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meantime.The Earthship people feature an 11-minute video on their Web site that explains the concept. "Earthships demonstrate a way to live in harmony with the planet by encountering natural resources without depleting them.An Earthship is a passive solar home made of natural and recycled materials," says Reynolds, the narrator. "It is off-grid, getting its power from its the sun and wind,its water from the rain and snow,and it reuses, contains and treats its own wastewater with a combination of wetlands and hydroponics." Water is used four times. It's funneled from the roof into a cistern,filtered, pumped and pressurized for use in the sinks and showers. Passing through a grease and particle filter, the water enters a graywater treatment,used for growing plants. The cleaned graywater enters a toilet tank, and after flushing enters a conventional septic tank.The treated septic tank water features a line out to more planters outside the home.The water heater, lighting and the refrigerator will run on direct current from the solar panels. The Earthship concept was starting to look more plausible, with one catch-- all the examples shown were from New Mexico.This is the first Earthship to be built in Hawaii, and I hope the owners are aware of Mountain View's climate. Thursday was the Earthship Biotecture crew's last day on the site. In the short time,the builders were nearly finished with one module and were hard at work on the frame of the greenhouse."The second module has just been started already," Jacobsen said. "Eight days; that's a lot for eight days,for sure." Jacobsen herself lives in an Earthship in Taos, where she runs a visitor center.The "Greater World Earthship Community," as it's called,has 50 homes spread out on 650 acres of land near Taos. "I would say the majority of Earthships in the world have been built by their clients." Damian Larsen of Taos was putting a final coating on the module's rain gutter. He was asked how he got involved with Earthship Biotecture. "It's just something I feel in, I believe in doing. At the end of my day,I feel good about doing," he said. "It feels like something positive every day.We could all be doing frame houses,but we're doing this." The immediate benefits of an Earthship -- no water or electricity bills,for example-- are obvious. It also addresses the long-term concerns about survival after the world's oil supply runs out, or when the next hurricane strikes. But would you live in it? On the Internet: www.earthshipbiotecture.com. Peter Sur can be reached at psur @hawaiitribune-herald.com.