S. A. Shelley: Over the last couple of months there has been a lot of discussion about tariffs. The Trump administration is keen to apply tariffs on Mexico and Canada, and a host of other nations (except maybe China?). In terms of the percentage of GDP that international trade contributes to their economies, it is obvious that the US can sustain a trade war quite well compared to other nations or regions (Fig. 1).

S. A. Shelley: After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the global trade order allowed for unprecedented bounties of consumer goods to flow to more and more people while lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty.  But it also allowed the political class of the West to become self-deceived and inured to the continued dangers to our way of life.  I’m not a Marxist, but I will definitely agree that society has been a constant struggle for power across all spectrums since antiquity. Consequently, in the west we built institutions around law, order and good governance to assuage that struggle, while in the East they went the authoritarian route to hammer that struggle into remission. But while Western politicians splurged on largesse for the masses, the more authoritarian ones did not forget to splurge on defense. We did and we will pay dearly for it shortly.

S. A. Shelley: At OWOE, we have repeatedly advocated for a North American Energy Alliance of some kind to ensure cheap and robust energy supplies at reasonable costs and with minimal geopolitical risk. In some forms, it already exists when you consider how the Northeast is supplied by cheap Newfoundland hydropower via Quebec (after a huge markup), or how the overwhelming majority of Alberta Oil is shipped to the Gulf refineries.

Guest blog by S. A. Shelley: As is usual every spring, many large entities ranging from super major oil producers to large Wall Street firms and global organizations release annual energy statistics, reports and forecasts about the world’s energy state. Invariably discussed are subjects like energy mix, demand or supply projections. Often these entities will venture into discussing oil prices and associated forecasts. All those entities have big research budgets and teams of analysts, statisticians and economists pouring over mountains of data. However, even with all those highly paid personnel, and I suspect some added AI, those big entities are at best equal to the analysis undertaken by OWOE staffers, but more often than not, much worse. Apparently, nobody can beat curiosity, whisky and voodoo.

Guest blog by S. A. Shelley: OK, another inciteful blog but that’s the OWOE writing team’s style, gleefully stoking controversy.

The term “fossil fuels” is one of the greatest marketing triumphs that the environmentalists ever adopted. “Fossil” suggests old and outdated, coming from some pre-historic, ancient, way-back, long-ago-dead biologic entities. The uses for fossil fuels also reflect “old” technologies, cooking, training and steam shipping (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1 Using Fossil Fuels from Ancient (left) to Modern Times (right)

Guest blog by S. A. Shelley: The U.S. Federal Government is a huge organization that is staffed by some very bright people. There are also nearly 1,000 advisory committees in Washington, comprising leaders from industry, science and the arts. For the most part, the advisory committees concern themselves with publicly available information and have public meetings, but there are a few which require security clearance and concern themselves with confidential matters of state. These advisory committees are a valuable resource upon which the Federal Government can call to review policies and assist with formulating strategies.