Most programmable thermostats are poorly designed and beset with confusing instructions and non-intuitive press-and-hold interfaces. Enter Tony Fadell, the chief designer behind the original iPod. He walked away from Apple in 2010 and started a company that makes the Nest, a sleek new entry in the programmable thermostat that’s taking the home energy efficiency world by storm.
Landfills are quickly becoming centres of innovation when it comes to turning what we throw away into energy. Edmonton has had a landfill gas operation since 1992 and it was the first in Western Canada to turn old garbage into a new resource. Learn how it’s done this week on Green Energy Futures.
The new low temperature hot water style heating system at UBC is taylor-made to integrate renewable energy systems like biomass, geoexchange, solar thermal and waste heat into a natural gas system all because the barrier for entry is lower. The bouncer at the old steam heating system was pretty strict – you had to be 190 C to get in. Now you only have to get the temperature up to 80 C.
Cow poop isn’t typically thought of as a valuable resource. But with a process called anaerobic digestion that cow poop can be turned into electricity, heat, a near odourless fertilizer and and animal bedding.
More than 45 run-of-river projects have popped up in B.C. in recent years. We explore the Fitzsimmons Creek run-of-river project, a 7.5 megawatt powerplant that puts out enough juice to meet the annual demand of the Whistler Blackcomb resort.
This four-story, 60,000 square feet structure is practically a living thing. It’s a $37-million laboratory that aims to achieve LEED Platinum status, but more than that, they’re also pursuing a Living Building Challenge certification. This certification is so hard to get, there are only three certified living buildings in the world.
We head down into the sewer, not to hang out with Michelangelo and the rest of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but to explore a unique district heating scheme that’s over 2.7 million square feet in Vancouver. It’s called sewage heat recovery and it’s the only system of its kind in North America.
This week we examine how Vancouver became “Bike City” and why this is important for cities who want to reduce their carbon emissions and become more energy efficient.
With more than 700 companies, the cleantech sector has emerged as a major driver of innovation and employment growth in Canada, investing almost $2 billion in research and development. We talk to Canadian entrepreneurs about can be done to ensure that Canada grows in concert with this rapidly expanding $1 trillion global clean technology industry.
Learn how a small rural Albertan county is treating it’s waste in a more environmentally responsible fashion and growing their own substitute for natural gas. They pump the effluent from a waste lagoon into a densely planted stand of willows. Willows like moist soil, grow fast and grow easily in our climate. That willow is then chopped down every three years and can be used for wood, heat or compost. In Camrose, they’re using it to heat their main county office.
Join us as we dive into our archives and give you our favourite clips and behind the scenes moments from 2012. From nearly falling into the Bay of Fundy to angry anti-wind protesters we go coast to coast to coast to give you best.
If Nova Scotia could get tidal energy to work right, it could power all of Nova Scotia. Discover the potential of tidal energy in the Minas Passage.
Université Sainte-Anne in Nova Scotia switched from fuel oil boilers to biomass, then added solar thermal modules to their dorms and even installed two wind turbines and are saving money on operating costs!
When you think of Walmart do a plethora of contradictory thoughts and images come into your brain? Well get ready for it to get even more confusing because the world’s largest retailer and the 19th largest economy in the world have stepped up the plate with one of the best corporate sustainability plans in the world. It’s not just planning either, they’re executing it as well. We went to their Fresh Food Distribution Centre in Balzac to get the story.
If you’re a cooperative, not-for-profit, municipality, university, First Nation or Community Economic Development Investment Fund you can qualify for Nova Scotia’s community feed-in tariff. This means a guaranteed economic return on any approved project and it means regular folks and not necessarily large multi-nationals get to see the financial benefits of building out new renewable energy infrastructure.
Some provinces have all of the luck. While poor PEI has little more than potatoes and tourists Alberta gets not only the lions share of Canada’s coal, oil, gas and bitumen, it gets the best solar resource in all of Canada too. We learned this by talking to Alberta’ solar industry veterans, experts from Ontario and even the minister of environment for Alberta, Diana McQueen at CANSIA West.
When Ted Wolff decided to buy a 55-year-old bungalow in the west end of Edmonton he knew he wanted to renovate. He also knew that his home wasn’t necessarily the most energy efficient, that’s when he brought in C Returns and Godo Stoyke and they called for an energy audit. By getting an audit Wolff will be able to make the best decisions when it comes to allocating money and resources to make his home more energy efficient.
If I told you you could almost double the amount of money you got from the solar energy you put on the grid would that make you more likely to get a rooftop solar system? Spark and several other small electricity retailers are betting that you will. Is this the final push that gets solar over the hump in Alberta?
Canadian Control Works is a small Edmonton based company with a big idea. They’ve figured out how to create green electricity from the downswing of a pumpjack with a device called the Enersaver. We don’t give them much thought but each pump jack is moving 5-10 tons each time it goes up and down. By harvesting that energy oilfield operators save money and stabilize the grid around it.
We take a tour of the Canadian Solar plant in Mississauga, Ontario. In 2011, the solar manufacturing industry in Canada was responsible employing over 2,100 people $584 million of economic output.
