Why is diesel so much more expensive than gas?

I keep asking myself questions I don't know the answers to - it's shocking how much I don't know! Well, here's another one. Why is diesel more expensive than regular gasoline? I'm sure it used to be cheaper than gas, but now it's substantially more expensive.

Well, it seems there are at least three main reasons: 

• Diesel is the main fuel used for shipping, trucking, farming and construction. Global demand for diesel has been particularly high in the last couple of decades, driving up prices. Diesel prices are particularly sensitive to shipping and maritime disruptions.
• The transition to less-polluting lower-sulfur diese, again over the last 20 years or so, and particularly in the USA, has required more intensive and more costly refining processes.
• Taxes on diesel are typically more than the taxes on gasoline.

There is also a seasonal effect, as home heating oil - which is quite similar to diesel and often produced together - sees peak demand in the winter, which has the effect of pushing up the price of diesel.

Either way, the price of diesel has indeed gone up substantially more than the price of gasoline since the Iran war - about 50% compared to 30-33%. And that, of course, will make everything else more expensive, given our calamitous over-reliance on diesel for transportation.

Should we be concerned about a helium shortage?

We are told that the US/Israel-Iran war, and Iran's closing of the Strait of Hormuz in particular, is causing a worrying global shortage of helium. So, there might not be enough lighter-than-air gas to fill party balloons? We won't be able to make our voices sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks? What's the big deal?

While those might the most common every day uses for helium the man in the street might think of, they are far from the most important. Helium gas is indispensible to the manufacture of computer chips. And computers are what make the world go round these days. 

Helium is the coldest liquid on earth, and it's used as a protective inert atmosphere as tiny semiconductor circuits are etched onto silicon wafers, as well as to flush out the toxic residue after chemical washes. Helium is also used to cool the super-powerful magnets in MRI machines, to prevent air bubbles forming in the production of fibre optic cables, to detect leaks in high pressure vacuum systems in heat exchangers and air conditioners, as a shield gas in arc welding, to prevent nitrogen narcosis in deep-sea diving oxygen supplies, for cleaning out rocket fuel tanks, and any number of other industrial applications.

Industrial helium is a by-product of natural gas processing, but not many countries are geared up to produce it in usable quantities. Qatar produces about a third of the global supply, only the US produces more. Other than those two big guns, the only other producing countries of any note are Russia and Algeria (don't ask!) And it is the Qatar production that is at risk here, using as it does the Strait of Hormuz to get to market.

Why is the helium market dominated by so few countries? Not clear. I read that it is expensive to extract and expensive to store (sure, but that would apply to all countries). It also appears that not all gas fields have a high enough helium levels to make extraction economical, and different gas fields have different concentrations even within a country. Recently, some quite concentrated helium sources have been found in areas WITHOUT gas reservoirs, such as in Tanzania, which is leading to a hunt for other such hydrocarbon-free helium reservoirs.

Besides, you say, isn't helium all around us in the air? Well, technically yes, but the concentraction of helium in the earth's atmosphere is of the order of 5 parts per million (0.0005%), so it's definitely not practical to extract it from the air. Universe-wide, it is much more common - in fact, it's the second most abundant element after hydrogen, comprising around 23% of the mass of the universe - but it is almost all found within stars. Not easy to mine.

Back here on earth, the price of helium has soared since the war began. The helium shortage will increasingly force semiconductor production cuts and will have supplements effects from electronics (computers, phones) to automotive production (particularly electric vehicles). It might sound like a relatively unimportant victim of Trump's war in Iran and the least of our worries, but helium actually packs a big punch in global industry. Helium is indeed a big deal.

Why are Canadian housing prices down?

Housing - real estate - has always been considered the best investment you can make here in Canada. Not so much any more. Compared to the top of the market, back in the heady days of 2022, the average value of a home is down about 21%. A pretty substantial hit. The stock market, on the other hand, is still going great guns, despite all the global turmoil that would suggest otherwise.

So, what happened to house prices? Let me count the ways.

Mortgage rates have come down some after the precipitous increase following the pandemic, but they are still well above the 20 year average.

The country's population is actually falling for the first time since Confederation, after a huge increase in immigration in recent years, and housing responds very quickly to falling demand.

Housing remains unaffordable for many. The gross debt service ratio for housing remains stubbornly high.

New housing starts may have flatlined or even fallen recently, but there is still an oversupply of housing if anything (despite what the politicians are saying), at least in some markets, which is depressing prices.

