Green Energy Futures

The folks who say clean energy can never satisfy primary energy demand have it all wrong, says Michael Liebreich in his essay on The Pragmatic Climate Reset. Due to the inefficiency of fossil fuels, only 68% of primary energy is provided by fossil fuels, he says. "The 1.5 degree [energy] transition is dead," he says, but "Transition like a tortoise is absolutely not dead." What...

In Michael Liebreich's Pragmatic Climate Reset, he calls for an end to polarizing all-or-nothing climate action. He says we can get to 90% clean energy by dropping the absolute goals of getting to 100% renewable energy and banning fossil fuels. Getting to 90% can be done efficiently, cost-effectively by focusing on the cheapest energy solutions and using some natural gas. And besides, he says, by...

The focus of the world has shifted dramatically since the election of President Donald Trump and in the wake of trade wars and economic woes that seem to dominate the news cycles. This has also led to climate change taking a back seat, and some critics are suggesting the energy transition is dead. Whoa, not so fast, says Michael Liebreich, investor, energy expert, and founder of Bloomberg New Ener...

What the world needs now is a Pragmatic Climate Reset. So says Michael Liebreich, investor, energy transition expert and the founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Driven by the potential catastrophic impacts posed by climate change people and the nations of the world have pushed to eliminate fossil fuels, move to 100% renewable energy and to get to net-zero by 2050.These are laudable goals, but...

FULL INTERVIEW - Canada lost a great athlete, statesman, and author this year when hockey legend Ken Dryden passed away. We reached into our radio archives for this exclusive interview carried out on the banks of the Athabasca River in 2003 when Ken Dryden participated in the Boreal Rendezvous canoe expedition from Fort McKay to Wood Buffalo National Park in Alberta. In this interview with David D...

Canada lost an amazing athlete, statesman and author this year when Ken Dryden passed away. I had the pleasure of joining Dryden on Boreal Rendezvous, an epic canoe adventure on the Athabasca River in 2003 in support of Boreal Forest conservation. This week, we remember Ken Dryden in this interview recorded on a sandbar on the Athabasca River. In Part 1 of our CKUA series, Ken shares the story of...

VIDEO - Nova Scotia is bullish on offshore wind power. They just offered leases for the development of 5 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity. That's twice the annual electricity consumption in Nova Scotia. And they have already identified suitable areas for up to 60 gigawatts of offshore wind development. That's enough to provide 27% of Canada's electricity. Surprisingly, these will be the first o...

Nova Scotia is bullish on offshore wind power. They just offered leases for the development of 5 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity. That's twice the annual electricity consumption in Nova Scotia. And they have already identified suitable areas for up to 60 gigawatts of offshore wind development. That's enough to provide 27% of Canada's electricity. Surprisingly, these will be the fir...

Amidst the trade wars, geopolitical and economic turmoil, Prime Minister Mark Carney is fast-tracking what he calls nation-building mega projects. BUT "Instead of ‘building fossil fuel and mining mega projects,’ Evan Ferrari says we need to build 'decentralized megaprojects' that are “small hyper local projects thattogether add up to a massive megaproject.” Evan Ferrari is the executi...

VIDEO Solar's meteoric rise has also unfortunately attracted unsavoury characters, AKA solar scammers. This drives solar veteran Greg Sauer crazy. These fly-by-night solar sellers are telling people exactly what they want to hear, and some are paying more than 3 times more than the going rate. Greg Sauer wants this to stop! We talk to Greg this week on Green Energy Futures CKUA podcast, plus w...

Solar's meteoric rise has also unfortunately attracted unsavoury characters, AKA solar scammers. This drives solar veteran Greg Sauer crazy. These fly-by-night solar sellers are telling people exactly what they want to hear, and some are paying more than 3 times more than the going rate. Greg Sauer wants this to stop! We talk to Greg this week on Green Energy Futures CKUA podcast, plus we shar...

Driven by the US trade war and Canada passed its Nation Building bill to fast-track nation-building projects to support economic and energy independence. Monica Curtis of the Pembina Institute thinks we need to rethink the idea of nation-building mega projects and is proposing Canada launch a massive wave of building retrofit projects to support energy security, affordability for Canadians and to...

VIDEO - Chris Packard of Firefly Solar was walking home from work when he noticed the Pedal Pub mobile bar bikes were plugged in. So he thought, "These should be solar powered." Turns out Pedal Pub thought it was a great idea.

