Some people out there have an inner itch to do things different. Maybe it’s art, or music, or some other glorious pastime that we as the rest of humanity benefit from, far, far more than we pay. What sort of car these types drive is fascinating; usually something quirky or wonderfully weird; Neil Young spent years before he made it big driving an old hearse, various narcotics taped under the dash. Others think completely differently, bone-dry aesthetically-speaking; thinkers who just want to [Read more]
No calling in sick or waiting for a nice day – the grid has to perform on the worst of them
Saturday night, the middle of the cold snap, was something to be endured. Things break at -36 degrees. A quick run to the grocery store was rerouted by a fleet of city vehicles tearing up the street in a considerable manner, most likely chasing a broken water main or some such. Imagine being without water on a night like that. Half an hour later it got worse - the provincial grid operator issued an alert for people to “immediately limit their electrical use to essential needs only.” Keep in [Read more]
Putting the “Fore!” in 2024: The new year’s complexity will stress-test us all
Flying in the face of past lamentations, I’m eating my words more and more about social media these days. The initial rise of Facebook, Twitter, etc., seemed to muffle good voices and amplify the bad, the people or bots that, either as an occupation or as a deranged character trait, seemed to rejoice in ruining people’s day with insults and negativity. It’s not that hard, if one is sufficiently abysmal; anyone’s day can be ruined with the right choice of words. Maybe most depressing is the [Read more]
From The Economist to Mr. Yang the manhole cover salesman, a salute to the benefits of Spam
Congrat!! Ref No: BEH/XGM/012/0023. Your email address was chosen at random during an internet search to receive USD 805,000.00 from me, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. If you are interested respond promptly via this e-mail:{grantsprogram@ cpn.it} to learn more about the donation and how to claim it. Regards, Warren Edward Buffett (I’ve disabled the email address so you don’t get there before I do. Probably not necessary; I’m sure Mr. Buffett wouldn’t give the funds to someone [Read more]
Bitumen beyond combustion: how to triple oil sands value, reduce emissions, and create an advanced material industry for 2% of a battery plant’s subsidies
What if some phenomenally large energy/materials breakthroughs were right here in front of us, vastly more accessible than experimental aspirations, but held back by an image problem? To help ponder that question, it is necessary to share with you one of the best (meaning funniest), most explosive miscalculations in modern science; the reason for bringing it up is that it's simply too good not to. But before that, some context. It seems there are a number of energy paths ahead of us. One, [Read more]
Convicts, cars, rats and the best program you’ve never heard of – lessons for energy
I may not know much about Parisian culture, but I know a good documentary when I see one. In the gripping 2007 culinary adventure Ratatouille, a guy inherits a small restaurant and becomes a sensation cooking with a rat on his head when it turns out the rat is a way better chef than he is. Oh it’s not real? Pardon me. Because I follow the energy scene closely, my ability to sort fact from fiction is severely diminished. One can only say to oneself “This can’t be happening” so many times before [Read more]
Low North American natural gas prices: a global oddity that brings a massive but impermanent competitive advantage
Is there any critical industrial material as bizarre as natural gas? The stuff holds almost zero interest for the general public, for the same reason no one is interested in the sound of a washing machine. Both boring. Both ubiquitous. Natural gas isn't even sold on Amazon. But forty-six percent of American homes use natural gas for heat, and surely more in Canada. But consider the storm below the surface. Traders love it, because it is one of the most volatile commodities in existence, and [Read more]
Awkward – Canada creates a brand new fossil fuel subsidy just in time for COP28, a reminder that sticks hurt and carrots are healthy
Upon hearing about the federal government’s decision to roll back the carbon tax on heating oil, I rolled up my sleeves. The point of writing about energy at all is to try to illuminate some aspect of an energy topic from a viewpoint inside the energy sector; to explain some energy nuance that the general population, which cares little for the nuances of energy, may find valuable. Energy is not simple, and there are a lot of loud storytellers out there, selling magical beans and wishful [Read more]
“That trend must stop” – even the computer hardware industry is starting to panic at AI’s looming energy appetite
There is an army of analysts out there, a quasi-industry, that attacks data streams like piranhas, ripping everything apart and, unlike piranhas, analyzing the living daylights out them. There are people that spend days on end analyzing, for example, not just weekly statistics on weekly petroleum consumption but also the magnitude and vectors of the error bars and comparing those to the error bars on monthly data. It’s funny to see their social media apoplexy when some arcane bit of [Read more]
Solar power has massive potential to benefit humanity – with a different focus
As we slide inexorably into the clutches of Soviet-style cultural narrative control and thought prevention courtesy of ‘fact-checking’ institutions and their oddly subjective ‘fact books’, I offer the following conundrum as a hurled wrench into the cogs of the greasy gears of the thought police: Solar power could soon become a wonderful thing for humanity. As a heretical writer on an oil/gas centric website - most likely soon to be flagged by governmental decree and definition a writhing pit [Read more]
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