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Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence

• sharpshadow 7mo ago
  Really looks like the spark was there before so that Iran could get attacked at all.
• schnitzelstoat 7mo ago
  Yeah, I live in Spain and probably once again we'll have restrictions on AC in the summer just like at the start of the Ukraine war. Hopefully, we can avoid actual blackouts. The bizarre thing is that our government still wants to close down the remaining nuclear power plants. One of the issues with our proportional electoral system is that smaller, more extreme parties can become kingmakers and in our current situation the centre-left governing party relies on the support of the far-left party to stay in power, and those guys are rabidly anti-nuclear power. But this should be a clear signal that we need renewable power and nuclear power and we need to speed up the adoption of electric vehicles. Ending the tariffs with China that stop us benefiting from their affordable PV panels and electric cars would be a good step towards this.
  • DaedalusII 7mo ago
    what do you think of theory that denuclearisation movement in west europe was funded by CCCP? it makes sense to think CCCP/Putin would finance subversive movements to remove nuclear and coal and make the region dependent on russian energy exports
    • schnitzelstoat 7mo ago
      I think some of them are definitely funded by them, there was an article about it I saw: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russia-funding-european-environmental-activists-202846 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russia-funding-europe... They fund other stuff that weakens and divides Europe too like the separatist movements in Scotland, Catalonia etc. That's not to say that all the people in these movements are Russian agents or that these groups don't have some good points and legitimate grievances, but nonetheless they are an easy, cost-effective way for Russia to attack us.
    • miohtama 7mo ago
      Related the children book from Germany https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20221101-the-cloud-the-nuclear-novel-that-shaped-germany https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20221101-the-cloud-the-n...
    • hallway_monitor 7mo ago
      Of all the silly things I’ve seen Europe do over the last 20 years, getting rid of nuclear plants has to be one of the strangest. Sure, we all want solar but it’s not there yet. Hidden forces here would not be a surprise.
      • ipython 7mo ago
        Well, lets not forget that Europe was downwind of the worst nuclear accident in world history. https://radioactivity.eu.com/articles/nuclearenergy/chernobyl_plume https://radioactivity.eu.com/articles/nuclearenergy/chernoby... That sort of event doesn't fade away quickly and definitely influenced energy policy that persists to this day. Thankfully the tide is turning due to safer designs.
    • pydry 7mo ago
      An absurd conspiracy theory. Nuclear power has an LCOE that is 5x the cost of solar and wind. Nobody would build it on cost alone. The only reason countries build and run nuclear power plants is because it shares supply chain and a skills base with the nuclear military. Which means they have nukes (France, Russia, US) or they they want to take out an option to one day build a nuke in a hurry just in case for a threat that is usually very obvious (Sweden, Japan, South Korea). This was clearly recognized when Iran started building nuclear power plants but when Poland suddenly got interested in 2023 ostensibly "because environment" after decades of burning mountains of coal nobody batted an eye.
      • mono442 7mo ago
        Solar and wind are intermittent. Grid scale energy storage is not even a thing yet.
        • defrost 7mo ago
          https://reneweconomy.com.au/big-battery-storage-map-of-australia/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/big-battery-storage-map-of-austr...
          • mono442 7mo ago
            That's not much. Projects listed there can't store energy for winter needs.
            • defrost 7mo ago
              Ahhhhhhh . . . it's Australia. Winters here have more sunshine than UK summers.
            • triceratops 7mo ago
              It's windy and sunny in the winter too.
            • pydry 7mo ago
              Neither could French nuclear plants when they were turned off for weeks at a time for emergency maintenance. So, France fired up the gas. 5x cheaper electricity, on the other hand, makes power-to-gas economic, which can smooth out seasonal variations in a carbon neutral way.
    • deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
  • jmclnx 7mo ago
    > The bizarre thing is that our government still wants to close down the remaining nuclear power plants. That is very weird, even Germany stated recently that closing down their Nuclear Plants was a big mistake. For a very long time, I have always said France is smarter than what people give them credit for. Spain should take a peek over the mountains at France to see what a sane energy policy looks like.
    • schnitzelstoat 7mo ago
      Even France shut down the Superphénix. It was just built too! A waste of ten billion dollars because the government gave in to these extremist environmental groups. One of them even fired an RPG at it while it was being built.
