Electrifying Heating

By Chris Nelder, Energy Transition Show

“Deep decarbonization” is all the rage in energy circles, but what does it really mean for actually retrofitting and remodeling buildings? Is it just about replacing oil and gas-fired boilers and furnaces with electric equivalents? Or does it actually mean something far more complex and interesting? Our guest in this episode is a registered engineering technologist in building construction technologies and an award-winning expert on the integration of the building sciences and health sciences...

Thermal Optimization: A Private Sector Program for Energy Efficiency in Existing Residential Buildings

By Rick Barnett, Resilience.org

Global concern about escalating atmospheric carbon is closely connected to the continued dominance of carbon-based energy.  According to the International Energy Agency (2015), coal, oil and natural gas account for 82% of the world’s growing energy use, while renewable energy (geothermal, solar, and wind combined) provides only 1%.  “100% renewables” is very futuristic.

Newfangled Retrofitting: BlocPower’s Donnel Baird

By Alex Wise, Sea Change Radio

This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with Donnel Baird, the founder and CEO of BlocPower, a startup that uses technology to retrofit buildings in financially underserved communities. Not only does this work result in long-term energy savings and more humane conditions, BlocPower offers these benefits at a much lower cost than was previously available.

Could BC Become a 100% Renewable Energy Region?: Electricity and Heat

By Guy Dauncey, BC Sustainable Energy Association

Would the transition away from fossil fuels fatally weaken BC’s economy, as some conservative thinkers fear? Worse yet, would it drag us back to the dark ages? Are the fear-mongers right?

Cold-home casualties

By Alan Simpson, Red Pepper

The current ‘energy debate’ is in danger of descending into little more than an unsavoury slanging match.

Keeping Warm in the Deep Freeze

By Brian Kaller, Grit Magazine

Consider, then, that people lived for thousands of years in wintry lands without a thermostat to crank, or without any modern fuel or technology, and obviously did not all freeze to death – nor were they even necessarily uncomfortable.