Today, we are publishing our 45th issue in Synergy. It's been a very long and challenging journey since September 2019. In the beginning, we were not sure that we could publish a weekly newsletter, especially after the initial excitement gone; however, with the support of many students from different backgrounds and universities, scholars, and professionals from various institutions, we have managed to keep going on.
The main aim of publishing the newsletter was to support students interested in energy and climate issues. Synergy enabled them to share their ideas and receive feedback from the readers. Many authors who are volunteered to write the Synergy began following energy news closely to create content for the newsletter and expand their knowledge while sharing information with the readers. Today we have over 230 different contents available on our website regarding carbon fuels, renewable energy, climate issues, book and documentary reviews, daily life, and politics.
The first 16 issues were only published in PDF form, and we were announcing them from our social media accounts. After realizing that we can sustain publishing weekly, we built a website for the contents in February 2020. Of course, after sharing our articles as blog posts, the number of our audience multiplied.
According to Google Analytics reports, in 2020, we have reached more than six thousand people from 104 countries solely from our website, which seemed impossible at the beginning. Among Turkey, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Pakistan were the countries with the most readers for Synergy.
Barış Sanlı's "Good and Bad News: Oil Price War," "Energy Transition in A Fragmented World" and "Oil Price War: What Happened So Far?" and my "Energy Demand on Quarantine Days" and "Book Review: The New Map" articles were the top 5 most-read pieces of the year.
In these 45 issues, we tried to be as fair as possible to different opinions. For instance, in some cases, arguments that support renewable energy and discussing the negative impacts of renewable energy published next to each other. The diversity of opinions helped us to broaden our vision.
In November 2020, we also updated our PDF version layout. Every day we are trying to improve the quality of the work we are putting on. Hopefully, in 2021, with our experience, we will have a better and advanced newsletter. You can always send your opinions to eeps@bilkent.edu.tr or my email address.
As the editor of Synergy, it has been one of the biggest challenges of my life to publish a weekly newsletter since I did not have any experience in this area before. I am grateful to all authors who contributed to this journey. On the next page, you will see the other 21 authors who wrote for Synergy in 2020.
I wish my best to all of our readers from the world in the new year. I hope you and your loved ones have a healthy and successful year.
Gökberk Bilgin
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