Green Energy Futures

As the Sesame Street song goes, Cooperation Makes It Happen, and it was a cooperative - the Peace Energy Energy Cooperative - that made the 104 megawatt Bear Mountain Wind Park a reality. That cooperative has also been instrumental both as a source of talent and ideas for the city of Dawson Creek as they've embarked on a radically sustainable journey. Visit Bear Mountain Wind Park in this episode...

The landscape of lighting is changing again! We may have just gotten used to CFLs but LEDs are now on the scene. Listen to our expert Wayne Rogers of Luminessence Lighting break down the difference between these two important energy efficient lighting technologies on our CKUA podcast this week. See Green Energy Futures video, blog and photos: http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/07/green-light...

It's not every day you can walk down to your favourite retailer and purchase a $10 million dollar light bulb, but that's what you can do with the Phillips Ambient LED. The very first winner of the $10 million L-Prize, an initiative by the US Department of Energy to accelerate the shift from inefficient, out-dated lighting to high-quality, energy efficient products. See video, blog and photos: http...

Geothermal 101 – Leigh Bond is the president of Threshold Energy and has installed dozens of geothermal systems across western Canada. He says that in 70 per cent of the geothermal jobs he does, the customer forgoes without a natural gas hookup. See Green Energy Futures video, blog and photos: http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/06/geothermal-101

Geothermal heating isn't as complex as you would think. You drill some holes, sink some pipe and circulate water through the ground below the frost line which is a constant six degrees Celsius. That water goes through a ground source heat pump which is really just a larger, fancier version of the heat pump in your fridge. It strips three degrees off of that water, compresses it, raises the tempera...

Greengate Energy isn't a typical wind developer. Instead of locating their wind farms in the windy Pincher Creek area their first project was located in central Alberta near Halkirk. The reason? Access to transmission lines. Near Pincher Creek access to transmission lines is backed up, near Halkirk? Not a problem. Learn just how innovative Greengate Power is on this week's CKUA podcast. See Green...

Greengate Energy is Dan Balaban's third company that he's founded. Working exclusively in Alberta, he's behind some of Alberta's biggest wind projects including the 150 megawatt Halkirk wind project near Red Deer and the 300 megawatt Blackspring Ridge project 50 km north of Lethbridge, Alberta. Going from zero experience in wind energy to these heights didn't come instantly for Balaban, it's been...

Les Wold, managing partner with Effect Homes, lays out how a home can be designed to produce as much energy as it consumes. One of the key design elements is taking advantage of the free energy provided by the sun. By having a lot of south-facing glass and a thermally massive floor (in this case concrete) you can get 30 to 50 per cent of your home's heat for free. See Green Energy Futures vidoe, b...

Les Wold is part of the second wave of net-zero home builders who are bringing costs down on homes that produce as much energy as it consumes. Wold has learned some simple lessons from building one net-zero home and two net-zero ready homes right next to each other in the neighborhood of Belgravia in Edmonton. Join Green Energy Futures for a tour on this week's CKUA podcast. See video, blog and ph...

Enmax, the utility owned by the city of Calgary, is going where few utilities have gone before. Their Generate Choice program is aiming to put 8,300 solar systems on Alberta roofs. Learn how they plan to do it and the red tape they've already cut through in order to make it happen. Also, learn how much you get credited for when you export any excess electricity to the grid. See Green Energy Future...

Karl Kovacs has been obsessed with solar since he was young. Learn how Enmax's Generate Choice program helped him go solar. That's this week on Green Energy Futures CKUA podcast. See video, blog and photos: http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/03/simple-easy-low-cost-shelf-solar-how-enmax-making-it-reality

Kolton Kasur left the family farm in Bashaw, Alberta to work in the oil patch until he came across NAIT's Alternative Energy program. "I think there’s going to be a huge future in [renewable energy] for farming communities and all rural areas," says Kasur. When he graduates he will have worked with everything wind to solar to geothermal to biofuels and even fuel cells. Check out NAIT's Alternative...

The NAIT Alternative Energy Program aims to fill a growing demand for renewable energy expertise. It’s a two-year program that teaches students how to design and install a broad range of green technologies ranging from solar to wind and even exotic technologies like fuel cells. There is a “definite knowledge gap out there regarding many of the green technologies,” explains instructor Don MacIntyre...

Germany is the best example of a country that has made the leap to renewable energy. In 10 years it's gone from 6.7 per cent to 20 per cent of its electricity provided by renewable energy. What did it cost regular Germans? If they didn't take advantage of the feed-in tariff program and, for example, install solar panels on their roof, the average German paid roughly an extra $50 a year on their ut...

This week on CKUA's Green Energy Futures we talk to Chris Turner, author of The Leap about how Spain went from having one of Europe's worst rail systems to one of the best and the effect it had on their carbon footprint. See blog, video and photos: http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/01/author-chris-turner-taking-green-energy-leap

When Medicine Hat aka “The Gas City” created the Hat Smart program to inject a little sustainable energy into their natural gas-fired electricity system residents really got fired up about solar energy and energy efficiency as Alderman Ted Clugston explains in this week’s Green Energy Futures CKUA podcast. http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/pilot/medicine-hats-smart-energy-revolution