Chris Packard of Firefly Solar was walking home from work when he noticed the Pedal Pub mobile bar bikes were plugged in. So he thought, "These should be solar powered." Turns out Pedal Pub thought it was a great idea. 🟢 GreenEnergyFutures.ca CKUA.com Podcast ❤️ Subscribe Today - We have more than 400 episodes! ✅ BLOG - GreenEnergyFutures.ca ✅ PODCAST - https://open.spotify.com/show/1...

In Part 2 of our Green Energy Futures CKUA.com podcast, Reza builds his first net-zero home, and we follow his relentless pursuit of developing the most affordable net-zero home. His work to design and build the simplest, most cost-effective net-zero design has gone from his first efforts in 2013 to today, when he has 100 net-zero homes in the works in Blatchford, Edmonton's Carbon Neutral Communi...

This week we celebrate net-zero pioneer Reza Nasseri, the founder of Landmark Homes who made it his mission to build affordable net-zero homes. This is our special double VIDEO episode of our CKUA.com podcast. We trace Nasseri's roots from immigrating to Canada from Iran, inheriting a cultural penchant for waste not want not and energy efficiency. From his beginnings with net-zero homes almost 16...

Reza Nasseri began working on net-zero homes 15 years ago and is recognized as a pioneer and leader in net-zero design for production homes. In part 1 of our series, we trace his roots as a young electrical engineer and flesh out what motivates him to design and build the most affordable net-zero homes. Nasseri is the founder of Landmark Homes, and ARQBuilt has developed a revolutionary automated...

When residents of Blatchford Carbon Neutral Community in Edmonton, Alberta, moved in, the community garden was already there! Ever since the beginning, the raised beds and garden spaces were oversubscribed by residents looking to grow their own organic, local, sustainable food. Interest in community gardening is surging with more than 80 community gardens in Edmonton, but as we learn in our story,...

Renewables were not to blame for a catastrophic blackout in Spain in April 2025. We explore challenges and solutions to the growing renewable energy grid with Michael Liebreich, energy expert and founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance. 🟢 GreenEnergyFutures.ca CKUA.com Podcast ❤️ Subscribe Today - We have more than 400 episodes! ✅ BLOG - GreenEnergyFutures.ca ✅ PODCAST - https://open.spotify.co...

Blatchford carbon-neutral community is pioneering a virtual power plant project to link 100 solar-powered homes in a virtual network in a game-changing project. Each home has a 20-kilowatt battery, and the pilot project will export electricity to the market in periods of high demand, thus helping the grid and generating revenue for the homeowners. We talk to Geoff Ferrell of sonnen, the battery su...

VIDEO - Roger Gagné was frustrated by a lack of action on climate change. He wrote scads of letters, he wrote articles, and he even created the Climate Plan Alberta website where 84 businesses and organizations joined him in a call for Alberta to develop a meaningful climate change action plan. So he took his inspiration for the sign guy on Facebook and created a sign that says "Alberta is no...

Roger Gagné was frustrated by a lack of action on climate change. He wrote scads of letters, he wrote articles, and he even created the Climate Plan Alberta website where 84 businesses and organizations joined him in a call for Alberta to develop a meaningful climate change action plan. So he took his inspiration for the sign guy on Facebook and created a sign that says "Alberta is not ready for a...

In Part 2 of our story on Kumson's Electric Race Team we head out on the trails with the team to see the electric quads in action. The team is the first and only electric race team in Canada and have piled up a series of wins on the race circuit. We talk to Sam Kumson about these amazing machines, playing fair with powerful electric machines and his favorite aspect of electrifying quads. Oh, a...

Kumson's Electric Race Team is the first and only electric quad racing team in Canada. Sam Kumson, from Ryley, Alberta got the idea for electrifying quads after he added solar to his quad trailer. He thought why not electrify the quads too? These quads are quick off the line, fast and very low maintenance. We meet Sam in his shop to hear the origin story of Kumson's Electric Race Team. 🟢...

Can you put a heat pump in any home? It can be very difficult to get good advice and find a reputable installer to help you install a heat pump in your home. Drew Tozer knows this, so he wrote the book "Feel Good Homes - How to Choose the Right Heat Pump for a Comfortable, Healthy, Sustainable Home. Tozer was an energy auditor and he'd recommend clients install heat pumps and then the clients woul...