I work in a new office building, less than ten years old, one that was developed to the highest environmental standards. Every morning I sleepily wander past the LEED-whatever status plaque - it’s apparently a very good status or it wouldn’t be there on the lobby wall - and make my way to my office. I’m often first in, and the hallways are darkened as I make my way along. There is no need to turn on the lights, as I make my way along they magically spring to life sequentially as I approach, [Read more]
Substandard pop-culture energy reporting is going to cost us some day
It doesn’t seem fair to pick on big media machines for cranking out low-grade stuff that panders to current fashion in an arms-flailing attempt at popularity. I’d do the same if I were ambitious. The tactic isn’t a big deal when the readership is fervently awaiting news about, for example, Taylor Swift’s new boyfriend, but when it comes to matters of energy – i.e., what feeds us, moves us, and keeps us warm – we should hope that mainstream news editors might apply some critical thinking before [Read more]
Environmental genius we should learn from – Vermilion’s brilliant waste-heat tomato patch
The winter months here in Canada create a notable hardship – the inability to a find a decent tomato. I don’t know what those things are at the grocery store that in February are called tomatoes; they taste like a picture of a hamburger. A first sign of spring is edible tomatoes appearing on the shelves, courtesy of a greenhouse near the city that emerges from hibernation as the sun rises in the sky. This supply of high quality local produce is unavailable in winter because it costs an [Read more]
How does Trump dumping the Paris accord make China the good guy? Blowing hot air and burning coal are entirely different things
Wow, how messed up is this? Last week President Trump showed his independence and fearlessness by taking a firm stand against pretty much everyone, including his most senior advisors (i.e., even Rex Tillerson, his industry-cultivated Secretary of State) by dropping out of the Paris climate accord. That possibly shouldn’t be a surprise given some of his election-era theorizing, despite the fact that it’s a dubious achievement. What is a surprise is the environmental ogre – China - that’s [Read more]
Don’t write off Canada just yet – emerging east Duvernay oil play starting to attract big attention and big money
Pack up kids, we’re moving to Trochu. No, there’s no water park but something way better. An exciting new light oil play is unfolding an hour northeast of Calgary. Excitement over new plays is not that common anymore. Resource plays have taken over the headlines, large deposits that have been well documented but have become feasible fairly recently with new technological developments. In Canada over the past number of years, the Montney and Kaybob Duvernay plays have recieved most of the [Read more]
You can’t handle the truth? An excellent Globe and Mail environmental commentary gets universally ignored
Sometimes it pays to troll through the news, even a grubby old-fashioned newspaper. I grabbed a hard copy of the Globe and Mail in a hotel lobby on a recent trip, enjoying the nostalgic feelings of smudged ink and that sweet, familiar irritation that the Starbucks table was too small to lay it out properly. Luckily, the hard copy transcended my petty grievances handily. There was a gem of an article buried on P4 of the business section, which is too bad, because it was brilliant. It was on [Read more]
Yesterday’s evil, today’s green energy: the curious ethical transformation of hydroelectric power
When I was a kid, environmentalists were into fish. Other things too, but fish were a big deal. The world’s seas were being over-harvested and many eco-battles were being waged to save the natural habitats of fish and protect spawning grounds. The battle of good vs. evil at the time (or one of them anyway) was between nature lovers and greedy industrialists who were willing to dam rivers for hydroelectric projects. That was the choice at the time: a fight between money, development and the [Read more]
If you’ve never built anything, please sit down: some realities of transitioning away from fossil fuels
Many careers move along a common path, regardless of the level of schooling. We come into professions with whatever knowledge we possess, acquired from who knows where, and then we find out what the job is really about. It’s often not what we thought or were exactly trained for – many university grads acknowledge they remember the beer but little else of what they learned – and the unique characteristics of a given job can only be learned by doing it for a while. This progression is the [Read more]
In a world of safety nets and endless debt, capital needs to be used wisely
The great ideological battle between the US and the USSR that began after the Second World War is slowly fading from memory, or at least the general public’s consciousness. Except in small fiercely protected bunkers at universities, the debate about the merits of state control vs. free markets is pretty much over. The biggest nails in the coffin were the collapse of the Soviet Union and China’s embrace of a market economy; after those events few people on the planet were willing to insist that a [Read more]
EV or SUV? It’s no contest, and the gap is growing even in Europe
For all the individualists out there, some patterns of modern life can be mildly depressing. Not in a major way, just in that it is disheartening to observe mindless conformity when alternatives are so much more interesting. In case you hadn’t noticed, conformity is not part of this column’s DNA, a trait which all are free to mock or applaud to their heart’s content. The auto world provides a plethora of examples for us energy junkies. We now see, for example, a conformity of style that is [Read more]
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