Update: You are amazing people but, to those who are making paid subscriptions, please note the “Paid” articles will only begin after June 19. I will extend the subscriptions already made, so you don’t pay for free articles.
The last time in wrote “A word of appreciation” was around last Christmas. I had about 400 subscribers then and thought I was doing pretty well in building an audience of like-minded people. Five months later, your numbers have boomed to more than 1,600 and growing steadily. I never dreamed of this happening, not so fast, anyway.
A strange thing has happened in the meantime. Many of you have reached out directly to share scientific data and first-hand experiences with the energy transition. Others tell me they are recommending my newsletter to everyone they meet. I’m making more friends that I can remember since my teen years. You have been truly wonderful, for which I am deeply grateful.
Your huge support and unfathomable interest in my, let’s say alternative, perspective to energy and the energy transition emboldened me to quit all my work engagements except those I have with Oilprice. I’m staying with Oilprice until they kick me out but this Substack newsletter has become my only other occupation and, boys and girls, am I happy I can say this. Also, I want your money.
A host of very different people have been telling me for most of my life not to sell myself short. What I do here I very definitely do with all my respect for hard facts, resentment to double standards, and an overall attachment to the truth. Yet it takes time and effort to do it, and life has taught me that effort yields best results when rewarded materially. Must be something to do with Maslow’s pyramid.
That said, I’m not putting everything behind a paywall. I’m many things but obscenely greedy is not one of them. The analytical pieces that require lots of background research, including the consumption of blatant green propaganda, which is a mentally taxing endeavour, will be only available to paid subscribers beginning June 19 because I like odd numbers and I was born on the 19th, though not June.
The more, shall I say, contemplative, research-light pieces I write and the Friday threads, along with all video content, including the BAB chat (obviously), interviews, and a new regular thing I’m currently plotting with Margaret P. Graham, will remain free for all.
We are all currently living in rather hard times and we all need to put food on the table, so I’ll be charging the minimum Substack allows for its paid subscriptions, which is $5 per month or $50 per year.
For those of means and generosity, there will also be a founding member option: with it, we get to chat about energy face-to-face once a month, should you so wish. I don’t do oil price forecasts or rather, I can do them but they will be as accurate as the weather forecast for next November.
I will keep the number of articles I write every week unchanged, though the mix between analytical and contemplative will vary depending on the relative temperature of the news coming in from the energy world.
Thank you all once again and I do hope you stick around, free or paid. We can cope better with whatever the political energy brains throw at us if we cope together.
I’m in. Keep the snarky sarcasm coming!
Hi Irina, I'm a relative newcomer to your stack but I'm considering to hang around here. I like your style and the positions you represent, your taken on energy policies and happenings. And I'm so super jealous that you get paid to go through "green propaganda" all day (not!). So as others said - keep up the great work and many thanks to you.