Canadian cement, eh? What’s the tariff all aboot? | cslships.com Who pays a 50% tariff on Canadian cement? Here is a hint. It is not Canada. President Trump announced a 50% tariff on selected Canadian goods, including cement, scheduled to take e…

RGGI headquarters in NY | Wikipedia In a recent post, I wrote about 10 Reasons Virginia Power Bills Are Going Up, and Data Centers Are Just One. The point was simple. Data centers are part of the story. They are not the whole story. Virginia’s …

Protect those margins...oh, we meant jobs. | OpenAI “Liars are not believed even when they speak the truth.” - Aesop Rebar is one of those things people love to ignore until it becomes a problem. Then it becomes everyone’s problem. It hits t…

What a load of GOB | Credit Cardinal News "The economy is a derivative of energy." - Doomberg I am part of the 7x24 Central Virginia Exchange Education Committee. It's a committee that is part of 7x24, a networking group for the data cente…

“Whether one is a conservative or a radical, a protectionist or a free trader, a cosmopolitan or a nationalist, a churchman or a heathen, it is useful to know the causes and consequences of economic phenomena.”— George J. Stigler Sometimes t…

“Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.”- H. L. Mencken Virginia keeps pouring concrete for data centers like the pace is normal. It isn’t. Ever…

“Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws.” – King Canute Back in August we published a post called: “100 Cokes or 1 Mile:…

Keep your eye on the prize. (Adobe) You’ve probably seen the dumb version of this story already. “Trump wants cheap oil.” “Exxon won’t touch Venezuela.” “Guyana hit the jackpot.” “Russia and China are involved.” All true-ish. Also not useful. He…

When the lights get expensive, everything else follows. For the last few years, Europe has been trying to run an industrial economy on wishful thinking. It looked fine in speeches. It looked even better in press releases. Then the bill showed up.…

Buckeyes for the win! (Adobe) Data centers are the new “economic development win” that shows up in a press release before anyone asks the obvious question. Where’s the power coming from? And who’s paying to build the system that makes it possi…

Concrete didn’t become the default building material because it was fashionable. It won because it made sense. It was durable. It was local. And for a long time, it was the economical choice when you looked at the whole building—not just one line it…

Follow the Line. Follow the Money. If you’ve been following the Type IL situation the last few years, you’ve heard every excuse under the sun about why Portland limestone cement suddenly became the “future” of American concrete. We’ve been told it’…

Pipe dream. (Adobe) Every once in a while, the cement industry drops a headline so painfully obvious you wonder if anyone has been awake for the last decade.   This week’s gem?   Europe is sounding the alarm that cement prices could triple by 205…

Progress. (Adobe) Dominion Energy just filed its 2025 Renewable Portfolio Standard plan with the Virginia State Corporation Commission. It’s their roadmap for meeting Virginia’s renewable energy mandates under the Clean Economy Act.If you read thro…

Changing of the guard. (Adobe) Back in July, we covered the U.S. Department of Energy report A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate. It didn’t get nearly the attention it deserves. The report—written by John C…

Don’t worry, we’ll just dig our own—how hard can it be? For decades, we’ve been told that free trade keeps the world out of trouble. The logic was simple: if countries are busy buying, selling, and shipping each other’s goods, they won’t have time …

Is NVIDIA an Astros fan? (Getty Images) Enron was the golden child. By 2000, it was the seventh largest company in America, worth more than sixty billion dollars. The business magazines loved them. Wall Street analysts couldn’t say enough good thin…

Raising cane (Adobe). If you think groceries are expensive now, just wait—this winter they could double. Back in March, I wrote about McKinley’s tariffs and how history showed us exactly what happens when governments play with trade barriers. You …

By Victor Gillam - https://pixels.com/featured/monroe-doctrine-1896-granger.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=82247860 I read an article from Doomberg, one of my favorite geopolitical writers, and it got me thinki…

Back in 2011, the cement industry told us portland-limestone cement (PLC) was no risk. The updated State of the Art Report 2024 walks that back. Now it admits PLC can have higher carbonation, chloride ingress, and admixture sensitivity—but don’t wor…

I don’t spend my days at the country club or hanging out in boardrooms. I’m a business development guy in concrete construction. That means I’m chasing projects, knocking on doors, and keeping our name out there. If I end up on a golf course, it’s o…

The Department of Energy just released a report that probably isn’t getting the attention it deserves: A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate (July 2025). It was written by a group of respected scientists—John C…

Cement plant at Lime, Oregon (Credit: Middlebury College) The EPA is trying to roll back the 2009 Endangerment Finding for motor vehicles. I haven’t heard anyone else say it, but I think there’s a chance that move could spill over into cement. The …

The EPA is moving to roll back the 2009 Endangerment Finding — at least for motor vehicles — and with it, scrap the CO₂ limits that were supposed to tighten the screws on model years 2027 through 2032. If this happens, automakers won’t have to hi…