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Can High Tech Equal High Environmental Impact?

by Jennifer Griffin, Architechtronics You might think that integrating technology into a home would be the exact opposite of green. With advances in home control systems, it gets easier for automatic control over lighting, temperature, smart irrigation, and even energy…

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Sunlight Grows Farm Power near Seattle

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. Jeff Collum of Sound Power, the electrical contractor who installed the 29-kilowatt system, explains that people are often shocked to hear that the Seattle area has 70 percent of the harvestable solar power of Los Angeles. Contrary to popular belief, solar power in the cloudy Pacific Northwest - where Bainbridge is located - is a viable energy alternative to fossil fuels. Only half joking, he says that in Germany they “hang PVs on everything in the sun that doesn’t move” and points out that Germany’s solar resource – except for a very small area - is inferior to the marine Pacific Northwest.

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