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US- and Greek-owned tankers ablaze after Iran claims 'underwater drone' strike
- OutOfHere 7mo agoTrump has given a surprise gift to renewable energy worldwide, one that the sector should not fail to use.
- ultratalk 7mo agoA lot of the world tried to shift to renewables during the ~10-year-long 1970s embargo. They went straight back to sweet old oil afterwards. This isn't gonna last nearly as long. Don't get me wrong, I hope and pray that renewables get a boost out of this, but I don't think it's gonna happen.
- realo 7mo agoReally not sure you can compare solar and wind energy from the 1970s to the highly efficient modern solar and wind solutions of today. Really.
- ultratalk 7mo agoI suppose that the specifics of what I said were mistaken, but the general sentiment remains the same. It doesn't seem like this conflict will last as long as the embargo, and when one of the largest investors into new technologies has firmly refused to acknowledge the necessities of renewables, progress and adoption will certainly slow down.
- realo 7mo ago"... when one of the largest investor into new technologies ..." No. Sorry but China has not firmly refused to acknowledge the necessity of renewables. Quite the contrary, actually.
- ultratalk 7mo agoI specifically said "one of the largest", not just "the largest". The US is (was?) the second-largest investor in clean energy [0]. [0] https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/annual-investment-in-clean-energy-by-selected-country-and-region-2019-and-2024 https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/annual-invest...
- philipkglass 7mo agoIn the 1970s electric cars were not generally available and solar panels were 100 times more expensive than they are now. Today the world has the manufacturing capacity to install nearly a terawatt-peak of solar panels per year, at low cost, and millions of electric cars are shipping every quarter: https://open-ev-charts.org/#global:electric-sales:quarter https://open-ev-charts.org/#global:electric-sales:quarter It won't change rapidly in the US, because the current administration opposes renewables at every turn and keeps low cost BEVs out of the US, but most of the world's energy/oil needs are outside the US. This situation will accelerate a global process that was already gaining speed.
- moralestapia 7mo agoI’ll laugh whenever someone comes along and says "This is definitely an act of war" despite everything we’ve all seen that has been done to Iran lately.
- science4sail 7mo agoThis is all about Hormuz, isn't it? Even though the attack itself was in Basra, Iraq, the intention seems to be to terrify any companies thinking of sailing through the Persian Gulf. I wonder how many more caches of drones Iran has lying around. Days? Weeks? Years? There's also the question of how to resupply any anti-drone systems in the area - maybe we'll see convoys carrying interceptors crossing the Arabian desert.
- bluegatty 7mo agoNot so much 'terrify' as a hint to the insurance adjusters who set prices and therefore control the flow. 'Nope' They'll signal something else later and things will open up.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 7mo agoA week ago we saw Iranian and Greek vessels plying the Strait [1]. I guess Tehran is now establishing its monopoly. [1] https://gcaptain.com/iranian-shadow-fleet-and-greek-affiliated-ships-lead-strait-of-hormuz-transits/ https://gcaptain.com/iranian-shadow-fleet-and-greek-affiliat...
- sschueller 7mo agoThese tankers aren't easily replaceable are they? As in it takes significant time to build them. Even if Trump's claims that the war will end shortly were true. Oil prices are guaranteed not coming down if many more of these ships are sunk.
- Urahandystar 7mo agoOh yeah, The Oil crisis in the 1970's effects were felt until the mid 80's this is just starting and it isn't going to go away anytime soon.
- derektank 7mo agoRoughly 3 years. That being said, there’s thousands of carriers globally and they have maybe a 25 year lifespan, so a couple of ships becoming inoperable is largely negligible. https://public.axsmarine.com/blog/build-time-for-new-vessels-continues-rising https://public.axsmarine.com/blog/build-time-for-new-vessels...
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- bluegatty 7mo agoThere are a surplus of tankers, that's not the problem. The problem is they are halted, which causes price spikes. $120/barrel Oil will screw up the whole world.
- ElectricalUnion 7mo agoThey don't even need that many mines or bombs to start with, presence of wreckage on the shipping lanes that aren't more that 75m deep would already put all shipping at risk.
- NickC25 7mo agoAlso, the amount of oil spilling into such a small area can't be good for the environment, can't be good for local marine life (if there is any), etc....