      • kuerbel 7mo ago
        ... it was shut down in 1998, relevant section from German Wikipedia as the English version is lacking details: In June 1997, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin announced the closure of the power plant as one of his first official acts. He justified this step by pointing to the enormous costs the plant incurred. In the preceding ten years, it had produced no electricity for most of the time due to malfunctions. It even consumed considerable amounts of electricity to keep the sodium in the cooling system above its melting temperature. Each pipe carrying sodium and every tank was equipped with heaters and thermal insulation for this purpose. ... so it used a lot of energy while being shut down because of malfunctions for most of those 10 years. Seems like shutting it down was the best course of action.
        • schnitzelstoat 7mo ago
          It had problems but it was new technology. That’s always the case. Now only China, Russia and India have Fast Breeder Reactors. Plus there was the pressure from Les Verts and Sortir du nucléaire, the Molotov cocktail attacks by the Fédération Anarchiste, the RPG attack by the Cellules Communistes Combattantes etc. It was a highly political decision.
      • 7mo ago
  • bryanrasmussen 7mo ago
    in the election that is running in Denmark right now it looks like nuclear power is back on the table.
    • tfourb 7mo ago
      Why would you invest in nuclear power, which is several times more expensive per kwh than wind + battery in Denmark, which also has excellent links to reliable hydropower from Norway and Sweden? Especially when your greatest external security threat is Russia which has openly threatened targeting nuclear reactors of a country they are trying to invade? Not to speak of the inconvenient fact that Uranium is not a resource found in sufficient quantity in Europe and current European nuclear reactors get their fuel from Russia and Niger, not exactly reliable havens of stability. Nuclear power makes certain sense for nations that want a military nuclear arsenal and are willing to subsidize nuclear reactors to retain the required workforce and research base. For everyone else it is a money sink and a complication when designing their grid for renewable energy.
      • coldtea 7mo ago
        >Why would you invest in nuclear power, which is several times more expensive per kwh Because the related lobby pays well and a huge power station project (which runs well into the tens of billions) has much larger space for bribes
        • crimsoneer 7mo ago
          Alternatively, because nuclear power still works at night.
          • coldtea 7mo ago
            If only we had some way to store energy
            • mrmlz 7mo ago
  • embedding-shape 7mo ago
    Yeah, sucks they're trying to shut down our nuclear power, I agree. However, we're lucky the country is so sunny, if we could cover the inland deserted areas with solar panels, batteries and what not as an alternative, I'm OK with that as a compromise I suppose.
  • Chyzwar 7mo ago
    Levelized Cost of Energy for solar is 30-60$ and 100-200$ for nuclear. In the case of Spain, it is cheaper to build more energy lines with Morocco and battery storage than to use nuclear. Spain already has some of the cheapest energy in Europe thanks to renewables. In the case of Germany, nuclear makes sense, but it is not clear where you would buy fuel for it, It might still be a supply chain risk since Russia and Kazakhstan are the main players there.
    • samuel 7mo ago
      It's not that easy, and the 2025 blackout good evidence of that. Renewables need a grid that's engineered for them and that require significative investments. Without them, closing power plants (of any kind) is, IMO, nonsensical. Ironically, Spain has plenty of Uranium, but there is an environmental law that doesn't allow its mining. https://alpoma.medium.com/uranium-in-spain-8ef975763257 https://alpoma.medium.com/uranium-in-spain-8ef975763257 This country is crazy.
      • kuerbel 7mo ago
        No it's not. Nuclear plants are not compatible with climate change. Spain and it's rivers will be too warm to cool them down: https://www.euronews.com/2025/07/02/france-and-switzerland-shut-down-nuclear-power-plants-amid-scorching-heatwave https://www.euronews.com/2025/07/02/france-and-switzerland-s...
        • Ekaros 7mo ago
          Well only to certain point. When the rivers will naturally be too hot. You can start making them even hotter and it does not matter anymore.
        • surfaceofthesun 7mo ago
          That may require retrofitting the plants to use open loop cooling instead of closed loop. That would increase water consumption.
      • tfourb 7mo ago
  • Zardoz84 7mo ago
    > Yeah, I live in Spain and probably once again we'll have restrictions on AC in the summer just like at the start of the Ukraine war. Hopefully, we can avoid actual blackouts. I live on Spain . What the hell restrictions are you talking about ?
    • hijodelsol 7mo ago
      This did happen in summer of 2022, but only in public buildings, private households were not affected, so the OP's point seems a bit overly dramatic. Given that AC usage is highest when solar production is also highest, this seems highly unlikely given the solar build-out of the last 4 years.
