serious issue with its current cost of about 80 cents per dollar of electricity (meaning, if you currently pay $1/unit electricity, then with CO2 capture, you'd pay $1.80/unit).

I generally dislike picking apart others' opinions, but you made yours public and it's filled with fallacy and misinformation.

I've used it inside, but never outside. I don't even recall seeing an exterior grade. By the way, American Pride is the original label for Mythic. If you see that, know that you're getting the same product, likely for less cost.

Frolf, I completely understand wanting to keep the inputs (food) away from the outputs (excrement)! Keep in mind that typical outhouses have a tendency to pollute ground water. You can still separate your kitchen from bathroom, and recycle/compost your manure; put the humanue toilet in the outhouse.

Sounds like you have a wonderful piece of the world. Good luck with the moose, and post pictures of the forthcoming RMH!

You planning on earthbag construction for the tropical dome too? How will you get the all-essential photon to the plants? Regardless, for some ideas on growing tropicals in non-tropical areas, consider getting a hold of Jerome Osentowski at Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute (www.crmpi.org). He's growing a tropical food forest at 7,200' on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains near Basalt, CO. It's a rather surreal place to be.

Rather than an outhouse, you may want to look into humanure composting. Check out The Humanure Handbook (http://humanurehandbook.com/). Then you can put the RMH in the house, and not have another building to heat.

I've heard abstinence works, but have yet to try it.

Unless you're using the crawl space, it's much better to seal and insulate the floor than to heat the crawl space. Since you will not get a perfect seal, I highly recommend you do not pipe the exhaust from your wood stove into that space. Another good option is to use the access you have to the underside of your floor to install radiant floor heating. It's generally more efficient and comfortable than a forced air furnace or wood stove.