73 Comments
User's avatar
Tom Kirkman's avatar

Irina, your substack is the only substack that I still maintain an annual paid subscription to.

I've been subscribed to your substack for a few years now, starting when you very first started offering paid subscriptions.

And I have no intention of unsubscribing to your substack.

Keep on writing ! ! ! 😁

Irina Slav's avatar

Yeah but, Tom, you're a personal friend, so it doesn't count. :D

Joke aside, thanks for sticking by. I mean it.

Tim Tuggle's avatar

You a bright spot of reasonableness and sanity in a world increasingly devoid of both - thank you.

And I am deeply humbled to be part of your pro-sane-energy gang.

Irina Slav's avatar

Thank you, Tim, it is an honour to have you in the gang. Sane Energy, what a great gang name!

Rusty Russ's avatar

The Eastern Washington state fires have been traced to a serial arsonist.

And don’t forget the 150 arrests in France for the same there.

Andy Fately's avatar

wrong narrative, can't report that 😳

Rusty Russ's avatar

Andy!!! This is a No Sarcasm Zone!

Nic's avatar
2dEdited

Just Greenies maintaining support for The Narrative (to help save the planet, of course).

Irina Slav's avatar

I think there was some footage from Spain, too, though it could've been France. Fires stating simultaneously at several locations in a forest. Sure, climate change does that.

Monty Carlo's avatar

Oh yeah, you can count yourself amongst the "early starters" - taking the top part of the pareto distribution that plagues all social media as time progresses. It's good to have a gang that is not a community.

My own journey here - and mind you, I don't even have paid subscription enabled - has been nothing short of a stalling *flatline*.

I think this platform is, for the majority, will be what the EU is to the majority of us Europeans... a huge disappointment ;-)

Did you actually realize we are facing a reader drought, ironically, per your article's main theme? ;-)

I'm grateful for the ones who subscribe to the smaller substacks - but at the same time I don't see how this platform's going to fulfil its promise neither to newer readers nor especially so writers who enable it to grew to this proportion in the first place. Too many cooks and all that.

Keep on keepin' on, Irina.

Andy Fately's avatar

I'm right there with you, don't charge, small takeup, but at least I don't have to pay Stripe!

Monty Carlo's avatar

And the paperwork... ugh.

Irina Slav's avatar

Hah! I hadn't realised that, no. I guess it's the natural order of things. Still incomparably better here than on any Big Tech platform and let's hope it remains a non-Big Tech platform, amen.

Rafe Champion's avatar

In Texas, conventional power turned the tables on the unreliables during a storm in January.

https://rafechampion.substack.com/p/wind-and-solar-dream-destroyed-in

Wind and solar capacity ain’t real capacity because they ain’t there on windless nights. Ask them in Texas, this year, when the gas system is adequately winterized!

https://rafechampion.substack.com/p/wind-and-solar-aint-capacity

Batteries are not the answer. Just ask Bill Gates😊

https://youtu.be/VjgDvG13Hgs

Besides, wind and solar don’t generate enough energy to reproduce themselves. That means they are a net drain on the energy economy of the world.

https://rafechampion.substack.com/p/wind-and-solar-are-parasites-on-the

bb Comet's avatar

Genius says: Geoengineering chemicals into the atmosphere for years will make the environment highly flammable.

Peter Ballerstedt's avatar

Newsflash! "Humanity is weather-dependent!!

Their solution.... ?? Reduce population to 4 billion!!

Still weather-dependent, maybe more so.

Kyle Hanlon's avatar

Your observations of the absurd are priceless.

I'd stay with 100% substack tariff.

Thank you

Bob Fately's avatar

Hey! Don't let the clowns of substack see that...they'll get ideas!

Peter Halligan's avatar

I have noticed the same subscriber phenomenon.. I suspect your 'follower numbers are rocketing? Love your research/analysis and your uncanny ability to point out the utter hypocrisy and stupidity of the UN and Brussels (and blue state regulators in the USA? I value your commentary and collaboration with others on podcasts. Maybe get together with 'energy bad boys' 'unbekoming/heartland institute and eigen values - lots of collaboration opportunities for contributing articles!

Irina Slav's avatar

I don't really follow follower numbers because I'm not sure I understand the point of followers separate from subscribers free or paid. I'm not really active in the Notes section. I'm a simple woman and like simple things.

Roel Pieterman's avatar

Great piece as always. I laughed my ass off, so to speak! I especially liked your brilliant sentence: "I must apologise for writing on Wednesday that Bloomberg had pushed the limits to suspension of disbelief into hitherto unknown territory." Epic!!!

Irina Slav's avatar

It came from the heart. When I'm wrong, I'm wrong. :D

Eric Novak's avatar

Irina, you are on my short list of writers I intend to subscribe to in the future. If I subscribed to every Substack writer, online magazine, and streaming service I wanted to, I could not pay the $1500 increase in property taxes for illegal immigrants.

Irina Slav's avatar

Oofta, as a favourite TV show character would say. Talk about inclusivity. There are too many things to subscribe to these days, that's a fact. For me, it's great motivation. No complaints.

Roel Pieterman's avatar

Forgot to mention that in the Netherlands we are very fearfull of forest fires; recently no less than one square km burned! May be, if we look at it as a precautionary measure, that is why we burn about 25% of what went up in smoke in the French 'mega-fire''. To be clear, this is us burning biomass for electricity, imported from the Baltic, the US en from Asia. (see here in Dutch:https://www.wyniasweek.nl/nederland-verbrandt-veel-meer-bos-dan-verloren-gaat-door-de-bosbranden-in-frankrijk).

Ian Braithwaite's avatar

You Dutch also have the worry of flash flooding and landslides from rapidly melting mountain glaciers. Brave people.

Irina Slav's avatar

Ah. Sustainable, aren't you? :D

Roel Pieterman's avatar

Indeed. To beyond the limits of disbelieve!

iain Reid's avatar

While a few thermal power plants use rivers and even lakes a source of cooling water, the vast majority use cooling towers and the cooling water is recycled. There is evaporative loss but they do not require vast amounts of water resources.

I can assume that those that use rivers factor in the times of low flow and as long as there is sufficient capacity, which there should be in summer when demand is lower, it is not a real problem. Planning is the key, and not renewables.

Steve Elliott's avatar

I had the same thought about data centres which have been blamed for using too much water but it's not as if they actually consume and destroy it, at least I don't think they do. It would be interesting to see a data centre with a cooling tower.

Irina Slav's avatar

I gather the flow has been much lower than the usual low this year. But, per the latest reports, things are looking up. Just when the media were warming up for a major alarmism session, how unfortunate.

Amos Eno's avatar

Great post Irina, nothing subtle about what is going on in Europe, just a wee pandemic of leadership imbecility emanating from Brussels and being amplified in Spain...

Pamela's avatar

I’m staying with you and our gang!

Irina Slav's avatar

Spoken like a true gangster. :) Thank you, Pamela!

Larry Schweikart's avatar

Irena, take a look at my Larry Schweikart substack. I think you'll find interesting stuff from the USA.

Irina Slav's avatar

Thanks, Larry, will do!