It's always important to read BETWEEN the lines. Here's the most important line of that article:

And in Germany, passive houses cost only about 5 to 7 percent more to build than conventional houses.

While I don't believe we should be reckless about the environment and should most certainly use so called "green" technologies when it is actually cheaper, well over 60% of these so called "green" technologies are woefully inefficient and cannot exist without government intervention. The fact that it is supposedly cheaper is probably due in some small part to lower material cost, but I would wage a week's pay that it is because of gov't subsidies and tax credits. I inferred from Steve's post that even he wouldn't consider it without the tax credit.

If the idea can help the environment and work in the marketplace, great. However, my hard earned money(in the form of taxes) should not be wasted on concepts and products that do not work as promised or at all.