      • schnitzelstoat 7mo ago
        That included offices though so work was difficult. I guess private homes weren’t included because of the difficulty of enforcement.
    • schnitzelstoat 7mo ago
      It was in 2022 and 2023: https://cerneasesores.es/real-decreto-ley-14-2022-obligaciones-en-materia-de-climatizacion-de-edificios-publicos-y-privados/ https://cerneasesores.es/real-decreto-ley-14-2022-obligacion...
  • somelamer567 7mo ago
    That would then make sense why Russia's dirty tricks squad likes to back extreme-Left and extreme-Right parties, and is likely behind calls for proportional representation: it would give the geopolitical aggressors an effective veto over national politics and prevent the emergence of a European superpower on land they consider "theirs".
  • readitalready 7mo ago
    Seems Europe also has the option of using Northern Africa as a solar energy hub as well. Is that a viable option?
    • nradov 7mo ago
      Purely from an engineering standpoint that is an attractive option. But North African countries have often been politically unstable. It's risky to place your energy security in the hands of a region that could erupt in another coup or civil war at any time.
      • g8oz 7mo ago
        I thought the proposal for a solar link between Morocco and the UK was a great idea. Unfortunately the UK government has decided not to back it with a contract for different guarantee. https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/ https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/
    • fy20 7mo ago
      There's plenty of land in Spain that would be suitable too. Outside of the major cities, Spain is very sparsly populated: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Feufne34tvqr31.png https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fe... It could actually be beneficial in a lot of places to have agrovoltaics.
  • giantg2 7mo ago
    This might make sense on a larger timeframe but stating that your grid isn't stable enough to support AC demand while also pushing for electric car adoption seems counter intuitive. It would likely take years to improve the grid to support accelerating electric vehicle demands.
    • Cthulhu_ 7mo ago
      Years and tens if not hundreds of billions; the Netherlands is experiencing this, after a decade of cheap solar, a rise in EV, and new builds being built fully electric on the consumer side, and many datacenters and green energy generators built on the business side, our grid is at capacity to the point where new businesses can't get connected and new housing projects are put on hold (I think); the grid can't manage any more. The grid manager Tennet spent 15 billion last year, and will need to keep doing that for at least another decade - and that's a relatively small country.
  • outime 7mo ago
    Spain's situation is bad: very high gas prices (now at the same level as Finland, despite much lower purchasing power), poor public transport (train) services, opposition to nuclear energy, electric cars that are only affordable for the wealthy (and even then, the infrastructure makes them difficult to use), high VAT on electricity, etc. All this in a country where many people have to ration their heating or air conditioning because they often can't afford it under normal circumstances. Population seem to not care much about being miserable as the same parties that do nothing about it keep getting elected so good luck I guess.
    • gib444 7mo ago
      Poor train service? (Recent accidents aside) Any areas in particular?
      • outime 7mo ago
        Well, I think that's a bit of an aside but sure: - Track maintenance is horrendous, and it's public knowledge (not that it wasn't known before, it was just hidden) - Many high-speed trains are now running much slower after the accident, and will continue to do so. Also, compensation for delays has been significantly reduced - Some rather important routes (Madrid-Málaga, for example) still have no service after the accident - The public train company (Renfe) is now setting up a bus company and openly saying that this is going to be very useful for years to come (wink wink) - Cercanías is absolute garbage in most areas but especially in Madrid, with constant delays, broken trains, etc - The pricing situation has improved with recent competitors (Ouigo, Iryo, etc) but it's often still laughable - I've been taking flights instead of trains when I travel there since they're much cheaper (and nowadays definitely much faster, given all the issues) I could continue but I guess that's plenty. I'd say taking a train in Spain nowadays is an exercise of faith for many.
        • gib444 7mo ago
          Sorry didn't mean to go off on a tangent, it's just I like trains, and Spain (and have an Interrail trip coming up and I was considering including Spain. They are famously Interrail unfriendly though) I followed the accident but not much news following, so that's really really interesting. I didn't know Madrid-Malaga still has no service, nor that Renfe had set up a bus company! I haven't been to Madrid for a few years. Sad to hear the Cercanías is so bad these days
  • the_gipsy 7mo ago
    The far-left are not the cause of the nuclear close down, nor are they unilaterally holding the government hostage in this area. The centre-left party made the agreement with the power companies in 2019 when they were not yet in coalition, for economic reasons. The far-left, now in the coalition, does consider nuclear a red line. It is unknown what the cost of crossing it would be. But I believe it's irrelevant, because if the centre-left party would be governing alone, they wouldn't walk back the agreement now. No matter price of oil, the investment in nuclear has a too large price-tag, and would take way to long to reap any benefits. If any - given the current progression on renewables.
