There is enough wheat and other grain straw burned in this country each year (causing air polution), to build several million 2,000 sq. ft. straw bale homes. At the 2006 Solar Decathlon, energy efficiency building competition, students from Penn State told me that they had researched insulation for an Indian reservation project. They determined that straw bale home construction was 10 TIMES more energy efficient than any other form of insulated building they studied.
I wonder how many energy efficient, comfortable straw bale homes could be built in China and India from all their rice and wheat straw, most of which probably gets burned. If you don’t know what I am talking about, google: straw bale home construction, or some variant, their are thousands of articles on the topic.
That material would never be used here. Some do-gooder would have the fire marshal shut it down in a heartbeat, then enter the lawyers to sue for product liability.
But India and China already have terrible construction, so it would definitely be an improvement for them......until the bugs come crawling out of the stuff.