General buyer sentiment is likewise depressed, as a sluggish economy and a poor job market (largely as a result of AI developments and US trade policy) weigh on people's minds. The uncertain CUSMA trade deal renegotiation later this year, and the current oil price shock, also has people waiting out commitments to large expenditures.

Can we ever know whether Chinese imports are made using forced labour?

The issue of forced-labour products from China's Xinjiang province is a thorny one indeed.

It's pretty clear that China does use the forced labour of ethnic Uighurs and other Turkic Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang. What's not so clear is to what extent our Chinese imports include such products. Goods manufactured using forced labour are explicitly prohibited in the North American market, and are specifically prohibited by the United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA, or CUSMA), which comes up for renegotiation later this year.

The Canadian government assures us that it is vigilant in excluding such products from Canada's imports, but it's really not that simple, especially given the lack of transparency around the whole issue. China obviously does not detail for us which elements of an exported product contains what percentage of Xinjiang labour. And not everything that comes from Xinjiang is made by forced Uighur workers anyway. It's a bit of a minefield.

It has all come to a head recently with the Canadian government's decision to allow some Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) into Canada, and the scrutiny over the vehicles' supply chains. Michael Ma's inflammatory (but actually pertinent) questions about whether Xinjiang forced labour content might just be based on "hearsay", and whether the expert in question had seen it for herself, have taken up most of the media attention on the industry committee's deliberations. Expert witness Margaret McCuaig-Johnston's impetuous put-down of such a challenge to her authority and credibility on the subject seemed to be definitive, but the issue is far from straightforward. (In the end, Mr. Ma apologized, and claimed he was actually referring to Shenzhen, not Xinjiang. Hmm.)

For example, yes, Xinjiang does produce aluminum, but it does not have the capacity to process the metal into the more sophisticated alloys used in the automotive industry. Its blocks of unprocessed metals are amalgamated elsewhere with other aluminum and other materials, so that it is really not possible to estimate how much of the end product came from where, and how much of that was produced using forced labour. And as for Uyghur labour forcibly transferred to factories in other parts of China (which is definitely a thing), there is no way at all to keep track or quantify that.

Even Tesla, which maintains much better records than other Chinese car manufacturers, is unable to definitively say how much of the aluminum used in its cars might have its origins in Xinjiang. Given that Xinjiang produces about 10% of the world's aluminum, other car brands, including GM, Toyota and Volkswagon, almost certainly also incorporate Xinjiang aluminum in their vehicles. Like I said, minefield.

The other thing that occurs to me is that we seem to be fixating on a few Chinese EVs, partly due to pressure from the US. Canada - and the US and everywhere else - imports no end of other products from China. Most of the contents of the average Dollarama store probably come from China, many of them made from, or containing, aluminum. Do we know the forced labour content of that cheap frying pan or spice rack? Does the US? It's easier when the product entirely made in Xinjiang (e.g. clothing and textiles, tomatoes, silicon for solar panels, etc), but the aluminum issue in particular is fraught with difficulties.

The challenges of doing science in Trump's America

Here's a good account of how scientific research has had to pivot in Trump's America.

The article deals specifically with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), but I'm sure it applies to any number of government departments and agencies. Scientists and researchers are having to self-censor and find creative ways around the Trump-mandated ban on using MAGA trigger words and phrases like "global warming", "climate change", "solar energy", "alternative energy", "decarbonization", "energy transition", "renewables", "environmental justice", "greenhouse gas emissions", "carbon sequestration", "sustainability", even "safe drinking water". Otherwise, they run the risk of having their research censored or their grant applications denied.

So, instead of using phrases like "climate change", resourceful researchers - those that have not already given up completely or moved away, that is - are trying to use less controversial, softer phrases like "elevated temperatures", "soil health" and "extreme weather", so as not to trigger discovery by the automated tools of the Trump woke police.

I know it reads like a bad science fiction story, but this is really happening in modern-day America. In Trump's America there are about 100-plus words and phrases that are essentially banned in academic and scientific research circles, about a third of them related to climate change (which is, remember, a "hoax"). Some of them are real head-scratchers, like "diesel", "affordable housing", "runoff", "microplastics", "rural water". There are also whole other categories of banned words to do with DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), gender, abortion, immigration, etc. 

Of course, if your whole paper or grant application is about solar energy or affordable housing, it is essentially impossible to avoid these phrases. So, the beleaguered American scientific community is finding alternative sources of funding and alternative publication destinations. And some of them are just leaving for less restrictive and repressive regimes. This is having a huge impact, not only on the American research community, but on that of other countries too, where local talent is now having to compete against well-qualified American ex-patriates and academic exiles (as my son-in-law, who is currently looking for post-doc opportunities abroad, is finding, to his chagrin).

