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]
Artful Wall Street analysts interpret petroleum reserves for the world – what could go wrong?
The fundamental misunderstandings of the energy business run so lamentably deep it is enough to make one bawl. Ignorance by itself isn’t that lamentable - I don’t understand string theory, but string theory doesn’t fuel my car, heat my house, or determine the fate of the world’s economies It’s not that we should expect, say, Kardashian fans to understand the concept of propane; it’s more that people who should know better are fed streams of disinformation by hilariously vested interests, and [Read more]
To the good people at the Conference Board of Canada – thanks for the “outlook”, but you can do better
The Conference Board of Canada (CBoC) recently issued a publication called Canadian Industrial Outlook: Gas Extraction. You can read the whole report at CBoC’s website, if you feel like forking out 900 bucks. I didn’t. The accompanying news release that summarized the report was enough to keep my wallet in my pants. To the army of economists that toiled on it: you can do better. And if you can’t, then at least don’t issue “news” releases full of outdated messages that may be a lot of things but [Read more]
Not all multinationals are fleeing the oil sands, and the ones that are have other monkeys on their backs
In a series of recent transactions, multinational oil companies have sold off their positions in Canada’s oil sands. There has been all sorts of speculation about what this means, because that is what we do – we have to assign meaning. Some were angry at Shell, some were excited that it meant more of Canada’s resources in Canadian hands, and some seized on the transactions as proof that the provincial government is ruining everything. These little viewpoints tend to be over dramatic because [Read more]
Saudi Aramco IPO not garnering the attention it deserves – it’s the beginning of the end of the energy world as we know it
As usual, these days the media’s focus is overwhelmingly on statistical trivia - mesmerized completely by the slightest wiggle in rig count numbers, or a .0001 percent revision in production estimates or global demand, or whatever nugget reinforces the prevalent theme of the day. It’s too bad, because the fixation with near-random minute fluctuations is missing some really important stories. As a significant example, Saudi Arabia recently announced plans to take Saudi Aramco public. That did [Read more]
Earnings season always raises a few eyebrows, this one is no exception
I often sit and wonder at how poorly the world understands the energy business. For something so absolutely critical to our daily lives, the level of ignorance is an aberration even in an ocean of poorly understood phenomenon. Some think we can switch energy sources overnight. Some think Saudi Arabia produces all the oil, but that US shale fields will soon displace every other source on the planet. Some think halting a few pipelines will derail 95 million barrels per day of consumption. We all [Read more]
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