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]
Weekly Word Wandering: A great Trump initiative, a terrible Trump initiative, and a potential excellent use for depleted oil reservoirs – bio-engineered hydrogen production
Engaging Articles of the Week US Electrical grid trajectory: “The status quo is unsustainable.” Thus speaks the first Highlight of a report from the US Department of Energy called “Report on Evaluating U.S. Grid Reliability and Security”. Under the previous US administration, the Department of Energy was gutted of anyone that might have even thought “hydrocarbons are kind of useful.” The entire upper echelon was staffed with energy transitionists; those who knew it was all happening and fast [Read more]
Weekly Word Wandering: Impressive fuel-cell tech from auto powerhouses; the shocking scale of tradespeople shortages; and China’s wild energy consumption path
Interesting articles of the Week Cool energy tech is cool energy tech, no matter what it is: Honda and Toyota (and a few others, but these in particular) have been soldiering on in the development of hydrogen-fuelled fuel-cell vehicles despite naysayers and governmental insistence that battery power is the way to go (for e.g., the government of Canada has dumped tens of billions into EV-battery facilities and almost none into fuel-cell production, despite the fact that China (and 20 other [Read more]
Mission Incomprehensible: Forced EV mandates wreak industry havoc and drive up all auto prices
What? A complete ceasefire? Now what are we supposed to watch? Oh yeah right. Other stuff. Sadly, for a car nut, the current auto scene is in need of a ceasefire, if you’ve looked at new car prices lately. Or, even used autos – demand is ridiculously high for even those, because new car prices are almost unattainable for many people. The reasons for that are complex and many – supply chain issues, for example, that began during the Covid years, have never been recovered from, it seems. [Read more]
Weekly Word Wandering: Stop watching rockets and read about interesting shipbuilding news, the final fallout from Dieselgate, and wild new AI chip power consumption
It is not a bad assumption to say that no one is reading anything these days beyond staring at screens waiting to see if the US openly enters the Israel-Iran fray and things really go boom. Considering that Iran is a key piece of the BRICS axis, the consequences are not to be taken lightly. So we all look for clues, and, since he’s not exactly shy, Trump’s social media feed isn’t a bad place to start, if you can handle it. He did, for example, throw out the fairly unambiguous all caps scream: [Read more]
AI hype is off the charts, but maybe for good reason, and anyway whatever, as energy providers you’ll all be very happy
By some estimates, such as from pawn shop observations or my storage room, there must be a billion guitars out there gathering dust, almost unused, bought in some burst of enthusiasm somewhere in life, abandoned before even "Smoke On the Water" sounded half decent, when the first sore fingers showed up. Same for keyboards. Or drum sets. Along the same lines, there are likely a similar number of embryonic manuscripts sitting in computer folders across the world, when similarly people watch a [Read more]
High Hopes
Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young In a world of magnets and miracles Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary The ringing of the division bell had begun - Pink Floyd, High Hopes “I love discordancy. It makes people ill at ease and wakes up a part of their brain that’s normally asleep.” - John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten vocalist for Public Image Ltd. and ex-Sex Pistols Yes, the ‘Division Bell” rang long ago, and yes, we have discordancy. We [Read more]
We need more than capital – to be competitive, Canada needs to clean up oppressive legislation like these examples
It’s springtime in Calgary, which, after the mud grey/brown of spring, brings a spectacular colour palette. At the top, long days bring the deepest blue skies, which fade into a rich horizontal array of the baby green enthusiasm of new leaves, which in turn meet an eye-level dazzling array of bright orange traffic cones as the city shuts down every other street for some sort of repairs or excavations; and as three lanes merge to one you sit interminably on the pavement then crawl at walking [Read more]
Weekly Word Wandering: Spain’s uncomfortable truth can’t be ignored; Manitoba enthusiastically backs interprovincial corridors; US LNG juggernaut keeps growing; some very cool auto hybrid tech
Engaging Articles of the Week Spain Explained: Last week, Spain experienced a sudden and prolonged power outage. It was no trifling, localized event; much of the country’s power grid failed, within 30 seconds. Much of the country was without power for more than 12 hours. Why did it happen? The actual trigger was a bit complex, and at the time not well understood, though mainstream media, while as in-the-dark as anyone, rushed to the conclusion we just somehow knew they would: We don't know [Read more]
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