Robert Bott | Substack
Robert Bott
Writer and consultant specializing in energy, forestry, and industrial history; based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Posts
May 15
Fantastic analysis. Kudos to Andrew Sullivan for linking to your work.Most of the political class and commentariat are incredibly ignorant or ill-informed about the complexities of the oil market. I wrote a short piece recently about one key aspect, the middle distillates (diesel, jet fuel, marine fuels) that attempted to show their critical...
May 1
Diesel was US average retail $3.66 per gallon in January 2025, currently $5.35 -- a 46 percent increase that will affect the cost of everything from farming to the transportation and delivery of almost every good and service.I recently dug a little deeper into the cost of diesel, jet fuel, and marine transportation fuel...
Who Are You Gonna Believe, Trump or Your Lying Eyes?
Paywalled Stories
Apr 20
Paywalled story in the Globe & Mail today about Rio Tinto aluminum smelters running flat out and activated idled units despite Trump’s tariffs now totaling 50 percent. theglobeandmail.com/bus…
Meanwhile, the Iran War is blocking exports from the UAE. Canada and UAE each account for about 4 percent of global primary aluminum production.
As I pointed out in a substack post last year, the US tariff on aluminum is essentially a tax on electricity. For the US to increase primary aluminum production ...