At URTech.ca we are pretty serious about tech and tech these days includes “the cloud”. The problem is that most people really don’t understand what “the cloud” is and so this video will quickly clear up any questions you have: Ok… that was pretty damn funny and is most places “safe for the office” but the question remains of what is the cloud… seriously. The simplest and very correct way to explain “the cloud” is that it is just someone…
As a resident of Alberta Canada, home of the third largest oil reserves on the planet, I know quite a few truck owners that tell me they will never want an EV Truck. Alberta has a tiny population with a massive land mass. We have just 4 million people spread over 640,000 kilometers and alot of that is mountain. This is truck country and I know from first had experience that truck owners equate electric vehicles with weakness. So why…
When we watch the TV or read the newspaper we often see something like “OIL IS UP TODAY” but we really don’t know what that means because there are so many different types of crude oil, each with its own price. Below we briefly explore the 6 oil products that are common to Canadians and Americans and at the bottom of this article we show 60 crude oil types and their prices from around the globe. You can see that…
There is a curious pattern emerging in the modern US politics that we had not detected previously. Historically, the belief has been that, in general, citizens vote for change when the economy is bad and vote for the incumbent when the economy is good. You may recall the phrase: “It’s all about the economy, stupid!”. That may no longer be the case. Take a look at these US mid-term election results and see if you can find the pattern: 1974…
On Wednesday October 31st, The City of Calgary shaved less than 4% off the proposed Calgary 2026 Olympic Winter Games bid math by claiming saving in security and venue changes. While this is an improvement, the numbers just don’t add up because: Many of the numbers presented are in 2026 dollars but there is an ugly force called inflation that changes the values. Put simply 2026 dollars are worth much less than 2018 dollars, so you need more of them.…
This short clip from the author of “Prius or Pickup?” Jonathan Weiler, explains that political parties on the left and the right have stopped defining themselves by the size of government and instead focused in emotional responses to identity politics. The discussion uses the US system of Democrat vs Republican but it applies to nearly all parties globally. Political parties now energize there voters by vilifying the other side based on their identity: immigrant vs multi-generation citizen rural vs urban…
Today the former leader of the Alberta Wild Rose party Brian Jean published an op-ed in the Edmonton Journal explaining his view that Canadian courts have now seized too much power: Something is fundamentally wrong. Our courts, motivated by virtue-signalling and triggered by legal actions funded by foreign interests, routinely override the explicit wishes of our legislatures and have now claimed the powers to overrule the executive decision-making powers of cabinet. Mr. Jean does not point out that the courts are one…
UPDATE Nov 4 2018 – See our take on the new “lower” cost 2026 Calgary Olympics: Revised Calgary 2026 Olympic Bid Math is Fiction We answer the question of who pays the bill for the Calgary 2026 Winter Olympic Games by using two sets of official numbers and one set of very logical estimates. It is important to note that because there are so many unknowns including hundreds of millions of dollars in so called “soft-costs” (off-ramps, pre-bid expenses, unaccounted security,…
As you can see below oil sands cover an extremely large part of Alberta and that resource is going to be extracted. The question is how? The two most common ways of separate the oil from the sand in the Alberta Oil / Tar Sands is to boil it or put it under pressure while still in the ground. Oil that is on or near the surface is scrapped up by massive loaders and transported to ‘upgrader’ facilities that separate…
The old DOT-111 rail cars carry about 700 barrels of oil but because of safety concerns they are being phased out for newer, safer DOT-117 oil rail cars which can carry about 675 barrels of oil. We will use 700 barrels as a round number to form a basis of comparison: 1 rail car tanker = 3.25 truck tankers = 700 barrels = 111,000 liters = 29,500 US gallons = 117,500 US quarts As you can see below there are…
Take a look at the Canadian oil production forecasts below notice that the predictions from 2010 have been UNDER-estimated. As you can see even with the 2014 oil price collapse oil sands production just kept chugging along. Some have speculated that the tar/oil sands are like any other extractive industry and they will naturally produce less over time because the ‘easy’ oil is taken up first, leaving the more difficult and expensive oil to later years. Oil Sands production has…
In a word, yes. While conventional oil production in Alberta has been at the same level for years, Alberta’s oil sands have hit yet another production record and the oil will move one way or another. As you can see in the chart below, Canada is out of pipeline capacity so that leaves, truck and rail. On October 18, 2018 the CEO of CP Rail said he expects to “match or exceed its record 2014 pace of 110,000 crude carloads…
There is much hype on the so-called “non-market” clause in the USMCA (aka. NAFTA 2.0): ‘Astonishing’ clause in new deal suggests Trump wants leverage over Canada-China trade talks: experts SOURCE Chinese embassy in Canada condemns ‘US veto’ clause in North America trade deal SOURCE Beijing attacks USMCA clause seen as blocking efforts to expand trade with Canada, Mexico SOURCE Alarm bells ring over non-market economy clause SOURCE and it many political opponents wrote things like: Conservative MP Michael Chong accused…
There are many quotes from the Alberta United Conservative Party that effectively say, the Alberta NDP caused their own oil pipeline mess by empowering those that oppose the oil industry: How was someone like Tzeporah Berman named co-chair of the ‘Oil Sands Advisory Group’ given her clear positions BEFORE appointment? Outrageous that the NDP ever chose to validate and raise the profile of someone like Tzeporah Berman – Jason Kenny Source Before we go any further, you should know my personal…
We have two versions (full and highlights) of Alberta Premier Rachel Notley’s speech to the Alberta Teachers Association conference in Edmonton in which she explains that the Trans Mountain Pipeline will not cause increased carbon emissions because: The demand for oil will increase through 2045 and that demand will be met by the environmentally disastrous Russia’s, Nigerian’s or Venezuelan’s if Canada does not produce it Unlike nearly every other oil producing jurisdiction on the globe, Alberta has set carbon emissions limits…
In many parts of Canada and United States there is a drive to a minimum wage of $15/hour. Some places like San Francisco and Alberta have already at that historic rate. While all but the most ardent on the political right have little issue with very existence of a minimum wage, the question has been what should it the minimum wage be? You can click the map to the right to see the minimum wages that are being paid in…