  • Tiktaalik 7mo ago
    > One of the issues with our proportional electoral system is that smaller, more extreme parties can become kingmakers and in our current situation the centre-left governing party relies on the support of the far-left party to stay in power, and those guys are rabidly anti-nuclear power. A side comment but I'm sad to say I don't think that another electoral system (or at least not FPTP) fixes this issue of there being a niche group being kingmakers. In FPTP the dynamic that occurs is that an enormous amount of seats become "safe" and then the kingmakers end up being the relative handful of seats that are likely to trade hands. This ends up creating distortions where certain regional seats and regional issues rise well above how important they should be. PR seems like a more fair way to represent a niche group. At least they are a genuinely representative part of the population, and the influence isn't an accident of electoral math distortion.
• noobermin 7mo ago
  Like 1 year ago, wallstreet bros were being interviewed saying they decided all the green pledges and all that was woke from the pre-trump 2 era, and I haven't heard anything at all about climate change really from any world leader in the last few years. I guess once again, people have their coming to jesus moment when it's far too late.
  • schnitzelstoat 7mo ago
    Although the results are very similar, the motivation of energy independence is quite different that of climate change. America has ample supplies of natural gas, oil etc. and so doesn't need to turn away from fossil fuels to be energy independent. Whereas in Europe we do as there isn't much natural gas or oil and even the coal that remains is difficult to extract and thus less economical.
    • bluGill 7mo ago
      Even at that, America is rapidly turning away from oil as wind and solar are so much cheaper. The leaders are putting on the brakes, and the change is uneven - but there is a lot of wind and solar going up in the US even now and it has been happening for 15+years.
    • tialaramex 7mo ago
      > America has ample supplies of natural gas, oil etc. and so doesn't need to turn away from fossil fuels to be energy independent. In the short to medium term. The natural gas, oil etc. are in fact finite resources created over a tremendously long period of time in pre-history and so once they run out you're done. You could run nuclear power plants much longer, perhaps even indefinitely, and of course wind and sunlight are renewable, Sol doesn't give a shit what we do, it's going to shine on the planet and cause winds here until long after we're dead. But the dinosaur juice runs out, it's a quick burst and then if you didn't transition too fucking bad game over.
      • schnitzelstoat 7mo ago
        Yeah, exactly. We have a relatively short window of a few centuries, perhaps less, to master nuclear power (perhaps even nuclear fusion), photovoltaic panels, efficient wind turbines (including more complex offshore construction) and deploy them all at scale. And to do it all before we cook ourselves in greenhouse gases. I'm rather optimistic about it but it does seem that most people don't fully grasp the importance of such a transition.
• sharemywin 7mo ago
  Wonder how much WFH could help. Seems like during covid demand went way down.
  • duskdozer 7mo ago
    Heavens no! How could we ever afford to be more productive overall? Just think of the effect on corporate real estate prices.
  • schnitzelstoat 7mo ago
    That's true. I wonder if the government might force companies to allow WFH if there are petrol shortages. They did it during covid so I wouldn't rule it out.
  • billcube 7mo ago
    It helped on reducing traffic, spending more time with family, favouring local shops... Why we went back still is a mystery for me. Even if it was "working from a coworking space" or anything that was not the downtown open-space.
    • mirekrusin 7mo ago
      Exactly, put AI in the office instead.
    • THansenite 7mo ago
      Because downtown city centers were missing out on office worker revenue and started giving incentives to companies who brought people back into the office. I 100% believe the reason we went back into the office at all was because of this despite all the talk of 'in-person collaboration.'
    • duskdozer 7mo ago
      I remember reading articles about local politicians insisting companies and governments do return to office for no other reason than to have the workers spend money downtown for lunch. Not even implying it, directly stating it.
• pibaker 7mo ago
  I wonder where the gulf states are going to end up. They have tried hard to build economies that aren't just fossil fuel exports. Tourism, trade, finance, luxury living for rich foreigners… but everything they have tried is contingent on peace in the region. I doubt foreigners are looking forward to layovers in Dubai now there are Iranian drones heading their way. Maybe future travelers will not see two trunkless legs in a desert, but empty condo towers and abandoned super cars still loaded with labubus.
