Biodynamic Farm Powers More Than Plants with Sun

Tani Creek Farm in the Pacific Northwest uses sunlight for more than just growing vegetables. In the misty hills of Bainbridge Island, across Puget Sound from Seattle, Washington, a 25-acre biodynamic farm uses solar power for all its agricultural needs such as irrigation, water movement (pumped from ponds to other uses) and food production, as well as for residential purposes. Contrary to popular belief, solar power in the cloudy Pacific Northwest - where Bainbridge is located - is a viable energy alternative to fossil fuels according to solar contractor Jeff Collum of Sound Power. The farm's 29-kilowatt system covers two outbuildings and are part of the owner's mission to create a self-sustaining farm that uses clean energy.

Victoria's Dockside Green Does It Right

Dockside Green is located near downtown Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. It is a 15-acre master-planned waterfront community consisting of three neighborhoods designed to incorporate New Urbanism, smart growth, green building and sustainable community design. Dockside Green presents a model of urban regeneration through brownfield reuse, green design, and community building. A model for holistic, closed-loop design, Dockside Green functions as a total environmental system in which form, structure, materials, mechanical and electrical systems are interrelated and interdependent - a largely self-sufficient, sustainable community where waste from one area provides fuel for another. An example is its membrane bioreactor package wastewater treatment plant that recovers heat from sewage, bathwater, and dishwater. Dockside Green is intended to be built over 12 phases in three neighborhoods, with a total of 1.3 million gross square feet (73 percent of which is residential) in 26 buildings, housing 2,500 residents. (There are currently over 450.) Dockside Wharf is the initial neighborhood, with two primarily residential projects and two commercial buildings. The first phase of the Wharf, a LEED Platinum condominium project named Synergy, sold 85 percent of its 96 units in 3 hours with the first residents moving in May 2008.

Key sustainable features:

•The biomass energy system, which uses waste wood as fuel through a gasification process.

•Passive solar heating.

•An advanced building envelope and high-performance window glazing to help prevent heat loss.

•A 100-per-cent fresh air system with heat recovery.

•High-efficiency lighting and occupancy sensors.

•A 65-per-cent reduction in indoor water use with dual flush toilets, low-flow fixtures and use of graywater for sewage conveyance.

•Treatment of 100 per cent of the site’s wastewater in a campus-wide plant, which reuses it in central water features, toilet flushing, and on-site irrigation.

The project is one of a handful in Canada to achieve LEED Platinum and the first master-planned development to target this level of certification.