Green Energy Futures

This week on CKUA's Green Energy Futures: Louis pereira is a home designer who believes sustainability comes from designing new and innovative forms of housing that revitalize inner city neighbourhoods and support more sustainable lifestyles. Today we visit LG house, Louis and Giselle Pereira’s home and learn how location and urban design are key to supporting more sustainable lifestyles and a muc...

On this week's CKUA Green Energy Futures episode we have seen the light, and it is that big ball of fire in the sky known as the sun. The idea of net-zero homes is taking off and it's thanks to copius amounts of free, passive solar energy and solar electricity all derived from the sun. They're building homes that produce as much energy as they consume and they are doing it in the most northerly bi...

This is the third year that Ms Van Den Eynden's Grade 5 class at Prairie Waters elementary school in Chestermere Alberta has taken part in the the Classroom Energy Diet Challenge. It's a series of 25 different challenges that students across the country can participate in, the more you the more you learn about renewable energy, energy efficiency, carbon footprints and much much more. We head to Pr...

Greenfield Specialty Alcohols in Chatham, Ontario produces 200 million litres of ethanol a year. That's their main business, but beyond all the steel and pipe this plant produces animal food, CO2 for pop, heat for a tomato greenhouse, corn oil for biodiesel fuel and more! Discover this amazing industrial ecosystem on this week's CKUA episode of Green Energy Futures.

Pond Biofuels is growing algae by feeding it smoke stack emissions from the St. Marys Cement plant in Ontario. The company's founder Steve Martin hopes one day to capture between between 5 and 10% of the carbon dioxide emissions at a cement plant by commercializing the process. That's this week on Green Energy Futures CKUA episode. Also see our video and blog: http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/epis...

On this weeks CKUA Radio Green Energy Futures podcast University of Calgary students on Team Zeus set out to build an electric racing motorbike. They proved their chops with a bike that ran on a washing machine motor and went 20 km/h – now they are building a full-fledged racing bike! http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/blog/zoom-zoom-university-calgary-s-team-zeus-builds-electric-racing-motorcycle

This week on our Green Energy Futures' CKUA podcast we tell the cool story of the Groundswell passive solar greenhouse that stays warm by capturing solar energy in four different ways to extend the season to 10 months of the year! We speak to Bill Swan of the Groundswell Community Network in Invermere, B.C.

On this week's Green Energy Futures CKUA Podcast come on into the Grizzly Den at GLOBE 2014 and learn about three green start-ups. We look at tiny homes, black soldier fly larvae that eat garbage, and an underwater powerplant called the Hydrokite. http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/72-three-and-coming-companies-keep-eye

How Truly Green Farms and Greenfield Ethanol married a smoke stack with a greenhouse. Greg Devries is the president of Truly Green Farms a greenhouse operation in Chatham, Ontario that is set to capture the emissions from a smoke stack and grow tomatoes with the heat and CO2. This week on Green Energy Future's CKUA Radio podcast It's an amazing story of industrial symbiosis.

Solar Thermal 101 - This week on our CKUA Green Energy Futures show we head to historic Terminal 4 at the Edmonton International Airport to look at domestic solar hot water systems. Invented accidentally in the late 1700s we learn out how this technology has exploded around the world and what the best applications are today. http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/70-solar-thermal-101

This week on our CKUA podcast we head to ground zero for an idea called laneway housing. These small homes are replacing garages all over Vancouver as a new form of affordable housing. We talk to Bryn Davidson of Lanefab Homes, a builder of near net zero landway homes. http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/69-vancouvers-lane-homes-cheaper-more-energy-efficient-way-densify-mature-neighborhood

This week on our CKUA broadcast, Starland County started using solar to run water pumps in 2007. They are now working on a pilot program to get 10 farmers each installing a 10 kilowatt solar system. The idea is is to mix in a little farmer DIY to get the price down to the point where solar pays for itself in 10-13 years. Learn how this small Alberta county took an innovative approach to bring sola...

Harvest Power in Richmond BC takes in 200,000 tonnes of food and organic waste and turn it into compost for your yard and electricity for your home! Take a walk with rotting organic waste this week on Green Energy Futures.

This week on Green Energy Future's CKUA podcast, the KidWind Challenge came to Edmonton, Alberta and seven teams from three high schools competed to build working wind turbines. More than 5,000 kids since 2009 from all over North America have participated in the KidWind Challenge designing and building micro wind turbines, testing them out in a wind tunnel and competing for prizes. See photos and...

This week on CKUA Les Quinton is the Macgyver of energy efficiency and renewable energy in the small town of Black Diamond, Alberta. There's almost no system he hasn't optimized and with the dollars he's saved Black Diamond reinvests in solar energy and energy efficiency which saves the town even more money. Learn how Les Quinton does it all this week on Green Energy Futures. http://www.greenenerg...

Cogeneration is a back to the future technology. The idea is simple run a big hot engine, generate electricity right in your building and use the heat to heat it. Most modern power plants actually turn heat into a form of pollution that heats up lakes and rivers instead of our homes and buildings. This week we visit the Centennial Building in Calgary, Alberta to take a look at its 370 kilowatt gen...

Amelie Caron is a high-performance building consultant and one of the people who helped make the Belgravia Green net-zero home in Edmonton a reality. Learn how this 1,500 square foot home gets 50 per cent of its heat from south facing windows and a polished concrete floor this week at Green Energy Futures. http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/62-power-passive-solar-and-thermal-mass

Coming up next week on CKUA's Green Energy Futures: Passive solar energy can provide half of a home's heating needs from sunshine streaming through the windows for free! That's Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday on the CKUA Radio Network in Alberta.

How plain vanilla energy efficiency programs could save Albertans $1.5 billion and get Alberta 27 megatonnes of emissions reductions, halfway to its greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. We talk to Jesse Row of the Alberta Energy Efficiency Alliance.

Alberta has a small carbon tax and the money collected goes into a green technology fund that invests in greenhouse gas reducing projects. This mechanism, called the Climate Change Emissions Management Corporation has achieved large emissions reductions by investing in renewable energy projects. Learn how the fund works and about some of the projects they've invested in this week on Green Energy F...

The electric bike might be the single best urban transportation option out there. It's super green, gets you outside, has really low emissions and can get you up that big hill without breaking a sweat. Learn all about e-bikes this week on Green Energy Futures. http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/59-electric-bikes

Alberta's new associate minister of electricity and renewable energy Donna Kennedy Glans (PC), Rachel Notley (ND), Joe Anglin (Wildrose) and Dr. David Swan (Liberal) answer the question: "What timeline do you see as practical for the coal phase out in the province of Alberta." The Jan. 16, 2014 event was moderated by Colin Soskolne for the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.

On January 1st the phase out of incandescent light bulbs began in Canada. In spite of what you may have heard, this is actually a good news story. Not only will we save massive amounts of energy, but money as well. We also address the myths around the true costs and mercury in CFLs. See blog: http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/58-incandescent-light-bulb-phase-out-good-thing-0

Green Energy Futures looks at power-to-gas, a way to convert and store excess renewable energy such as wind and solar to make hydrogen and fuel vehicles, heat homes or generate electricity.

Green Energy Futures best of 2013 episode: Rediscover our favorite story about energy from pooh on the farm; find out which story went viral on YouTube; which City Hall is heated with biomass; and which home builder has pledged to make every home he builds net zero by 2015.