Green Energy Futures is a multi-media storytelling project that is documenting the clean energy revolution that’s already underway. It tells the stories of inspiring green energy pioneers who are moving forward in their homes, businesses, and communities with climate action, energy transition and the shaping of a new sustainable future.
The Team
David Dodge
Email: david@greenenergyfutures.ca
Twitter: @greenenergy_dave
David is an environmental journalist and a photojournalist who has worked for newspapers, published magazines, produced radio, and was the production manager for a Canadian nature publisher. He produced more than 350 award-winning EcoFile radio programs on sustainability for the CKUA Radio network. David has worked for not-for-profit organizations such as the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and the Pembina Institute. He served as a founding co-chair of Edmonton’s Energy Transition Advisory Committee and was involved with Evansdale Community League for 30 years, where he led solar and energy efficiency projects. His community league gets all of its electricity from solar energy on a net annual basis.
These days Green Energy Futures is hosted, produced and written by David Dodge, but we have worked with and occasionally enlist many talented people to create Green Energy Futures. Here are a few of those people.
Green Energy Futures Alumni
Dale Ladouceur
Dale is a musician, producer, writer, journalist, and environmentalist. Her original project, Dale Ladouceur & The Broke Ensemble has three albums and just released their new single, (Cult o’ Vision).
Musical highlights to date: playing with Bruce Cockburn, teaching Chapman Stick alongside Tony Levin, singing in the ESO Tribute to Frank Zappa, playing in Tom Waits/William S Burroughs’ The Black Rider, and co-owning Edmonton’s Crowtown Studios (www.crowtown.com).
Featured interviews include such Canadian icons as Peter C. Newman, Gwynne Dyer, and David Suzuki. Ladouceur landed the first interview in a decade with hip hop pioneer Gil Scott Heron. Ladouceur also “long-distance jammed with maverick American author Tom Robbins for an album based on characters from his Jitterbug Perfume novel.
Jenica Ross
Jenica Ross attended the College for Multimedia Production, studied 3D animation and modelling at Pixel Blue College, and has been working in film production for many years. She’s worked on numerous feature films while working at Avatar Media and on her own as a freelancer. Jenica has worked on Green Energy Futures projects for many years.
Green Energy Futures is your guide to the green energy transition already underway.
Green Energy Futures was born out of the realization that in spite of litany of negative energy stories in the media the clean energy revolution is already well underway and progressing much faster than most people realize.
That was 2012, and now it’s almost a decade later and my how things have changed. Bloomberg New Energy Finance is now projecting $13.3 trillion in investment in new power generation by 2050 and that 77 per cent of that investment will go to renewables.
Green Energy Futures has served as a witness to this change and we’ve featured some of the most inspiring leaders of the clean energy movements in our first more than 200 episodes on inspiring people, projects, and technologies.
When we started publishing builders were just starting to embrace net-zero homes and buildings (energy-efficient buildings that use far less energy and produce all of their own energy onsite and a net-annual basis).
Since then we’ve found neighbourhoods of self-powered super efficient buildings such as Echohaven in Calgary, Alberta a neighbourhood developed by a landscape architect who wanted to build an amazing green community.
and the just-opened Blatchford community in Edmonton which is designed to be a carbon-neutral home for up to 30,000 residents in North America’s most northerly big city.
When we began the series solar was more expensive. Since then wind and solar have proven themselves as the cheapest way to generate new electricity.
Dan Balaban started Greengate Power not long before we published our first story on his company building the largest wind project in Canada at a time when the business case was much more challenging. Then his company recently announced they received approval to build the largest solar project in Canadian history in Alberta, unsubsidized.
Sometimes it’s hard to see, but a clear transition has begun to cleaner forms of energy. The inspiration for this series comes from an interest in renewable energy itself and the realization that the desire to use less and more sustainable forms of energy cuts across the political spectrum.
Green Energy Futures is all about the clean energy transition that is already underway. It’s about the housewife who leaped at the chance to pilot a utility company’s solar energy program. It’s about the dentist who invests his own money to get involved in renewable energy or the home builder who is building the most affordable net-zero homes in Canada.
It’s also about the politician who leads their government down new and innovative paths. It’s about the entrepreneur who has toiled away for many years trying to make a green energy business flourish in spite of countless barriers. It’s also about entrepreneurs who think big, and are building the successful companies of the future.
Green Energy Futures is not about the politics of energy or climate change. It is about people making a difference in their homes, cities, and companies. It’s about a responsible transition to more sustainable forms of energy.
So listen and subscribe to our CKUA Radio feature in Alberta, add your voice to the discussion on our Facebook page, subscribe to our YouTube Channel, and let’s find our way to a green energy future together.
David Dodge, Producer