Shafraaz and Serena Kaba’s near net-zero home was inspired by the German concept of the Passivhaus, a super energy efficient home that requires very little energy for heating or cooling. The home is air tight, very well insulated and it gets half its heating from passive solar energy streaming through the windows. Photo Darren Greenwood

80: Chasing Net Zero: Net-zero evolution

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By David Dodge and Duncan Kinney It’s a beautiful, livable, functional net-zero experiment – Welcome …

Spo'pi solar house

79. Chasing Net Zero: Net-zero beautiful

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By David Dodge and Duncan Kinney Building a net-zero home is an intricate dance between …

Photo Garth Crump Chasing net-zero Part 1: Net-zero 101

78. Chasing Net Zero: Net-zero 101

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By David Dodge and Duncan Kinney A net-zero home is more than just a place …

Angelo Ligori, plant manager of Greenfield Specialty AlcoholsPhoto David Dodge, Green Energy Futures Greenfield Industrial Alcohols - industrial symbiosis

76. An integrated ethanol biorefinery wastes not

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By David Dodge and Duncan Kinney Kalundborg is a small port city in Denmark with …

Photo David Dodge, Green Energy Futures Groundswell Network Greenhouse, Invermere BC

73. Passive solar greenhouses: Producing more food with less energy

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By David Dodge and Duncan Kinney A passive solar greenhouse in Invermere B.C. is making …

Greg Devries, president of Truly Green greenhouses that plans to use the waste heat from an ethanol plant to heat 60 acre of greenhouse.

71. Industrial symbiosis: Growing tomatoes with an ethanol plants waste

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By David Dodge and Duncan Kinney Kalundborg is a small port city in Denmark with …

Bryn Davidson, designer of the Lanefab laneway Energuide 90 home in Vancouver, BC.

69. Vancouver’s laneway homes – beautiful and net-zero

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By David Dodge and Duncan Kinney Small is beautiful. When economist E.F. Schumacher first released …

Photo David Dodge, Green Energy Futures Community Solar at Oilfield Arena, Black Diamond, Alberta www.greenenergyfutures.ca

65. Community solar: Meet a small town solar energy Macgyver

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By David Dodge and Duncan Kinney It’s one thing for SolarShare to get $3 million worth of …

Photo David Dodge, Green Energy Futures Oxford’s Centennial Bldg Calgary Jan. 29 2014

64. Urban cogeneration

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Cogeneration is an idea as old as the electric power plant itself. In 1882 Thomas …

Photo David Dodge, Green Energy Futures Passive Solar Heating Belgravia Net-zero Home in Edmonton, Alberta

63. The power of passive solar and thermal mass

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By David Dodge and Duncan Kinney The Ancient Pueblo peoples got free heating and cooling at the Mesa …

In a home audit by CReturns in Edmonton, Alberta an infared camera reveals heat leakage around the windows. The complete blanket of insulation and high performance R8 windows cut down on heat loss dramatically in new super insulated net-zero homes. Photo David Dodge, GreenEnergyFutures.ca

62. The massive potential of energy efficiency

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By David Dodge and Duncan Kinney The front-loading washing machine has been around since 1947, yet …

Photo David Dodge, Green Energy Futures Windy Coulee Canadian Horses Ranch, Pincher Creek Alberta

61. Learn about Alberta’s $380 million green technology fund

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By David Dodge and Duncan Kinney When it comes to dealing with carbon emissions Alberta …

Coal Phases Out2

60. Phasing out coal in Alberta

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By David Dodge and Duncan Kinney “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they …

The CREE 60-watt equivalent LED light bulb

58. The incandescent light bulb phase out is a good thing

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By David Dodge and Duncan Kinney On January 1, 2014 Canada started phasing out inefficient …

James Callaghan and his two brothers run Maryland Farms, a 250 cow dairy operation that set up a biogas operation on their site two years ago. Behind him is the anaerobic digester.

56. Best stories of 2013

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By David Dodge and Duncan Kinney From Kent Rathwell, the inspiring owner of Sun Country …

Earth Tubes1

54. The amazing earth tube cools office tower

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By David Dodge and Duncan Kinney Geothermal energy isn’t just about Iceland, volcanoes, lava and …

Ashley Lubyk next to a completed rocket stove. Notice the barrel and the large cob bench he is sitting on. That cob bench acts as a thermal battery, storing the heat after the fire is burned out.

47. Rocket stoves and the rocket mass heater

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By David Dodge and Duncan Kinney If you’ve ever gotten smoke in your eye around …

Peter Amerongen led the construction of the first net-zero home in Edmonton, Alberta and continues to lead innovation by specializing in the construction of net-zero homes. Photo David Dodge, GreenEnergyFutures.ca

41. Net-zero evolution: From the Star Trek Enterprise to utter simplicity

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By David Dodge and Duncan Kinney The highly entertaining documentary “How William Shatner Changed the …

Photo David Dodge, Green Energy Futures Lawrence Grassi School, Canmore, Alberta

40. The grass really is greener at Lawrence Grassi middle school

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By David Dodge and Duncan Kinney Lawrence Grassi was a trailblazer. An immigrant from Italy …

Photo David Dodge, Green Energy Futures Nanaimo waste to energy

39. Nanaimo: Turning waste into compost, carbon credits and electricity

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By David Dodge and Duncan Kinney Ecologist Peter Marshall put it best. “Waste itself is …