Free Republic

Lockheed Martin, the nation's top defense contractor, forced 13 executives including a three-star general to complete a three-day Zoom course so they would 'unlearn their male privilege'. The course was led by Portland-based firm White Men as Full Diversity Partners. It was carried out last June, at the height of the BLM movement, and involved 13 Lockheed employees dialing in for 16 hours. Details of the three-day course last June were obtained by City Journal. The 13 employees were Director of Aeronautics Mark Ward, Air Force lieutenant colonel David Starr, Senior Design Engineer Jeff Schweiss, Risk Management and Sustainability Executive...

(AUDIO-AT-LINK)Driverless trucks are coming to Alberta's mining operations. Last week, Suncor Energy Inc. confirmed that it has entered a 5-year agreement with a Japanese manufacturer of autonomous vehicles. The company has already agreed to buy 175 driverless trucks, and a spokesperson says it plans to replace its entire fleet by the end of the decade. Local union members are concerned that the technology could lead to the loss of hundreds of jobs. Day 6 got the reaction of two stakeholders from opposite ends of the automated vehicle debate: Barrie Kirk is is the executive director of the Canadian Automated Vehicles...

For all those who have forgotten that the I in the GDP equation stands for Investment, here is a reminder courtesy of the latest crude collapse victim, Suncor, which moments ago announced it is not only cutting its 2015 CapEx by $1 billion (as in I, directly and adversely impacting US GDP by the same amount) but that it would also cut "operating expenses" by up to $800 million, and, drumroll, implementing "a series of workforce initiatives that will reduce total workforce numbers in 2015 by approximately 1000 people, primarily through its contract workforce, in addition to reducing employee positions....

An energy company worker has been killed by a black bear at a base in the tar sands region of the Canadian province of Alberta, the firm has said. The 36-year-old woman was declared dead at the scene on Wednesday. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police later shot and killed the male bear, which had remained in the area. Bears are emerging from hibernation near the Suncor Energy Inc oil sands mining operation, 25km (15.5m) north of Fort McMurray.

The global-warming debate is shifting from science to economics. For years, the fight over the Earth's rising temperature has been mostly over what's causing it: fossil-fuel emissions or natural factors beyond man's control. Now, some of the country's biggest industrial companies are acknowledging that fossil fuels are a major culprit whose emissions should be cut significantly over time. A growing number of these companies are pushing for a mandatory emissions limit, or "cap." Some see a lucrative new market in clean-energy technologies. Many figure a regulation is politically inevitable and they want to be in the room when it's negotiated,...

The millions of barrels of crude oil developed from Canadian oil sands in the coming decades could be shipped to the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, the West Coast or Asia, Suncor Energy Inc. Chief Executive Richard George said on Monday. Suncor pioneered the production of oil from oil sands or bitumen in Alberta "where the oil isn't under the sand, it's wrapped around the sand," George said in a speech at the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association annual meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah. Suncor is now producing 260,000 barrels of oil per day from oil sands and expects the...

It was a tenet of the late great economist Julian Simon that we'll never run out of any commodity. That's because before we do the increasing scarcity of that resource will drive up the price and force us to adopt alternatives. For example, as firewood grew scarce people turned to coal, and as the whale oil supply dwindled 'twas petroleum that saved the whales. Now we're told we're running out of petroleum. The "proof" is the high prices at the pump. In fact, oil cost about 50% more per barrel in 1979-80 than now when adjusted for inflation. Yet it's...