Green Energy Futures

The new hot water style district heating system at UBC runs partly on biomass generated heat. It can integrate renewable energy systems like geoexchange, solar thermal and waste heat into this new low temperature heating system. It turns out you can save lots of money, and carbon emissions, by replacing those creaky old turn of the century steam pipes. See video, blog and photos. http://www.greene...

Farmers in Ontario are diversifying into farming for biogas. It uses cow manure and grease from the restauraunt industry to create methane which is then burned to produce heat and power. James Callaghan is a fifth generation dairy farmer who is about two hours east of Toronto. He never thought he would be selling electricity to the grid as part of his business but Ontario's feed-in tariff makes it...

Unbeknownst to the thousands of skiers who visit Whistler-Blackcomb every year is exactly what powers its 38 lifts, 17 restauraunts, snowmaking equipment and numerous buildings on-site. It turns out there is a 7.5 megawatt run-of-river power plant on Fitzsimmons Creek that generates the annual demand of the Whistler Blackcomb resort. Take a tour with us on CKUA Radio's Green Energy Futures. See bl...

Alive is not a word you use to describe buildings very often but this four-story 60,000 square foot CIRS building on the UBC campus in Vancouver is practically a living, breathing creature. It treats its own waste, it interacts symbiotically with its neighbors and it even gathers and cleans all of its own drinking water. Learn about what might be the greenest building in Canada this week on Green...

The False Creek Energy Centre currently heats 250,000 square metres of space with heat from the sewer system! It saves 70 per cent on greenhouse gas emissions compared to heating with natural gas and they're taking a previously unused waste product and transmogrifying it into something useful. Calvin and Hobbes would be proud. See blog, video and photos. http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/28...

When you talk about the tipping point in Vancouver's efforts to get people cycling it was a decision to close a lane of the Burrard Street bridge to cars and make it a bike lane. That was a game changer. It opened without a hitch and Vanouver has embraced the bike. See blog, video and photos. http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/26-bike-city-what-rest-canada-can-learn-vancouver

Canada's leading cleantech entrepreneurs, academics and executives say what's needed for Canada to become a clean energy superpower is a level the playing field, a price on carbon and make it easier for entrepreneurs to access capital. Get the details from the 22 experts that were interviewed for this story on this week's podcast at Green Energy Futures in CKUA Radio. See blog, photos and video: h...

This Camrose County willow biomass project is a real example of a win-win-win project. They took a potential problem - lagoons used to treat human waste - and turned it into a resource - to grow willow biomass that is used to heat their main county office. See blog, video and photos. http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/25-waste-willows

In our last Green Energy Futures CKUA podcast of 2012 we take a tour through our favourite stories, interviews and sounds. We go to Nova Scotia, Ontario, Calgary and our homebase of Edmonton and we talk to regular folks, writers and even a premier. Join us as we recount the top stories and sounds of this year. See blog and photos: http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/24-our-favourite-stories-2...

On an average day about 160 billion tonnes of seawater flows into the Bay of Fundy. That’s more than four times the combined flow of all of the freshwater rivers in the world. Nova Scotia could produce more electricity here than all of Nova Scotia requires-if they get it right. On this weeks Green Energy Futures CKUA podcast we visit the Minas Passage where Nova Scotia is testing the next generati...

Université St. Anne is a small, Francophone university in Nova Scotia. It's located on the southeastern tip of Nova Scotia at St. Mary's Bay. This campus of 300 students decided to switch from fuel oil to biomass, wind and solar thermal energy and the campus is now saving $200,000/year. We tour the campus in this episode of Green Energy Futures in our CKUA Radio podcast. See video, blog and photos...

Walmart might not be the most popular company among the green set, but they have taken some amazing steps in the past few years to use renewable energy, become more energy efficient and create less waste. We visit their Fresh Food Distribution Centre in Balzac, Alberta, a marvel of energy efficiency right in our backyard. That's this week in Green Energy Futures CKUA Radio podcast. See video, blog...

