A friend and colleague of mine, Brad Vietje, is building a straw bale house and will be working with the same solar heated storage tank as I am using for 78 Main St. He, too, has a goal for net zero energy, with solar PV for electricity and using local and sustainable materials everywhere.
I didn’t know anything about using straw bale for insulation — so I was happy to find that Brad is blogging about his house construction and has described it in some detail at his website: Vermont Straw Bale Adventures.
Straw is a local, sustainable material with good insulation characteristics. Here is the specific link where Brad outlines the benefits of straw bales: So Why Bales?.
Best of luck, Brad! And keep blogging.
It awesome to get a little additional expertise for doing renovations (or thinking about it). If you want a few top notch tips, I also highly recommend checking Masterrenovator.com, the site is full of great tips on things that can keep you out of trouble.