US government department websites have been dilligently "scrubbed" of offensive words like "climate change" and "renewable energy" since early in Trump's second administration. Whole reports have been conveniently removed if they were considered too woke or prejudicial. It makes me wonder: did Trump personally come up with the list of proscribed words and phrases? And who are the people who carry out these bizarre instructions? Talk about the banality of evil.

Imagine working in such a system! Imagine that the field of inquiry you have spent your whole career in (or your future prospective career) is in one of these proscribed areas! Imagine having to avoid using the word "green" or "black" anywhere in your dissertation! I'm sure that many are just hoping to wait it out, on the assumption that "this too shall pass". Others, though, may be second-guessing their whole careers.

I have a suspicion that most Americans are not even aware that this is going on under their noses. Many will not care, of course, those who routinely complain about "radical wokeness" and other such nonsense. But many others will. And if I just found out about it (or at least about the extent of it), I'm sure there are many potentially concerned citizens who have no idea just how close to Margaret Atwood's Gilead or George Orwell's Thought Police modern America has become.

Did the Ontario budget bring in record spending, or cuts, to services?

The Ford Ontario Conservatives - gods, how bored I am with them! - brought down a budget yesterday, forecasting (predictably, given the global situation) a large deficit of $13.8 billion, and pushed back again its plans to balance the books in the near future.

They say they are increasing funding for small businesses, education and healthcare. But then they say that every budget, and after every budget the opposition parties get up and say "Oh, no you didn't!". This happens every time. 

So, what's the truth? How can both claims be made with such passion and conviction? Did they increase healthcare funding, or didn't they?

Politics is all about spin. Like or not, that's the truth. So, of course, the party in power, the Conservatives at the moment, says they are making record investments in education and healthcare. That may be technically true - in nominal terms, the education and healthcare budgets are higher than ever before, including under the previous Liberal administration. 

But this misses some important context. Everything costs more now, especially when comparing with the previous administration, which was way back in 2018, a period of particularly high inflation. So, of course expenditure has to increase, just in order to standard still. Plus, Ontario now hosts over 1½ million more people than it did. So, real per-capita expenditure on education, healthcare and pretty much everything else is not keeping pace. In real per capita terms, the measures so glowingly announced by the Finance Minister were actually pretty savage cuts.

But what's a government to do? They can't preface their budget announcement with, "We're bringing in record cuts to essential services!" No-one would ever vote for them again. No-one likes austerity. But no-one likes tax increases either. So, governments tend to sugar-coat their budget announcements by claiming to be investing in services like never before AND giving the hard-pressed populace tax cuts. Of course, that's not true; the math wouldn't add up, even with a constantly increasing debt load from deficit after deficit. But it sounds impressive, and that's what really matters to them.

How the Netherlands became an agricultural powerhouse

Having just watched the excellent A Life on Our Planet, a spry 93-year old David Attenborough's 2020 "witness statement" (he's now 99!), it's hard not be cowed by the grand old man's ridiculous optimism in the face of the seemingly insurmountable problems facing the planet.

One thing that he did cite as an example of progress in the right direction (and part of Attenborough's vision of a solution to our environmental ills) was the success of the Netherlands' agricultural endeavours. I think I had some idea that they were leaders in vertical farming and hydroponics, but I had no idea things were so advanced there ... and so successful.

But, yes, it turns out that little Netherlands is now the second biggest food exporter in the world (after the USA, which is 240 times larger). The little densely-populated country - for reference it is about the size of Wales, or the province of Nova Scotia, or half the size of US states like South Carolina or Maine - has very little real estate to spare. Nevertheless, it has devoted more than half of its valuable land to farming, and it has developed one of the world's most intensive and efficient agricultural bases.

After the grim experience of the "Winter of Hunger" under Nazi occupation during World War II, food security became a national priority, and the Netherlands made some important strategic decisions, one of which was focussing on high-value agricultural goods like eggs, meat, cheese, tomatoes, peppers and flowers. There was government subsidization, a strong push towards agricultural education and research, and farmland was rationalized into more efficient larger farms. It pioneered greenhouse growing, which it has since taken to the next level, employing robots and algorithms, hydroponics, computer-controlled watering systems and crop ripeness surveillance, optimized LED artificial lighting, etc. 