- 7mo ago
- bootsmann 7mo agoNoone could’ve seen this coming, how were they supposed to know that the strait of hormuz is so important!
- yxhuvud 7mo agoI'm actually somewhat surprised Iran is openly telling us they are using underwater drones for this. That piece of technological advance has gone mostly under the radar (!) so far.
- chinathrow 7mo ago> That piece of technological advance has gone mostly under the radar (!) so far The Ukraine would like to have a word.
- simonw 7mo agoUnderwater drones, not drones in general.
- bootsmann 7mo agoUkraine has been sinking Russian warships in their harbor using underwater drones for at least a year now.
- yxhuvud 7mo agoThe drones that are mainly used there are the flying kind.
- trynumber9 7mo ago"Mainly" but they've been assaulting Russian boats and ships with USVs and submersibles. For example - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Baby#Sub_Sea_Baby https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Baby#Sub_Sea_Baby
- cyberax 7mo ago
- VK-pro 7mo agoOne of the self-owns of all time. Triggering a global supply chain crisis right before midterms is bottom of the barrel strategy. But then again, who expects competency from any recent American administration, most especially this one?
- realo 7mo agoBut where are the Epstein Trump documents? Someone really hopes you forgot about them...
- garciasn 7mo agoWhat’s baffling to me is how they’re going to attempt to spin the colossal fuck up this is from a “Best Military in the World” perspective, particularly after their unapproved relabeling of the DoD to the DoW.
- lejalv 7mo agoIncluding starting with murdering 100+ kids based on stale intelligence, according to the NY times.
- ForHackernews 7mo agoIt doesn't matter how good the military is if the political leadership is incompetent and the strategic objectives are incoherent. You'd think that after Vietnam, Iraq 2, and Afghanistan this lesson would have been learned, but apparently not.
- lm28469 7mo agoTactical win, strategic defeat, a classic for the US military, especially in the middle east, you'd imagine they learn after so many blunders
- jonfw 7mo agoWhatever your political affiliation and thoughts on the war, I hope we can all agree that it would an awful thing to base our foreign policy on the US election cycle.
- nubg 7mo agoWhy did they attempt to pass the closed Strait of Hormuz?
- gzread 7mo agoWhat does "closed" mean in this context?
- zja 7mo agoIt means if you sail through it, Iran will launch drones and missiles at your ship.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- ultratalk 7mo agoThe strait is considered closed when a country not afraid to use its military says ships can't cross.
- edaemon 7mo agoThe Iranian military has stated their intention to attack any ship passing through the strait without their permission.
- simonh 7mo agoI'd say the analogy is a closed door. It's not that it's impossible to go through it, but you have to do something specific in order to do so beyond just trying to go through, or you're going to walk straight into getting a bloodey nose. But yeah, these ships weren't anywhere near the strait.
- sanex 7mo agoThey were docked. And who gets to say a waterway is open or closed?
- 7mo ago
- swarnie 7mo ago[flagged]
- dudefeliciano 7mo agothe libs are getting owned for sure, along with everybody else
- p-o 7mo agoWhy did we have to go through all this pain. Was that really necessary? And given we mostly talk about technology here, let me put this through that lens: With all the technology advancement and improvement with access to information in the last 30 years, why does it feel that all of this culminates to more disinformation, more pain, and less understanding?
- jameskilton 7mo agoThis is a tale as old as humanity itself. Power-hungry people will always push lies to foster their version of events. This always causes pain and destruction.
- p-o 7mo agoI am not delusional about those power-hungry people, but I somehow thought that with better access to information, society would have been able to better regulate them. Maybe in hindsight, "flooding the zone" will be considered a much bigger threat than it is today. Most of what's going on in the last 12 months have happened in plain sight and would have never worked 30 years ago. Today, it just flies, attention span be damned.
- vladms 7mo agoIrak war seemed to me reasonably "in plain sight". And there were other blunders as well. What I find amazing though is that more people passionately believe very strange reasons. 30 years ago people were like "meh, sure we don't get something, I bet there are hidden interest that I don't know about". Nowadays they are like "oh, yeah we attack country X because they have aliens that attack us telepathically, I know that for sure and if you don't agree you are an alien too!".
- collingreen 7mo agoPeople are people. Adding tech doesn't change the people very much.
- gtowey 7mo ago
- moi2388 7mo agoOnly more reason to finally get rid of the current Iranian regime and any and all of their military capabilities.
