Green Energy Futures

The town of Craik, Saskatchewan hatched a plot to increase the population of the slowly dying prairie town. An eco-village on the edge of town where people would build environmentally friendly homes on unserviced lots sold for a dollar. See if it worked and get a tour of this amazing community at http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/craik-eco-village

We check out one of the rarest electric vehicles in Canada and that spurs us to check on the state of electric vehicles in Canada - http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/electric-vehicle-canada-update

Whitecourt, Alberta has a pulp mill and a saw mill. With all that wood comes wood waste. We look at how one company is turning this wood waste into something useful - green electricity. This is Green Energy Future's CKUA Radio podcast. See video and blog: http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/97-whitecourt-biomass-waste-energy

David Dodge of Green Energy Futures gets out of his comfort zone and jumps on a bike in the middle of an Edmonton winter. He learns about what kind of gear you need and how to stay warm for this fun, energy efficient mode of transportation. Plus we talk to Edmonton City Councillor Ben Henderson, a four-season cyclist himself.

Energy storage is getting ready to expand across the world. We head to Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan to see a finished project and understand more about this important next wave of energy technology.

Europe's largest, most successful economy is successfully and aggressively transitioning away from fossil fuels and nuclear. With their success has come a host of myths, we debunk the most persistent ones and get to the bottom of why you should care about Germany's energy transition.

The great boreal forest straddles the width of Canada. We visited the largest Kraft pulp mill in North America and found 95 megawatts of green biomass electricity capacity. This huge pulp mill not only produces the vast amount of electrict it requires to operate, it also now produces electricity for Alberta's grid. It's the story of pulp mills as power plants.

We look back at 2014 and pick out our three favourite clean energy stories.

The best gifts for the green energy or energy efficiency nerd in your life.

Given the simplicity and effectiveness of solar air heating technology and how much we have to spend to keep ourselves warm in the winter solar air heating just makes sense. We build a demonstration model in a backyard and chat with the company behind SolarWall a scaled up version of a solar air heater for industrial and commercial buildings.

Learn how in Canada's most fossil fuel friendly province it's wind and solar energy that are driving down prices for consumers.

Kent Rathwell is a study in contrasts. He's an ambitious entrepeneur who's spending money bringing electric vehicle infrastructure to a country with around 3500 EVs. Rathwell made his money in bird seed, he is the president of Sun Country Farms, and how he's branched out into electric vehicle chargers. The connection isn't obvious at first but listen to this week's story and the connection between...

This week we break out the microscope and tell the story of cleantech startup Morgan Solar as an intriguing example of tenacity, smarts and passion. When Morgan Solar got started six years ago their goal was to get their concentrated solar pv modules down to about $1 a watt. Well, in that time the global solar market changed drastically and prices per watt are now around $0.70 a watt. That doesn't...

Energy storage is the holy grail of a future, decentralized, clean energy grid that uses plenty of solar, wind and other intermittent forms of energy. This week we look at two Canadian startups: Temporal Power a builder of energy storing flywheels and eCamion a company that installs battery storage units in communities to even things out. This is the podcast version of the Green Energy Futures epi...

If you're a renewable energy nerd like us you've no doubt seen Bullfrog Power's ubiquitous green froggie at an event or on a piece of swag. They're darn good at being everywhere, but we wanted to get behind the cute logo and figure out if Bullfrog Power was for real. Learn what this green energy provider is all about in this week's Green Energy Futures CKUA Radio podcast. http://www.greenenergyfut...

A rocket stove is a hyper efficient wood burning stove that was originally built for the developing world. It solved two big problems - people were dying from indoor air pollution from cooking on indoor open air fires and all of the wood needed to run these stoves was causing deforestation. Now the rocket stove has come to North America but with a bit of a twist. Instead of cooking with it the roc...

Medicine Hat, Alberta is about flip the switch on the first concentrated solar thermal plant in Canada. The one-megawatt, $9 million solar plant is a first this far north and it's connected to the city's natural gas combined cycle power plant. It's the culmination of the city's award-winning Hat Smart program that involved thousands of residents in energy efficient and renewable energy projects an...

We don't follow the stock market at Green Energy Futures. But Greg Schnell does. Listen as we talk to this technical stock analyst about the big things he sees coming for the solar industry.

Typical greenfield neighborhood design destroys nature, doesn't focus on energy efficiency and can make people feel isolated. Echohaven is a new neighborhood that flips all that on its head. Learn how they did it in the latest episode of Green Energy Futures.

Learn how and why smart meters can help all of us conserve energy as well as how utilites can use third party services to make your smart meter even smarter. By providing something tangible that helps customers utilities can stop the people who believe smart meters cause cancer orare monitoring their thoughts from dominating the conversation.

Alberta produces a lot of beef. And with of those cows comes cow poop. One Alberta company has taken what was formerly a waste and turned it into the backbone of a three tiered business that produces electricity, heat and ethanol. Learn how they do it this week at Green Energy Futures.

Alberta is the most energy focused province in confederation so when its minister of energy speaks, people listen. And it was a packed house for Frank Oberle's keynote at the Canadian Solar Industry Association's Solar West event. While he didn't make any committments the landscape for solar in Alberta is the most positive its ever been. Learn why this week at Green Energy Futures.

Green Energy Futures podcast on an Earthship built in southern Alberta. These radically sustainable homes generate their own electricity, hot water and heat, treat their own waste and grow their own food.

This week it's Go Big or Go Home on CKUA's Green Energy Futures show. Net-zero homes debuted as a demonstration project in 2007. Today, just seven short years later one big home builder is ready to go net-zero with every home it builds. A future where your home produces as much energy as it consumes may be upon us! Learn more on this week's program. This is Part IV in our Chasing Net Zero series....

On this week's CKUA Green Energy Futures Podcast: It’s a beautiful, simple, livable, functional and successful net-zero experiment. That's how Shafraaz Kaba refers to his own net-zero ready home that was inspired by the idea of the passive house. By keeping things ridiculously simple Kaba was able to build an amazing, affordable net-zero home. Come along for a tour!