A new breed of startups is taking on a $750 billion dollar opportunity in industrial and commercial energy efficiency. They're using a mix of custom metering hardware, proprietary software and common sense to go after the 30 per cent of energy that's paid for but wasted by the industrial and commercial sectors. We talk to two of these startups in this week's episode of Green Energy Futures.

Judith Sayers is the former chief of the Hupuchasath First Nation on Vancouver Island. She was key to getting one of the first run-of-river projects that was majority owned by a First Nation built in Canada. Learn about her and the China Creek project this week at Green Energy Futures http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/judith-sayers-first-nation-run-river-hydro

On this week's CKUA episode of Green Energy Futures we've got the latest science and numbers on the actual effects that wind turbines have on birds and bats. http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/wind-wildlife-impacts

Is a net-zero commercial officie building possible? You betcha. On this week's CKUA Green Energy Futures episode we feature The Mosaic Centre in Edmonton, Alberta a building where geothermal heating and cooling work with solar electricity to produce an affordable, beautiful commercial building that will produce as much energy as it consumes. http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/first-net-zero-office-building

Even people who research and write about energy for a living struggle with jargon and making this stuff feel real. This week we explore a couple of commonly used energy terms and try to make them understandable. And the picture? That's a kilowatt-hour's worth of coal.

Titan Clean Energy Projects is a Saskathewan based company making a very interesting product: biochar. We visit their plant and learn more about this amazing product that has a ton of different uses - including long term sequestration of carbon in the soil. Learn more at http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/biochar

Feed-in tariffs have transformed renewable energy markets around the world. Now the mountain town of Banff is the first municipality in Canada to institute this important piece of renewable energy supporting policy.

The town of Craik, Saskatchewan hatched a plot to increase the population of the slowly dying prairie town. An eco-village on the edge of town where people would build environmentally friendly homes on unserviced lots sold for a dollar. See if it worked and get a tour of this amazing community at http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/craik-eco-village

We check out one of the rarest electric vehicles in Canada and that spurs us to check on the state of electric vehicles in Canada - http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/electric-vehicle-canada-update

Whitecourt, Alberta has a pulp mill and a saw mill. With all that wood comes wood waste. We look at how one company is turning this wood waste into something useful - green electricity. This is Green Energy Future's CKUA Radio podcast. See video and blog: http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/97-whitecourt-biomass-waste-energy