Homes to help you survive higher oil prices caused by middle east chaos?

The latest cover of Time magazine for July 14th 2014 has a front piece article called: "The Smarter Home"

Here are some of the listings:

A yard that keeps you active page 74
Solar Panels that eliminate your electric bills page 76
An air conditioner that anticipates your needs page 59
Walls that can weather a hurricane page 66
A Garden that can filter your air page 87
A car that can power your house page 79
A door that can sense your approach page 59
A sprinkler that tracks the weather page 80

The dwelling of the future will make you
calmer, safer, richer and healthier- and they
already exist.

end quote from;
Time magazine

The idea of a well built intelligent house that both generates electricity from solar panels on the roof and also generates power from solar panels built into your car likely will mean more and more people will be completely off the grid. So, when you build a house you won't have to worry about electricity and instead only when the sun comes out there. So you could be miles from the nearest power line and still be okay. However, unless you recycle and re-filter your water you will still have to think about that too. By having good batteries (they are available now) to store electricity generated by your car and house you shouldn't need any power at all from the  power companies. However, any extra power you could sell back to local power companies if you want to.