mature industry can be utilized to create a living module that could be totally independent of any exterior energy source. It would be the sweetest of ironies if the industry that has contributed a great amount to the incipient climate crisis could be one of the vehicles that helped solve it.

This project shows a product that lies entirely within the knowledge base of the automobile manufacturers but results in an entirely different carbon footprint than the present day automobile.

The product is a module for living that would incorporate a host of existing technologies to harvest energy from the sun, wind, rain and biology to create the core of a dwelling that would need no, or very little, outside energy to provide a safe, clean and comfortable module for housing human beings.

The starting point is a box the size of a shipping container that would unfold to a 600 square foot dwelling. It would have solar panels to power its appliances, wind power to supplement the solar, rain water collection and filtration, a biodegrading toilet, passive heating and cooling, grey water reuse, and structural capacity to with stand severe weather events. All of this is currently available today and the technologies are only going to improve in the future,

The reason that the automobile industry is so important to this idea is two fold. First, the industry has in place the capacity for the research and development of this idea and the capacity to produce it in great numbers. Second, and more important I believe, the ability to market and distribute a module of this sort to the public at large. The ability to advertise a product of this sort, make it chic to be living green, make the purchase of a module a status symbol, a signal to your neighbors that you are doing your part to save the planet.

I envision this idea as being applicable to the industrialized nations initially. The module could be developed as a stand alone unit, a environmentally super charged mobile home; or it could also be developed as a core module that would serve as a basis for the heart of a larger dwelling that could be built in a more traditional manner, utilizing the core module as the energy source for the larger unit.

Several modules could be linked together to form larger energy generating cores that could serve large houses or small clinics or day care centers. The army already has a field hospital that comes in a box, delivered by helicopter, that includes a complete operating theater.

Unlike the department of defense, the automobile industry has the capacity to produce a product at a price point that is affordable to a wide section of the population. The ultimate goal would be to increase production to the point where a basic, stripped down version of the module could be affordable by developing nations governments to house their burgeoning populations.

The initial research and development may be costly and the actual production of the units may be energy intensive, but once manufactured, the units no longer contribute any carbon to the atmosphere and no longer consume any fossil fuel for the rest of its useful life.

My dream is to see a day when the auto makers compete with each other to bring out the most desirable module on perhaps a three or four year schedule, With models ranging from Mercedes to Kia, in their own show rooms, with upgrade packages and end of model year sales.

A module type could be designed to retrofit an older house to convert it to a non energy consuming dwelling.

I believe that the market is there and that the auto makers uniquely have the ability to tap that market. All that is needed is will and the ability to see the potential.