Zack Metcalfe
Contributor
English
About Zack Metcalfe
Zack Metcalfe is a freelance journalist, columnist and author based in Salmon Arm, BC. He specializes in biodiversity, climate change and travel writing, and enjoys running, rock climbing and chess. He can be followed on his personal website: thewanderingrook.ca. And you can follow him on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/thewanderingrook/
Turning wind turbine blades into boats: Recycling fibreglass and resins
Individual sheets of fibreglass are notoriously difficult to recycle. This is a problem for the wind industry, whose turbine blades are essential hundred-metre-long, fibreglass tubes. Once they’ve served their 30-year-lifespans, unloading them on landfills is unpopular at best, banned (in some countries) at worst. Part of the solution has been the development of recyclable resins, more easily broken down by traditional solvents, and at lower temperatures and pressures.
Clean energy's next frontier is storage
Renewable energy is already well on the way. Now, researchers on the East Coast are turning their attention to increasingly complex energy storage solutions to empower wind, solar and geothermal to help it truly supplant fossil fuels.
Why a Nova Scotia non-profit is casting its net for kelp
The ocean crop boasts nearly nonexistent farm-to-table carbon emissions, but bureaucratic snags and lack of an established market have historically deterred young farmers.
An old house still teaches new tricks
Thirteen years after it was built, Middleton’s NSCC living lab home illustrates that passive building design is still the single most important factor in creating an efficient build or renovation.
Halifax charges ahead with added EV support
As demand for charging stations increases with their fleets, Nova Scotia's municipalities are moving to expand their networks.
Concrete reasons to support building repurposing
Transforming a concrete hotel from the 1960s provides climate-friendly housing in downtown Dartmouth.
Nova Scotia’s impressive push towards electrification
The province’s municipalities are transitioning to EVs as quickly and smoothly as a challenging market will allow.
Small but mighty efficient
Sprout Dwellings manufactures only a few designs. But they chosen very carefully to do several things — hasten construction, maintain affordability, stay accessible to all demographics, emphasize locally sourced materials and perhaps most importantly, to use less power.
A renovation and a prayer
United Churches are on a carbon-cutting mission thanks to Faithful Footprints, a funding stream that helps churches cut their GHG emissions through retrofits.