Despite all these high-tech solutions, bees are still used to pollinate the plants, and are kept in the greenhouses almost like pampered pets. Much of the picking and quality control and even some of the final packaging, is still done by hand, although often (and increasingly) with AI/computer help. Irrigation water is sparingly applied, recycled and reused, and water usage is one-fiftieth of the global average for equivalent crops. Pests and insects are constantly monitored and detected in real time, allowing for timely attention. Crop yields can be ten times or more than global averages.

This is industrialized agri-business taken to the nth degree, but it's sure as hell effective: in 2024, the country produced $140 billion worth of farmed goods. It has established itself as Europe's top exporter of meat, and about 60% of all crops produced in the country are exported, principally to Germany, the UK, China, and (ironically) even the US.

There are still challenges, though. 

There is some worry about the large carbon footprint of Dutch agriculture, although since the Russian war in Ukraine deprived it of cheap Russian gas, there have been moves to secure home-produced energy from wind and geothermal power. 

With the highest livestock density in Europe, the Netherlands also has the highest ammonia emissions on the continent, causing algae blooms in waterways and playing havoc with some native plant species. Calls to limit these emissions have led to mass protests as farmers see their livelihoods threatened. But changes to the diet of animals, separating their pee and poo, etc, have shown promising results.

There is also an increasing labour shortage in some areas of Dutch agriculture (I'm not really sure why), prompting still more AI, robotization and technology innovation, technology that is also exported across the globe.

So, if you want a business success story with a side of environmental hope, watch Business Insider's 20-minute doc on the Netherlands' agricultural revolution.

Air Canada is being held to language obligations its competitors are not

Canada's language battles continue, this time when the CEO of Air Canada aired a condolence message for the families of the two Air Canada pilots who were killed in an accident at La Guardia airport in New York a couple of days ago. He managed a "bonjour" at the start and a "merci" at the end of his piece, which, given that one of the pilots was a francophone, that the flight originated in Montreal, and that the Air Canada company is based in Montreal, has been lambasted as insufficient, disrespectful and downright outrageous by many. There were renewed calls for his ouster.

CEO Michael Rousseau (despite his name) has been called out before by the Quebec language police. He took even more flak for suggesting that his busy schedule just did not allow him to focus on learning a new language, which he said he had not needed in his 14 years of living in Montreal. This time, though, others have involved themselves, including Prime Minister Mark Carney (whose French is not brilliant but he did learn enough to get by for his election campaign), and Rosseau has been summoned before a parluamentary committee to explain his situation.

Poor Mr. Rousseau apologized for his lack of French, which he admits is inadequate "despite many lessons over several years". I can sympathize - some people just don't have the gift. He also apologized that his inability to speak French had "diverted attention" from his message of condolence and grief to the families of the deceased, although, arguably, it was the language hawks in the Bloc Québécois who were doing the diverting. 

While Air Canada is not a federal government agency, it is considered (rightly or wrongly) a federal public corporation, and it is subject to Canada's Official Languages Act. Announcements on board are made in both English and French, and service in both languages is guaranteed. As a high-profile "flag carrier", Air Canada in particular is expected to uphold the myth of Canadian bilingualism and, as CEO, Rousseau is first in the firing line.

In fact, the situation is more complicated than that. Air Canada used to be a fully-fledged Crown corporation, but when it was privatized in 1988, it was specifically subject to various "public interest obligations", enshrined in a whole act of Parliament called the Air Canada Public Participation Act. This included the continued application of the Official Languages Act, although it was not given any additional federal finding to accommodate these onerous requirements.

It's interesting to think, then, that Air Canada's direct competitors, like WestJet and Porter, are not subject to this kind of scrutiny or held to this level of expectations. They are normal private companies, and not subject to the Official Languages Act. Air Canada, though, due to the vagaries of history and the way the company was converted from from a Crown corporation to a piece company nearly forty years ago, IS subject to these additional obligations. Double standards?

Anyone from outside the country watching the howls of outrage going on around the airline's CEO'S French proficiency (or otherwise) would no doubt be dumfounded that we twist ourselves into these kids of knots over something that doesn't seem that important. To a relatively small sub-section of the Canadian population, though, these things are of paramount importance. The country's supposed bilingualism is sometimes touted as one of its strengths; often, though, it is more of an albatross around its neck.

And the biggest losers in all this? The two dead pilots who, as far as we know, did everything in their power to minimize trauma and death among their passengers. They seem to have been all but forgotten amid this side-show. Good job, Bloc Québécois.