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Canadian figures to back up my claim of efficiency

What are you going to do to the house, renovate/fix or build new? Assuming you are above the FEMA floodline, I would prefer rebuild with Insulated Concrete Form walls. You can get wind rated windows, they absorb a lot of noise as a byproduct of being wind rated. (Wind being hurricanes and what not.)

In the past, houses have not been built with an eye towards eventual renovation. There are some groups looking into this now. A good stop is Pathnet ( http://www.pathnet.org/ ), which is a partnership between the US Housing and Urban Development Commission and the housing industry. One progressive commercial site is Bensonwood Homes ( http://www.bensonwood.com/ ). They are now doing things like planned crawl spaces and chases in walls. If you watch This Old House, Ted Benson did a timber frame in MA. Same guy (as far as I know). A civil engineer from the south, now doing cutting edge housing out of MA is Building Science Corporation ( http://www.buildingscience.com/bsc/ ). Lots of good info on his site. The US DOE has a good site out of Colorado ( http://www.eere.energy.gov/ ). I know New Orleans and Canada are a long way apart, but snoop around the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation site (probably via Google is better http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/ I'm assuming English). All kinds of useful information.

In an incident like Katrina, power can be important. But even in general. Cogeneration is nice. On a per-house basis, you sort of get sucked in to Otto or Diesel cycle prime movers. At some point (micro) gas turbines come into play. What prime mover you choose depends on the work/heat balance, but I really like gas turbines compared to either Otto or Diesel cycle. The ability to burn biodiesel would definitely tilt things towards the Diesel cycle. For fuel independence, nothing beats Stirling cycles, but very little happens on that side. Which is really a pity. There is no reason why your cogen plant can't run your heat pump or air-conditioner, or for that matter your refrigerator (largest power user in a typical house). Finding refrigerators capable of having "off-site" heat transfer is difficult. Marine seems the best place to start looking.

It's bloody difficult to build a nice house on stilts. The Dutch have an approach where "house boats" are anchored to pipes. If a flood happens, the house just floats up. The anchors (big pipes in the pictures I've seen) keep the house in place.

There are LED lights (pucks) which can be inserted in almost any surface (wall, floor, ceiling) that only require about 7mm machining. Supplier I seen is ( http://www.eyeleds.com/ ).

The tornado rooms (steel box inside the house) are probably a good investment.

Mold likes to eat most of modern construction. There are mold resistant lumbers (I prefer concrete, especially the stronger/later curing concretes with fly ash additions) and drywalls available. Don't use fibreglass, it's useless in a fire. Use mineral wool for insulation.

Don't use nails. Use screws, or screws and adhesive. Some acoustic applications might only want adhesive. Go to 5/8 inch, fire rated drywall. It gives straighter/flatter walls, and absorbs more sound. Visit http://greengluecompany.com/ to find out about Green Glue for acoustic uses.

Somebody mentioned poor insulation (cotton based) for wiring, getting good concrete is a problem. You might end up being better to make the stuff yourself in nobody locally will guarantee their concrete.

If the temperature of the outside is precisely what you would want at any time of the day or night, you don't need (thermal) insulation. For any other situation, you need insulation. Use as much insulation as you can afford. (I would prefer

Your information is way out of date (if it ever was true). PV is relatively clean and cost effective now, and per unit these advantages will only improve with increasing volume. We just don't need centralized nukes in the next few decades, propping up a nuclear industry with a history of lies, murder (Silkwood), and pollution, built on government subsidies for R&D and insurance, and initmately associated with WMD production.

