Comments

I don't think it would be fair for us to judge the power plants merely by their names and no hard data. Technology has come a long way since the old relic coal power plants were opened and with these new technologies come greater efficiency and near-zero emissions. Syngas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngas) itself greatly improves the efficiency. For example, instead of getting 80MWhr per power plant, you can now get 100MWhr from the same sized plant, using the same amount of coal and producing much less greenhouse gases. Maybe if we could get some comparative statistics between the old and the new, we could make an informed decision on whether they're taking a leap backwards or forwards.

One major issue I can see with this idea is what would happen in the event of a fire. I have lived in Africa for many years and I know a major source for cooking in rural areas would be an open fire. Mud huts and brick houses are flame retardant, but plastic bottles are not and tend to burn with poisonous gases being released. Plastic also degrade quite rapidly with solar radiation as secondary intermolecular bonds break (the secondary hydrogen bonds, more specifically). These are the bonds holding the joined PET (polyethyleneterephthalate, which is the most commonly used plastic for bottles) molecule strains intact. Once they degrade (can happen within a year), they will become hard and brittle and will not be able to sustain a heavy weight as would be expected in a house. I think that what these students have tried to do is very respectable, but these issues should also be considered for the safety of the possible inhabitants.