Environmentalists, the old fashioned kind, used to hold their rusty Subarus together with an assortment of bumper stickers, little rectangular slogans randomly overlaying decaying metal. A memorable one was the exhortation to go outdoors and ‘hug a tree’, thus causing a generation of nature lovers to be declared ‘tree huggers’ in a sometimes snarky way. (The phrase isn’t used much anymore, except oddly as advice to children if they become lost in the woods - to ‘hug a tree’ and stay put). I [Read more]
Why is it so hard to build stuff? A realistic assessment of the problem, and the best route forward
This is about the saddest topic to even contemplate writing about, the challenge of building infrastructure/major projects. It’s like sitting down and making a list of why you are not a Formula 1 driver. You have bad reflexes. You are too fat. You have no money. You have no talent. Your legs are too long. Your legs are too short. You don’t know oversteer from overbite. Not picking on anyone out there personally; what the above is getting at is that a Formula 1 driver has a nearly-unique set [Read more]
Even nearly-free natural gas can’t help customers: Attracting investment means solving Alberta’s gas delivery problem and Canada’s suffocating tax problem
Ok, someone’s gotta say it. A few things need fixing if Canada is to begin attracting significant investment again. Here’s one no one likes to talk about. Something is severely broken in the intra-Alberta gas market. Natural gas producing companies are being driven into bankruptcy due to pathetically low natural gas prices. Hold on, you might think, that's not all bad - low natural gas prices are a boon to investment; they should attract any industry that relies on affordable gas. Low AECO [Read more]
Energy literacy – what does that even mean, to whom, and how do we get there?
Writing about energy is an oddly exhilarating experience. Sure, in the current global state of energy affairs, the topic can be a lightning rod for kooks and very angry people on the internet, but the flip side is also true: it opens the door to a great many new and interesting people. A consequence of these introductions is another positivity; encountering people who genuinely want a better understanding of energy, with no axe to grind either way, people who are far outside the industry but [Read more]
Nepal’s politics could impact your bonus next year, and other geopolitical fascinations
Holy moly. Sitting here having a coffee in my favourite coffee shop, trying to figure out what’s going on geopolitically. But that is so far beyond my abilities, I can’t even keep up with what is happening, never mind figuring it out. I suspect I’m not alone. Historically, some Big Thing happens, like a flare up of a border tension, or tension over a trade agreement, or any one of countless triggers that are almost always massaged away quietly, but are none the less interesting because they [Read more]
The great energy vibe shift – yes, pipelines are great
“The public, on the other hand…The public was like one of those huge Pacific jellyfish, one enormous, pulsating mass of indifference, drifting wherever the current carried it; an organism without a motive, ambition, or original sin to call its own, but which somehow believed, in whatever passed for its brain, that it chose its own leaders and had a say in its own destiny.” – Mick Herron, Real Tigers (third book of the Slough House series, best spy series ever) Cynical? Maybe a bit. Accurate? [Read more]
“Get a job” will always mean “get a job”
About 50 years ago, a time span which is somewhere between “ancient history” and “I remember when”, depending where you are on the Gen Z <-> Boomer continuum, accountants plied their trade in a way that would blow most young minds of today. Transactions were recorded line by line in ledger books, in pencil. Ledger books are still available today, but you’d have to be some sort of luddite kook to use one. Absolutely no one is into retro accounting. Each transaction’s debits and credits were [Read more]
Weekly Word Wandering: Canada in Global Firepower rankings (ouch); LNG exports not thrilling everyone; Ford promises a new Model T moment, underwhelms everyone
Engaging Articles of the Week Look out, here comes Canada! Or not…A peculiar and fascinating report somehow showed up in my inbox the other day called “Global Firepower 2025”. It catalogs pretty much what it sounds like, plus a bunch of other stuff, and offers some fascinating metrics. Canada is one weird country. Or rather, we seem weird in the sense of our collective fightin' assets relative to other countries. For example, MLRS count – we can thank Russia for one thing, no one knew at all [Read more]
Driving across Canada
This summer, I did something I haven’t done in a while - drove across Canada. Or most of it anyway, from the NS Atlantic to Calgary. It is a formidable journey, of limited variability. I saw countless millions of trees. I saw at least 31 dead raccoons, possibly many more, but in the spirit of statistical integrity only identifiable carcasses were counted, and only if identifiable from behind the wheel. I saw scant benefit in putting in more effort. In a similar vein, the trees of northern [Read more]
Rig counts don’t add up like they used to
Do you know what day of the week it is? Or what week it is? Month? No, not those, not the Thursdays and the third week of July, not that stuff. I mean the out-of-control catalogue of diseases and feelings and occupations that have declared their own "day". Did you know that this past Monday was "World Chimpanzee Day"? Or that the week of July 14-18 is "Dust Safety Week"? Or that according to a hair-brained site named "Always the Holidays" the month of July has 43 "official" awareness [Read more]
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