The last straw

After using straw as insulation in fridges, now it’s homes they are building. North Kesteven District Council in Lincolnshire is to become the first local authority in the UK to use straw bales to construct social housing.

The bales will provide the main structure of the three-bedroom homes, which are described by the council as “typical, affordable, council houses”. What they’ll save: swapping bricks for straw will increase insulation by up to three times more than building regulations require, so these houses won’t need heating systems. They’re anticipated to cost less too: the council has budgeted £110,000 per house – £20,000 less than the equivalent brick-build. They can last for 200 years!

A hungry cow would end up looking at the homes like Hansel and Gretel did when they saw the chocolate version! Related question, if the straw were all to be used for houses, would cattle end up starved?

While on energy saving, IBM and Syracuse University are pairing up to build a new data center that will use 50% less energy than current data centers. They hope to build over the next six months a brand new $12.4 million, 6,000-square-foot data center that will shake up the idea of efficiency in the industry.

IBM is building out its completely virtualized, dynamic data center infrastructure so that workloads and applications will move from server to server to maximize the energy efficiency of the facility. The sensors built into the facilty will make it possible to direct the workloads to the optimal servers, as well as enabling the cooling system to target only the servers that need it, minimizing wasted cooling power.

IBM has been a leading innovator in energy efficient data centers, even going so far as to heat surrounding communities with waste heat from facilities. Google, Microsoft and many others have announced such ambitious programmes.

The power deficit in many parts of the world could easily be addressed if wastage is checked. Even at home. Why not give the youngsters at home a chance to earn pocket-money by simply switching off lights, PCs, geysers, etc? Give them the amount they save. We won't have to wait for the last straw!