Energy

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

March 31, 2023 at 11:45 am

Poker Face I haven’t enjoyed a TV series as much as I enjoyed Natasha Lyonne’s Poker Face in a very long time. It’s not a “Golden Age of TV”-style show like Deadwood or The Sopranos or Mad Men (all of which I also enjoyed very much), it’s a throwback toRead...

Offshore Wind Marshaling: Argentia vs Novaporte

Offshore Wind Marshaling: Argentia vs Novaporte

March 29, 2023 at 11:38 am

I have found an excellent way to evaluate what port promoter Albert Barbusci told an audience at the Membertou Trade and Convention Centre last Thursday—namely, that he was on his way to Baltimore to convince “three or four” American wind developers to store the massive components for their offshore windRead More

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

March 24, 2023 at 10:13 am

Who has seen the wind? I didn’t get the invite to Novaporte’s “transformational” announcement at Membertou on Thursday (note to self: ask Tim Bousquet if “transformational” and “transformative” have become the new “innovative”—applied to everything from sewage treatment plants to wind marshaling ports). Looking at this photo I have toRead More

Anatomy of a Tank Car

Anatomy of a Tank Car

February 22, 2023 at 11:51 am

Editor’s Note: I have discovered a Spotify playlist called “Songs About Trains” which I recommend you listen to while reading this article. Also, Part I of this series is here.   In the second part of this brief series on rail safety, we’re going to talk about rail tank cars,Read More

The Hard Math of Green Hydrogen

The Hard Math of Green Hydrogen

February 22, 2023 at 11:49 am

Editor’s Note: I could not find a “Green Hydrogen” playlist on Spotify but there is a “Songs About Wind” list that might pair well with this piece.   EverWind Fuels has secured the necessary permits from the province of Nova Scotia to begin converting the former oil storage and marineRead...

Train Safety, Then and Now

Train Safety, Then and Now

February 15, 2023 at 2:35 pm

The train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio had me pulling on so many different threads this week, there’s no way I can weave them all back into a coherent whole, so I’m going to divide the resulting article into two parts to give me more time to track down someRead More

Geoff MacLellan’s New Job and Donkin’s Ugly Sibling

Geoff MacLellan’s New Job and Donkin’s Ugly Sibling

December 7, 2022 at 1:53 pm

Really, we should have seen it coming. Former Glace Bay MLA Geoff MacLellan has never disguised his feelings for the Donkin Mine. When the Cline Group, which had bought a 75% stake in the mine from Glencore Xstrata the previous December, announced in 2015 that it had begun hiring, then-MinisterRead More

North End Residents Get Some Answers

North End Residents Get Some Answers

November 30, 2022 at 11:50 am

On Monday night, I attended the information session for residents of Sydney’s North End still waiting for answers about the leak at the Imperial Oil tank farm at 1 George Street on July 8. The leak occurred when a front-end loader rolled down a containment wall and punctured a largeRead More

Victor Dubreuil, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Poor Imperial?

November 30, 2022 at 11:48 am

In the wake of an accident that saw 600,000 liters of gasoline leak from a storage tank in Imperial Oil’s North End Sydney tank farm, the oil giant has been rather stingy with its compensation to residents, tossing nickels around like the proverbial manhole covers. It doesn’t require a veryRead More

Homage to a Peacemonger

Homage to a Peacemonger

November 2, 2022 at 12:17 pm

On September 24, the Canadian anti-war community suffered a grievous loss with the death, at the age of just 71, of Bill Blaikie, New Democrat MP for Winnipeg for nearly 30 years (1979-2008) and devout Christian believer in a peace on Earth secured not through the chimera of military ‘strength’Read More