- commandlinefan 7mo agoDoes this mean that Greece will join the US/Israeli side in this increasingly global conflict?
- cheema33 7mo agoOther countries have been bombed by Iran in this war and none have actively joined the war.
- ipaddr 7mo agoUnless you are sending ground troops that's not happening.
- moi2388 7mo agoI think you underestimate how much Iranians hate their current regime..
- marcosdumay 7mo agoThey hate it a lot less today than they did 2 weeks ago.
- Ancapistani 7mo agoInteresting you should say that, as not a single one of the Iranian emigrants that I know would agree with you.
- TheCoelacanth 7mo agoExtrapolating the politics of people who stayed based on the politics of people who chose to leave is not going to get you very far.
- brentm 7mo agoHe may still wriggle out of it but it is increasingly looking like Trump has stepped into something that he won't be able to reverse his way out of easily, a one way decision.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- gosub100 7mo agoThe stepping was done years ago when Epstein got kompromat on him. That's why he ordered this war for no apparent reason. His life is over if he doesn't, his life lasts a few more years if the blackmail is withheld, at the cost of innocent lives.
- JeremyNT 7mo agoIt seems like a huge self own but he benefits from an extremely loyal fan base and a militaristic culture that loves rallying around the flag. Does he even care if his actions hurt the country or global stability at all, so long as his supporters remain unwavering? It seems like he doesn't, so here we are. There is no plausible stimulus that he might actually care to respond to.
- whynotmaybe 7mo agoI still don't know whether a drone attack is less worse than a suicide attack. I guess that's another war to end all wars to add to the list
- SideburnsOfDoom 7mo agoA done attack is utterly predictable though? Ukraine and Russia have been doing drone attacks on each other by air, sea and on land for years now. To great effect. It should be expected, not surprising at all.
- koolala 7mo agoWhy? Aren't drones just as bad as guided missiles?
- hereme888 7mo agoThe US will make a LOT of money from selling their oil at premium. https://x.com/sentdefender/status/2032091651422720197 https://x.com/sentdefender/status/2032091651422720197 *Edit: Now I understand that some companies may make more money, but the economy overall may suffer. *Seems like I hit a nerve with stereotypical people groups.
- lesuorac 7mo agoUnsure if this is sarcasm or not. Plus gas is largely immune to sales tax and we don't really tax corporations so this will largely lead to no revenue for the US and instead just record profits for Exxon.
- BoredPositron 7mo agoIt's delusion.
- comeonbro 7mo agoThat is hilarious cope. The US benefits far far relatively more when the global economy is running smoothly than when able to sell oil higher, like some shithole petrostate. Appropriate I suppose.
- add-sub-mul-div 7mo agoYou're replying to someone who gets their political analysis from Twitter. Hilarious is the best case.
- hereme888 7mo agoI understand you clearly hate Trump, but I'll take his statements over yours any day.
- atwrk 7mo agoWell and Russia. Trump essentially crippled the impact of 4 years of sanctions against Russia with these new oil prices he created.
- EtienneDeLyon 7mo agoWhile some naysayers might claim the US has entered the FO stage after the commencement of FA, I have full faith in the ability of great minds like Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth to navigate the sea of uncertainty and achieve strategic victory!
- cheema33 7mo agoYou forgot to put a /s at the end.
- bilekas 7mo agoIt was my understanding the the tankers could not be insured or it was prohibitively high cost without the margin cost covered and therefore could not pass through. https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news/shipping/030926-tankers-take-insurance-at-record-premiums-yet-stay-away-from-hormuz https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news... Either way for sure this will cause further backlog. And for what.
- bluegatty 7mo agosome of them were not in the straights just near.
- edaemon 7mo agoThese particular ships technically were not attempting to pass through the strait, they were anchored in Iraqi territorial waters. The backlog will extend even further now that it can be considered risky to be anywhere near the strait.
- rekoros 7mo agoThis should go into dictionary as definition for "fuck around and find out"
- sys32768 7mo agoAn Iraqi security source said they think it was an Iranian boat rigged with explosives. If Iran does have underwater explosive drones, why would they boast about it and invite attacks upon that weapon and its deployment systems?
- an_guy 7mo ago"If Iran has missiles why would they boast about it and invite attacks upon that weapon and its deployment systems?" See how that doesn't make any sense?
