This Australian house produces more electricity than it consumes

Sitting right in the heart of Melbourne at the moment is something kind of amazing — an 800 square foot modular home that's not just carbon neutral, it actually produces more energy than it consumes. It's a product of an Australian architecture firm called Archiblox that specializes in modular homes and is rolling out a series of carbon positive options.

Here's what the one in Melbourne looks like on site:

Carbon Positive House, Melbourne (Archiblox)

Dezeen magazine drew this graphic showing how it works — the house is airtight and super-insulated, cooled not by air conditioning but by underground pipes that tap into the chillier temperatures below.

It's got a whole host of green features, and solar panels on the top are supposed to generate more than enough electricity to get by. Of course this all probably works better in relatively warm and sunny Australia than it would in Minnesota or Germany.

(Dezeen)

The floorplan shows a pretty snazzy and spacious one bedroom dwelling:

According to Archiblox, the design is "priced from" 260,000 Australian dollars plus sales tax. Including tax, that would come out to a bit over $220,000 US dollars. But of course you would also need to buy some land on which to place the house.

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