Air-crete is basically foam (like dish soap foam) mixed with concrete. It can't solve all of our physical problems but it's pretty useful: It's fire proof (you can build a furnace out of it), water proof (you can build a boat out of it), also bug- and mildew-proof. It's lightweight, strong, durable, and non-toxic. You can work it with hand tools. It holds nails and screws. It can be formed in blocks or panels or columns or poured into molds. The machinery to make it can be assembled from off-the-shelf parts for a couple of hundred dollars. You can use plain ol' concrete mix and dish soap for the foaming agent.
I heard about it years ago (Christopher Alexander wanted to use it with his Pattern Language generative architecture) but it seems that there's been a recent bloom of interest and applications with the invention of the small backyard-scale foamer/mixers. People can and are using aircrete to make all kinds of homes and other buildings. One group is teaching workshops on making cool spherical homes that cost a few thousand dollars, can be built by a handful of people in a couple of weeks, and will last for decades or even centuries.
This is just one example of a really keen solution that's (as yet) underutilized. I collect ideas the way stamp collectors collect stamps, and I've "seen things you people wouldn't believe." (I.e. ever heard of a phase conjugate mirror? You point your flash light at this mirror and the light is reflected back into the bulb.)
But what was the reasoning behind your statement that "we have simple, easy solutions to all our physical problems" (even if not all those solutions come from aircrete)?
> But what was the reasoning behind your statement that "we have simple, easy solutions to all our physical problems" (even if not all those solutions come from aircrete)?
Thanks for asking! Let me see if I can compress and express the kernel of what I mean.
First, let me specify that, by "physical problems", I mean provisioning food, water, shelter, waste recycling, clothing, transportation, electric power, etc. as contrasted with political, ideological, social, and spiritual problems.
I'm a fan of a school of applied ecology called "Permaculture" (I recently learned of a parallel evolution of the same ideas called "Syntropic" agriculture.) It's been demonstrated in farms and projects all over the world by now. We can transform deserts into forests and meadows.
That accounts for food, water, waste recycling, and clothing, as well as some building material. Also many medicines can be grown in the garden.
If you mine lime, etc., you can make aircrete and that accounts for a tremendous amount of shelter. You also grow wood and bamboo for construction purposes.
If you integrate alcohol fuel production with your food forest you have a carbon-neutral fuel source. That accounts for electric power (along with renewables, solar, wind, hydro, etc.) and your much of your transportation costs. (You still have to mine metal and stuff for the vehicles themselves, of course.) ( http://alcoholcanbeagas.com/sitemap )
To sum up, if we "reboot" agriculture using what we now know about ecology (the science) we can provide for our needs in a way that is ecologically harmonious (and can therefore continue long enough that maybe we can sort out the other problems too, eventually.) Also, it's fun! And you can make money at it. (The Syntropic agriculture founder grows the best cocoa beans in the world, and gets 3x per acre as conventional cocoa farms, with no inputs. He mimics the natural forest.)
Air-crete is basically foam (like dish soap foam) mixed with concrete. It can't solve all of our physical problems but it's pretty useful: It's fire proof (you can build a furnace out of it), water proof (you can build a boat out of it), also bug- and mildew-proof. It's lightweight, strong, durable, and non-toxic. You can work it with hand tools. It holds nails and screws. It can be formed in blocks or panels or columns or poured into molds. The machinery to make it can be assembled from off-the-shelf parts for a couple of hundred dollars. You can use plain ol' concrete mix and dish soap for the foaming agent.
I heard about it years ago (Christopher Alexander wanted to use it with his Pattern Language generative architecture) but it seems that there's been a recent bloom of interest and applications with the invention of the small backyard-scale foamer/mixers. People can and are using aircrete to make all kinds of homes and other buildings. One group is teaching workshops on making cool spherical homes that cost a few thousand dollars, can be built by a handful of people in a couple of weeks, and will last for decades or even centuries.
This is just one example of a really keen solution that's (as yet) underutilized. I collect ideas the way stamp collectors collect stamps, and I've "seen things you people wouldn't believe." (I.e. ever heard of a phase conjugate mirror? You point your flash light at this mirror and the light is reflected back into the bulb.)