Steve Wozniak Going Green

While it may have gotten more notice in the news recently that Steve Wozniak was recently ticketed for driving his Prius at 104 mph (that’s 166 kph), but he has also been thinking about an energy efficient house. At the end of a recent interview with PC World, Wozniak spoke of an unfulfilled dream of his:

"I have a long dream to build my own house in a very energy-efficient approach. That’s going to be very soon. It uses the right kind of wood that serves as a heater and as an air conditioner, combined with some other techniques in how the wood is assembled to operate energy life pressure. You don’t have to add energy into a house after you build it. I love that concept. It’s like the way I used to make computers. I want to build it myself. That’s a project that could be finished this summer, next summer, but not too far from now."

Wozniak gave a longer interview to ECNMag.com about his plans and his thoughts about energy efficient design. Based on this conversation, Wozniak is looking at using rammed-earth for constructing the home. He is also interested in the Enertia house and the claims that the wood used provides tremendous energy efficiency. (Jetson Green has some information about an Australian rammed earth home (pictured below) as an example in an article on his blog.)

Wozniak also discussed the energy to be used inside this home. He wants to be able to have computers and an LCD TV (better efficiency than a plasma screen) and efficient appliances. He also hopes that LED lights become more widely available.

However, he also perpetuates the myth that solar cells take more energy to produce than they can provide over their lifetime. "I worry that if it takes more energy to make and install a solar cell than it returns in its lifetime, then it’s a loser." That may have been the case back in the days when he was designing calculator chips for Hewlett Packard, but contemporary solar panels pay back the energy required to manufacture them in just a few years. (Ask the EcoGeek told us that solar panels provide about 5 times as much energy over their lifetime as it takes to produce them.) And in California, where Wozniak is looking at building this dream home, electricity costs make solar power a very reasonable and cost-effective option.

Wozniak isn’t looking to preach his efficiency to others, but he recognizes that his project is likely to draw attention, and the publicity could help provoke others to consider more efficient choices for themselves. Like any good engineer, Wozniak talks about looking at the total energy picture. An electric car isn’t more efficient because it doesn’t use any gasoline; that’s a spurious comparison. But if the electric car uses less energy from coal to produce the electricity, then, in the wider picture, it is more efficient. That’s the level of efficiency Wozniak is after, and that is a good model for the approaches to efficiency that we all need to consider.