“Crypto mining has been described as running your car in neutral all day so it can solve crossword puzzles in exchange for an occasional coupon that’s mostly useful for buying heroin online.” – Vice
Terry Etam
Etam: Voters Will Need to Decide If Our Energy System Remains Affordable and Reliable, or Descends Into Chaos
Nassim Taleb, if you’ve never read his stuff, is an odd and fascinating character; a writer with towering intellect, vast wealth, and an odd sort of humanistic humility, yet at the same time he provides a reliably volcanic reaction to pomposity or ineptitude....
Etam: Hey Look, Solutions To All The World’s Big Problems With Napkins To Prove It! Now Send Money
Sheesh, what’s with all the drama? The news is full of bad-news stories about doom and gloom; can’t everyone see we just need to roll up our sleeves and get to work? Most of this stuff isn’t even all that hard! We can solve the world’s obesity/health problem in...
Etam: The Beatings will Continue until Morale Improves
There’s positive energy out there, and there’s negative energy, and life is better wrapped in one rather than the other. I get it. I’ve absorbed the cliches and motivational posters; stay away from toxicity and life goes much easier. The energy world has for a...
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Canadian Property Rights Index 2023
A Snapshot of Property Rights Protection in Canada After 10 years
Alberta Politics and Empty Promises of Health-care Solutions
The writ has been dropped and Albertans are off to the polls on May 29. That leaves just four weeks for political leaders and voters to sort out what is arguably the most divisive, yet significant, issue for this election - health care. On Day 2, NDP leader Rachel...
This Is The Century Of Natural Gas
The headline above is not designed to make young heads explode, It’s really not. But it might. Before getting to why that might be, consider why the headline is a credible statement. The evidence is, in total, overwhelming. Here’s a 2023 headline from an...
Etam: Net Zero 2050?
Serious goal-setting seems like a very good way to torment oneself, creating a new reason out of thin air. My New Year’s resolution is to avoid setting goals. Type A is not my type. But maybe it’s time to turn over a new leaf. I’ve decided I don’t want to be a...
Etam: The Climate/Energy/Environment Debate Is Completely Unhinged
The pressure grows
Etam: Wake Up, West – a New Energy World Order is Building, Fast
Here in the weird West, where we set aside our vast wealth, bountiful resources, technological prowess, best-in-history medical/safety establishments, and other assorted existential victories to get into fistfights about whether more racism will eliminate racism and...
Etam: Who is Brave Enough to Enter the Oil Patch These Days? A Salute to the Few, Courageous and Needed
“Steer clear of the charlatans and the toxic. You become who you know.” – Mindset of Stoics via Twitter Ever finished a home project, like making a table from scratch, and maybe it’s kind of gimpy and imperfect, but nevertheless you stand back with a sense of...
Etam: If China is Picking Our Politicians can We at Least get Them to Teach Us About Industrial Policy?
There is something really crappy and dumb going on with Canadian industrial policy. Maybe you’ve figured it out. I sure haven’t. In the spirit of “the more minds working on it the better”, here are some low-lights to get everyone’s brains working on it before...
Etam: When Science gets Mugged for the Media – a Case Study
I walked past a truck in a parking lot the other day and I figured out what’s wrong with everybody. It was a good-looking new semi-small one, and, walking with my head down, watching for ice and muttering as usual, I almost walked into the side of it. There, staring...
Etam: Energy Should not be Controversial; How did this Happen?
Are you familiar with Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto-whiz kid that started crypto-exchange FTX, the 30-year-old worth $30 billion, some were hailing as the new Warren Buffett? His empire is now a pile of rubble, and against all legal advice he’s been delightfully...
Etam: Open letter to Californians: A high-utility-bill explanation, and a path to a smarter energy future
Dear Californians, I just love your state. It has everything. It is home to Bugs Bunny, sourdough bread, Silicon Valley, Death Valley, the Valley, Redwood forests, deserts, ski resorts, endless beaches, the accidental Salton Sea, a vast movie industry, a vast porn...