Anyone for a $900k, 800-square foot unsafe house?: Troy's celebrated solar house left in dark | detnews.com | The Detroit News

Troy -- It was supposed to be a shining example of the green movement -- a completely independent solar-powered house with no gas or electrical hookups.

Seven months ago, officials gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the $900,000 house owned by the city of Troy that was to be used as an educational tool and meeting spot.

But it never opened to the public. And it remains closed.

Frozen pipes during the winter caused $16,000 in damage to floors, and city officials aren't sure when the house at the Troy Community Center will open.

"It's not safe right now, and there's no estimated opening time because it depends on when we can get funding," said Carol Anderson, director of the city's Parks and Recreation Department.
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Its students built the 800-square-foot home, which was supposed to be livable year-round, free from the grid and churn out enough solar power to support a home-based business and electric vehicle.

Global warming explorers in Arctic get nasty shock: polar ice caps blooming freezing :: James Delingpole

"For the sake of our children and grandchildren, I pray that we will heed the findings of the Catlin arctic survey," said the Prince of Wales when he launched what he called this "remarkably important project."

For once HRH and I are in complete agreement. Thanks to this expedition's selfless heroism, we now know that:

1. The Arctic is extremely parky.

2. Even parkier in fact than we could ever have suspected.

3. We can put our melting ice cap terror on hold for a while.

4. And our fears about melting polar bears.

5. Drinks all round, I say. Creme de Menthe frappe, anyone?

Fractured Thinking - Chris Horner - Planet Gore on National Review Online

Instead, next week, Rep. Diana DeGette (D., Colo.) is expected to slip a 97-word amendment into what was a 670-page cap-and-trade bill (that has since ballooned to 1,000 pages, reportedly — because, as James Hansen notes, it takes a lot of pages to buy votes for such an odious enterprise). This gem would give the EPA the regulatory reins over hydraulic fracturing — which, if you’ve ever had to deal with them, and if you’ve read the newspapers lately, is code for stopping it.