“The trading of goods has been in our DNA as Indigenous People for centuries, but somewhere along the way this was lost. It’s time to regain our prosperity, for the betterment of our communities and for our country.” – NeeStaNan website
Terry Etam
Etam: Achtung: Learning From Germany’s Energy Shambles
In 1880, a great author, Mark Twain, whom you may never hear spoken of again because he had the audacity to write in the vernacular of the day, wrote an extremely funny essay called The Awful German Language. “Surely there is not another language that is so slipshod...
Etam: Automobiles, Human Nature, and the Challenge of Building Cars that People Actually Want
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...
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
Featured News
There’s Nothing Fair About Canadian Health Care
For the past 14 years, Vancouver surgeon Dr. Brian Day has led the charge for health-care reform, pushing for the right of patients to pay for private care if their health and well-being are threatened as a result of waiting in a stagnant and overburdened public...
Transformers: More than Meets the Eye
The path to net zero, based on the much disputed belief that carbon dioxide is a pollution, is more steep and impractical than most people realize. Replacing fossil fuels with clean electricity will require much more power generation and a greatly upgraded grid to...
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...
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...