When Nova Scotia instituted its feed-in tariff it had a community twist. After all this is the home of The Antigonish Movement, a turn of the century micro-finance and community development initiative that was way ahead of Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and Grameen bank. This week on Green Energy Futures we take you to Nova Scotia to look at community wind power. See video, blog and photos: htt...

A new study confirms it. Alberta has the best solar potential in all of Canada. This news was announced at the Solar West Conference put on by the Canadian Solar Industry Asssociation and there was a buzz in the air at this well-attended event. We talk to solar industry veterans to get their take on Alberta's solar resource and how best to develop it. We also talk to Alberta's minister of environm...

A home energy audit is one of the most powerful tools you have to reduce your own energy consumption. It helps you become smart about saving money and reducing your carbon emissions. Join us for a home tour with an auditor on Green Energy Futures CKUA podcast. See video, blog and photos: http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/18-power-home-energy-audit

Light Up Alberta, is a program by small retailers that are paying $0.15 cents a kilowatt-hour for your excess solar electricity. Learn about LIght Up Alberta on this week's Green Energy Futures CKUA Radio podcast. See video, blog and photos: http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/17-light-alberta

The Enersaver creates electricity from the downswing of a oilfield pumpjack. With electricity being the single largest expense for a mature oilfield, saving 15 per cent on your electricity costs seems like a pretty good idea! Check out pumpjack powerplants on this week's Green Energy Futures CKUA Radio podcast. See video, blog and photos: http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/16-pumpjack-powerp...

This week on CKUA's Green Energy Futures we visit the Canadian Solar plant in Mississauga, Ontario, the province with the most solar in Canada. See video, blog and photos: http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/15/house-rising-sun-solar-manufacturing-canada

Phil Dayson is a man who loves his new Chevy Volt. "I've gone 6,698 km since the beginning of December and I've now used a tank and a half of gas and maybe $30 worth of electricity," says Dayson. We talk to Dayson about his Volt on Green Energy Futures, this week's CKUA podcast. See video, blog and photos: http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/14/rise-electric-car

Want to support solar energy? Buy a solar bond. "SolarShare is a cooperative that basically intends to build commercial-grade solar projects throughout Ontario and 30% of those we fund by selling public bonds," says Mike Brigham. "We’re now paying 5% per year on a 5-year bond." See video, blog and photos: http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/13/solar-bonds-ethical-local-investing-solar-energy

If you have been paying attention to the wind energy debate in Ontario you might think that wind turbines have never been built in Canada before. Heidi Eijgel has lived with wind turbines in southern Alberta for more than a decade. On this week's Green Energy Futures we tell her experience living with wind and telling that story in Ontario. See blog, video and photos: http://www.greenenergyfutures...

It's the cold winter winds that drive the wind turbines in British Columbia's Peace region and it's the song Winter Winds by Mumford and Sons that kicks off this week's podcast. This week on Green Energy Futures we tell the story of two entirely different wind projects in B.C., one led by the Peace Renewable Energy Cooperative, a community organization in Dawson Creek, and the other a corporate pr...

We start off this week's CKUA podcast with everyone's favourite 1967 Expo-era Ontario promotional tune. This earworm of a ditty was commissioned by the government of Ontario for the 1967 Expo in Montreal. While those Jetsonian fantasies didn’t come true Ontario is taking dramatic steps towards a renewable energy future. Imagine a place that is turning off all of its coal plants in just two years a...

Visible to hundreds of thousands of commuters and park goers every day the wind turbine at exhibition place on Toronto’s waterfront was a harbringer of the green energy revolution coming to Ontario. Developed by the TREC Renewable Energy Cooperative this was North America’s first urban wind turbine. See video, blog and photos: http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/09/how-torontos-waterfront-win...

Dawson Creek, British Columbia has gone all-in on renewable energy. A local grassroots group helped set up the province's first large scale wind development on a ridge just outside of town and the city has even started charging itself $100 a tonne for carbon. See video, blog and photos: http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/08/awesome-dawson-creek-northern-oil-and-gas-town-bets-big-renewable-en...