B. C. backyard bubble Canada’s first biodome
Plants can grow in no soil, fraction of water used in conventional farming
The 280- square- metre plastic bubble in Tom Colclough’s Surrey yard is packed with 6,000 strawberry plants that require no soil and use one- tenth the water of conventional farming.
Canada’s first agricultural “biodome” is made from air- tight layers of ethylene tetrafluoroethylene ( ETFE), a plastic film that weighs 99 per cent less than glass and naturally disperses light within the dome, creating an ideal environment for vertical hydroponic growing systems, said designer Colclough.
The prototype biodome — built for the Canadian subsidiary of Eco Energy Asia — is loosely based on the concepts pioneered by the Eden Project, a complex of biodomes in Cornwall, U. K. Eden Project domes are able to faithfully recreate Mediterranean, tropical and temperate growing conditions, with control over moisture and even carbon dioxide levels that are difficult to achieve in a conventional greenhouse.
Sometimes employing up to five layers of ETFE, a biodome can provide near total insulation from surrounding environmental conditions, which dramatically reduces heating and cooling costs. The prototype is heated electrically, but could be modified to heat or cool using nearly any available fuel. It even collects rainwater for its crops.
“Everyone wants local food and to be food secure,” said Colclough, president of Eco Energy Tech Canada ( EcoTech). “You could put one of these in the Yukon with underfloor heat, in the desert or in a refugee camp and people could grow their own food.”
The EcoTech biodome design has the potential to succeed where other vertical growing systems have failed, if they can get the price point right, said Tom Baumann, a professor at the University of Fraser Valley and director of the Pacific Berry Resource Centre.
“The planet is fast running out of food, potable water and agricultural land, and by the end of 2050 we will have to feed nine billion people, according to recent projections,” said Baumann. “With this model of vertical gardening, you can have five times the output on the same footprint of land.”