Structures & Energy Solutions

In my last post, we saw how a century-long trend of hyper-specialization has led us to where we are today, which has come with many benefits and tradeoffs. One of those tradeoffs is a false sense [...]

This week, I want to go over a case study in rainwater harvesting design. This example is special to me because it’s about how we partnered with my mother-in-law to transform her property into a [...]

This week, I want to go over a case study in rainwater harvesting design. This example is special to me because it’s about how we partnered with my mother-in-law to transform her property into a [...]

This week, I want to go over a case study in rainwater harvesting design. This example is special to me because it’s about how we partnered with my mother-in-law to transform her property into a [...]

Last time, I spoke about the need to look at climate models with less bias, emotion, and anxiety so that we can derive insightful and constructive actions from them. (You can read the first part [...]

Recently, I attended a community meeting where we spoke about looming climate shifts. As part of the evening, we watched a presentation by Stuart Scott from Columbia University on the future of [...]

Here is part 1 and part 2 of the Land as Insurance series. In an attempt to understand how to create insurance for my family around food, water, energy, and money, I came up with the idea of [...]

Last time, we talked about predictable risk that falls within a Gaussian distribution. But not all risk follows this pattern; some risks are rare and catastrophic and can only be explained in [...]

This is a three-part series based on an idea I recently had around the subjects of farming, black swans, and creating a product that can help insure against risk. In this first article I’ll [...]

As an engineer and permaculture designer living in a cold-climate, I am particularly fascinated with the interplay between thermodynamics and design and with capturing “waste” energy [...]

In one of my past blog posts, Investing Like An Ecosystem, I wrote about strategies that promote resilience and anti-fragility. One of the key areas of investment involved asking yourself one [...]

Join us for a beautiful and info-packed video tour of our permaculture homestead! This is a 3-part series where we explain and explore our: – thriving food forest complete with fruit trees, [...]

What is a Rocket Mass Heater, you ask? A while back, the team from Green Energy Futures (which includes our past PDC grad Duncan Kinney) came down to Calgary to film a workshop we co-hosted and [...]

I have always been interested in wood gasifiers and after doing a little research this morning was amazed to see that a they are popping up all over the place. Biomass gasification is a process [...]

Coppicing has always been interesting to me as a wood production system (fuel, timber) because it uses trees that can be cut perpetually. In other words, the tree is cut and grows back. This is [...]

In this video Rob showcases one of the major water harvesting feature – an underground rainwater cistern – on Rob and Michelle’s urban home property. This rain tank is unique because [...]

For the last four years, I have been dreaming of retrofitting a small town with a group of like-minded individuals with a diverse set of skills. I talk a lot about this in my courses, and it [...]

Recently, I was in Invermere again and I visited a friend’s house with a unique take on solar air heating. He has coined his invention the Solar Coffin. This device heats air up to well [...]

Below I have put together a video about a tool that every designer should be familiar with. It is called a solar pathfinder. I use this tool in almost every consultancy that I do and it not only [...]

Last weekend both Jordan and I had an amazing opportunity to be part of Rob Avis of Verge Permaculture’s Design Team, participating in an applied Design Practicum at the Groundswell [...]

Today I had the privilege of interviewing Rene Michalak who has started an innovative project called The MEGGA WATT project which is an acronym for The Micro-Energy Generating Garage Assembly [...]

We have had the solar thermal system installed now for almost six months and it has performed flawlessly. Moreover our gas bills have never been so low, in fact most months we are paying more in [...]

Over the past few years, our goal has been to slowly retrofit our 25 year old house into a little urban permaculture homestead. Most recently, we brought in Simple Solar to install a solar hot [...]

For the last three years we have been working hard to convert our Calgary inner city home into a thriving permaculture project complete with a front yard food forest, water-harvesting features, [...]

I'm not sure why it took us so long, but we finally have installed our new composting toilet - which cost us $25 to build. All we are missing is some sawdust, which I plan to pick up this week-end.

2011 has been an exciting year of observing and interacting with the ecosystem that surrounds our urban home. There have been many successes, and many great learnings! Here is a slideshow that is [...]

(This article on composting toilets was written by our friend, co-conspirator and travel buddy, Lindsay Dailey) In a world where less than 1% of the planet’s fresh water is available for human [...]

Living in Canada makes staying warm in winter an interesting challenge. In such a cold climate I have long wondered how to continue to keep humans warm (care of people) without bringing down [...]

  Throughout the last year Michelle and I have been researching green building methods. So far we have visited and helped build strawbale houses, spent time in an underground concrete building in [...]

I saw things in Cairo that I thought were only true in the movies. This whirlwind trip has been a real eye opener for me, an enormous culture shock and I have come to [...]

The change to Combined Heat and Power (CHP) in Denmark created a decentralized heat and power structure that gradually can be transitioned entirely to renewable energy. By establishing local [...]

I recently embarked on a short, unexpected adventure to the ancient country of Egypt. The Folkecenter received a contract to teach a course in Cairo to a group of manufacturing companies looking [...]

Rob and I were very happy to host Robs parents, Jon and Thea, for a few days here at the Folkecenter at the end of October. Keen to expose them to some of the neat things that we have [...]

Plant Oil Processing The Folkecenter has a demonstration lab which contains all of the equipment to press, filter and test vegetable oil for engine use. As Europe has pioneered the use of [...]

One of the reasons that Michelle and I found the Folkecenter was because of plant oil. Just over a year ago, Michelle and I converted our VW Westfalia van to run on used vegetable oil, usually [...]

As most of Robs friends and family know Rob has three loves in his life:

1. 1) his wife, of course
2. 2) good beer
3. 3) Renewable Energy

I was sitting around on a Saturday Morning this weekend tired of looking at a computer screen so Melissa and I decided to go for a bike ride over to the Folkecenter Wave Energy test site. [...]

In this blog, we discuss that because the World is so dependant on oil society needs to start moving in the direction of other energy sources immediately to offset future economic, social and [...]

Rob and I attended the Husum Wind Energy Conference on September 18th. The largest wind industry trade show in the world is held every second year in Northern Germany in a small town [...]

The Nordic Folkecenter (NFC) is full of wind turbines, some big, some small and even more that don’t work. There is a Test Field with platforms and foundations for testing of electricity [...]

Here at the Folkecenter there are numerous vehicles running on alternative fuels. Pure Plant Oil (PPO) There is a rape seed refinery here where they have the ability to press and filter rape seed [...]