On scalability, PV solar systems work well especially when integrated with a system that gets some of its energy during cloudy or nighttime from cogeneration, which could be fueled using hydrogen made elsewhere by solar panels, or by biodiesel fuelds derived from farms, or from synthetic carbon based fuels (like synthetic propane) created from power from solar panels deployed in equatorial areas or the ocean. To see such an solar and cogeneration system working cost effectively in a major northern city, consider:
http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/popup/hhtoronto/works.h tm
"What is truly amazing is that CMHC's Healthy House in Toronto provides all the comforts of home - without using municipal services. It has been designed to rely on sun and precipitation as the basis of its heating, electrical, water and waste water management systems. And right from the start, the way it is built and the materials used in construction mean more comfort, less maintenance and lower operating costs. That goes for the landscaping, too. CMHC's Healthy House in Toronto is located near public transportation, and is designed to provide maximum usable space on a minimum amount of land, to limit air and water pollution, and to use locally available materials and durable renewable resources wherever possible. It is an affordable solution to housing now that will keep on working for many years to come."

On pollution:
http://greennature.com/article641.html
"These differences, however, may not be particularly meaningful, according to Vasilis Fthenakis, a senior chemical engineer at Brookhaven National Laboratory who specializes in the potential environmental impacts of solar cells. "There are no significant environmental and safety hazards with any of [the types of solar cells] to the scale that they are manufactured today," he explains. And although there are some hazardous materials used, such as silane gas, cadmium, carbon tetrafluoride, and lead, he says, "if you look at the quantities in relation to their use in other industries, they are very, very small." But these risks will become more significant as the industry grows, he adds."

Still, the fact remains that either we clean up all manufacturing towards zero emissions, or we will be burried in waste and pollution no matter what our energy source. R&D into all forms of low pollution manufacuring in the future will benefit PV.

Overall they make sense right now compare to what we have:
http://www.azom.com/details.asp?ArticleID=1119
"An average U.S. household uses 830 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month. On average, producing 1000 kWh of electricity with solar power reduces emissions by nearly 8 pounds of sulfur dioxide, 5 pounds of nitrogen oxides, and more than 1,400 pounds of carbon dioxide. During its projected 28 years of clean energy production, a rooftop system with 2-year payback and meeting half of a household's electricity use would avoid conventional electrical plant emissions of more than half a ton of sulfur dioxide, one-third a ton of nitrogen oxides, and 100 tons of carbon dioxide. PV is clearly a wise energy investment with great environmental benefits!"

And consider innovative approaches towards lifetime recycling of PV products:
http://www.renewableenergyacc

I don't think it is that simple.

http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/burema/gesein/abhose /abhose_ce13.cfm

Horrible quote, reliable source:

"If you have properly sealed the attic you should not need more attic ventilation. Attic ventilation is overrated. In winter, the cold outside air cannot hold much humidity or carry moisture away from the attic. In summer, attic temperatures are more affected by the sun and shingle colour than by the amount of ventilation."

They do add: "Building codes require attic ventilation. Ventilation may make a difference in ..."

> Though it would be very expensive, you could
> take a two- or three-bedroom house, insulate it
> with aerogel, and you could heat the house with
> a candle. But eventually the house would become
> too hot.'"

I hope Aerogel is not as dangerous as UFFI !

Homes in snow areas accumulate snow on the roof. This actually helps insulate them in winter. And, even if it didn't, this means those expensive roofing panels are useless in winter until someone climbs on the roof to sweep away the snow.

You cannot "aim" shingles. If your house is "conventional" (as the building codes require in many areas) you are going to have a pitched roof with a peak. At any given time, half the area of the roof is going to be utterly wasted. And even with the sun directly overhead, one is not likely to experience "peak" generation.

That 10% efficiency is peak not average. So you might be able to get a third that - or ~3.5% efficiency - for a roof. A roof that costs ten times as much to install and five times as much to maintain when you get the semi-annual hail or wind damage.

I do think solar energy is where it's at, but I'm dismayed that solar cells seem to be the only solution the mainstream is willing to consider. The sun provides lots of energy and you DON'T have to convert it to electricity to make use of it. The earth itself also can provide huge sums of heating and cooling energy and yet, even in homes with basements, this utility source is rarely exploited in an efficient manner. Design a house properly and you need hardly pay for heating, hot water, or even for cooling in the summer. Much of this is possible without making use of a single solar cell, and without substantially adding to the maintenance costs of the building.