Terry Etam

In the poorly understood world of electrical generation and transmission, a strange tale is unfolding. The media won’t touch it with a ten-foot pole, for a number of reasons – first, it is miles over their head, and second, the conclusions run counter to their current bombastic narrative about the “renewable energy revolution”. There is a risk in even discussing the situation, because in the powder-keg debate of climate change vs. lifestyle, the denier police are on high alert to brand your … [Read more...]

Oh no, I can feel it, another diatribe coming on. Like a developing migraine, there's no point fighting it, the looming inevitability.  My trigger is inadvertently stumbling on blistering displays of energy ignorance, which set me off, and out comes the Incredible Hulk. Look, I don’t want to go there either. I’d rather write about secure and reliable energy supplies, birds chirping, sunshine and koala bears. I keep my nose clean; I stay away from the CBC and similar to avoid the obvious … [Read more...]

To: Dr. Jason Carmichael, Associate professor of sociology, McGill University Dr. Carmichael, A friend forwarded me your recent interview on Global TV, where you discussed research on petroleum industry advertising. Normally I don’t watch such news items, but after doing so, I thought your research was worth commenting on since it reached such a wide audience, one that in general is not aware of petroleum industry issues, and may therefore form opinions based on seemingly authoritative … [Read more...]

Not that very long ago, I succumbed and downloaded the Starbucks app to my phone. It was unpleasant to do so for all sorts of reasons. Being a fan of all kinds of coffee, it felt like sort of a false promise, like being a creep and leading someone on – I had no intentions of any sort of monogamous coffee behaviour. It also felt invasive, because it clearly was gathering intel, and it wanted money, and its phony cheerfulness (shove that “Good morning, Terry!” up your virtual a__ you little … [Read more...]

“Struggling for breath in that ditch full of pee 65 years ago in a working-class suburb of Sweden, little did I know that I would be the first of my family to go to university.” Hans Rosling in “Factfulness” Have you ever read anything so beautiful? Beautiful in two ways. First, I needed a mental remap of Sweden anyway. There had to be more to the country than IKEA, meatballs and Nordic murder mysteries. Now I can add that ditch and its forlorn occupant to my mental list of visuals, … [Read more...]

I’m not normally one for New Year’s resolutions; there is no thrill in backpedaling furiously on a self-promise before January is half over. But, as with the potential rebirth of the energy scene through things like the ultra-massive hydrogen potential, perhaps it’s time I tried something different. So here’s a New Year’s resolution. It’s a bit early but I’m going to take a run at it and hit 2020 in a higher gear (if I don’t gain too much weight). Before committing to any sort of resolution … [Read more...]

Grain of sand in an hourglass It came down to him or me Canada’s greatest band The Headstones - “Long Way to Neverland”   As the year draws to a close, it’s natural to look back at the one just past and ruminate on how it went. If you were thinking of doing that, let me save you some time: Bad idea. If you’re reading this, you’re interested in energy, and if you’re interested in energy it has been an exasperating and dumbfounding year. There were, in effect, two central … [Read more...]

My career in the petroleum sector began in a way that past generations of plains indigenous people might relate to, or at the very least their food source would. I was part of a great migratory herd, not unlike buffalo, moving across the grasslands in search of food (so to speak). Most members of my U of Sask graduating class migrated westward in the 1990s in search of a better future, as it was pretty bleak back home. We tried not to act like buffalo, we really did, and the gracious locals … [Read more...]