- CapricornNoble 7mo ago>why would they boast about it and invite attacks upon that weapon and its deployment systems? To complicate adversary targeting priorities. If you have to shift your pre-planned bombing sorties away from, say, local Basij HQ buildings, it takes pressure off of the Iranian government. Assigning aircraft to find/fix/target/track/engage "underwater drone launch points" is probably like searching for a needle in a haystack given the size of Iran's coastline.
- bigyabai 7mo agoIt might have been a low-observable watercraft like the Sea Baby: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Baby https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Baby A true UUV attack is probably outside Iran's wheelhouse, but cutting-down an attack speedboat to the waterline seems very realistic.
- cyberax 7mo agoWhy would it be outside of Iran capabilities? They are the ones who provided Russia with Shahed drones.
- bigyabai 7mo agoIt's not impossible. Iran has connections with China, who is great at designing and manufacturing UUVs. That said, a UUV fleet would have downsides for Iran. It's expensive, dependent on imports and an overmatch for swarm-style attacks. Attack boats are a closer fit for the "cheap/attritable" tactics we see used with Shaheds.
- intrasight 7mo agoI get a blank page with that link
- steveBK123 7mo agoThis boondoggle is going to make Iraq 2003 look well planned.
- orwin 7mo agoIraq was well planned. Since 53 the US plan the first days of the war extremely well. This is the first time a US war has gone this bad, this fast. It usually took months.
- steveBK123 7mo agoWe didn’t prepare for the most obvious responses - closure of hormuz (we are now saying we will have ships in place by end of month to escort tankers, nor filled the SPR at low prices and now have less ready to release) and drones (scrambling to purchase anti-drone tech from Ukraine).
- intrasight 7mo agohttps://archive.ph/ms992 https://archive.ph/ms992
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- gsck 7mo agoThis is amazing news! I've just gotten my seafarers medical and my C-1/D visa for a job in shipping. Perfect timing!
- dominicrose 7mo agoThe USA and Israel should've went after the Iranian regime a long time ago. What we're seing now is the price of procrastination and weak past presidents. Imagine if multiple Western countries allied early to correct this regime (and not just with sanctions).
- HDThoreaun 7mo agoBecause that worked so well in afghanistan? You are talking about a ground invasion of a theocracy with 100 million people and considerable oil wealth. This move has been tried many times now, it never works, and iran is a much tougher opponent than vietnam or afghanistan or ukraine.
- dominicrose 7mo agoBy going after the regime I don't mean ground invasion but anything that helps reduce their abilities. Afghanistan would definitely be a bigger problem today if the USA let it play out.
- olelele 7mo agoThis is such a weird take. Huge amounts of refugees displaced from Afghanistan, a US pullout that left their allies in the country to their own devices. 20+ years of funding drug lords and war lords, doling out wads of cash. It went nowhere. The US made no real efforts to fix afghan infrastructure or any real problems the country was facing. The taliban beat the biggest military force in the world with very small means. Read up on the relationship between the mujahideen, Carter&reagan admins and the Soviet afghan war.
- tsoukase 7mo agoIran is so near to everything in Middle East: Saudi Arabia/UAE, Hormuz, Israel. And all these are direct enemies of Iran or friends with the USA. It's unavoidable to be targeted. Whoever approaches these will be affected. Just for reference, Iranian missiled can reach southern Italy.
- cermicelli 7mo agoI don't understand why is everyone at war, I don't understand anything, I really just feel depressed. Don't feel like anyone cares what you think whether you live in US, EU, or somewhere else. It's all bomb this guy, bomb that guy these days. I don't really have anything constructive to add, but hope folks in US realize just how insane all this is. Like can we just not have wars, like pretty please anything but more bombs and killing... Like what happened to the walls folks in US were building a while ago, can we fund another, I will donate a 100$ if we wrap up all this shit this week. Heck if Russia and other countries pack it up I will add another 100$ to it... Does that work, does anything work? ._. Let's do something productive, honestly AI slop is more productive than this. I still can't wrap my head around this nonsense. I am 25 I don't wanna know a world at war, just a few hundred more years of peace please, then you folks can feel free to go to war with Zurgs or something with your AGI drones...
- miniBill 7mo agoSending hugs. I don't have solutions, but I feel your pain. I look around and think "where are the adults?"
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]