Green Energy Futures

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!

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