  • lm28469 7mo ago
    They also spent decades sending money to the US to buy influence and protection, which instantly vaporized the second a missile was launched their way.
    • cpursley 7mo ago
      The big story I think is how handily they took out billions of dollars of US radars and that these air defense systems are not up to the task (we actually already knew this from Ukraine, but media worked overtime to ignore this fact). In a way, all this supposedly "superior" US and Israeli tech (at least on the defense side, offense is a different story) has been exposed. I do think focused engineering efforts could close this gap, that was needed already 4 years ago.
      • lukan 7mo ago
        It actually works pretty well, considering how much they do shoot down, but if there is enough incoming, some will get through.
        • lm28469 7mo ago
          > It actually works pretty well As long as you don't look at the receipts yes, technically it works very well, in every other aspect it's a massive waste of resource and money.
• Delphiza 7mo ago
  Our company made a 'bet' that energy management, sustainability, clean energy and whatnot would become a big thing. This was around the time of COP26 (2021) where there seemed to be a societal drive for reducing carbon emissions and a general acceptance that climate change was a thing. We employed young and enthusiastic sustainability consultants, we run a successful project to reduce energy consumption in polymer manufacturing, we build product that worked. That part of our business has shut down completely. Unfortunately governments were reluctant to really get behind regulations that were needed, and the business case for investment in any drive to sustainability did not exist. People lost interest as inflation went up, and other things seemed more important. The market was flagging and Trump's "drill baby drill" was the final nail in the coffin. The world was _nearly_ there to rapidly accelerate reducing the dependency on fossil fuels on the back of climate change. Instead we went back to fossil fuel cars and built energy-intensive AI data centres. We collectively dropped the ball and one day will look back on it as a missed opportunity.
  • triceratops 7mo ago
    There were many sliding doors moments for action on climate change. The 2000 US presidential election was the first significant one.
  • yabones 7mo ago
    There have been plenty of inflection points like that throughout history. Famously, Jimmy Carter installed solar heating on the roof of the white house. Reagan took them down shortly after. It seems like we never quite learn our lesson about energy security... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_at_the_White_House#Carter_administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_at_the_White_House...
• markus_zhang 7mo ago
  Ah, it feels so good to sit on the front seat watching WW3 unwrapping slowly, elegantly, deadly. I might reach my dream life (no work just binge hacking kernels) sooner than I expected. Now I just need to pretend I don’t need money as well.
  • tokioyoyo 7mo ago
    You might need to pretend that you don’t need energy either!
    • markus_zhang 7mo ago
      I’m fasting! No need for energy at all.
      • lelanthran 7mo ago
        Got a wind-up computer, have you? (Maybe that OLTP project was onto something, after all)
        • markus_zhang 7mo ago
          Seriously, might consider buying a few solar panels, but just for camping needs. It’s impossible to setup locally due to regulation and such.
          • fc417fc802 7mo ago
            It's probably also good to have things on hand as an insurance policy anyway. If shit hits the fan regulations don't apply anymore. No one is going to complain about solar on your roof if the grid isn't reliable.
      • bluGill 7mo ago
        That puts you in an energy deficit, but you still need and are using energy. Until your body is decomposed it uses energy (after you die your body is energy for the bacteria decomposing it). Fasting can use previous/saved energy, but it still needs energy.
• thedangler 7mo ago
  In a world where peoples home might be taken away because interest go up because oil prices is nuts.
  • nradov 7mo ago
    Interest rates change for all sorts of reasons. People who take out variable rate home mortgages are always gambling. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose.
  • Mashimo 7mo ago
    It would be very hard for me to take a variable rate mortgages, while not having the money to pay for it. Feels like stressful living.
• lm28469 7mo ago
  The US about to discover you can't just blindly follow fanatics in religious wars without any consequences.
  • hiddencost 7mo ago
    I mean given that our secretary of defense has a Deus Vult tattoo... and this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran-war-christian-rhetoric https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran... I think we might be the fanatics starting a religious war.
    • mkoubaa 7mo ago
      I think the parent comment was referring to the same fanatics you are
      • buckle8017 7mo ago
        Pretty sure he was talking about Israel.
    • morkalork 7mo ago
      Also a gigantic Jerusalem cross tattoo.
    • 22122 7mo ago
      the crusaders wanted the holy land to belong to christians, not to jews
• megous 7mo ago
  Anyone has any respect left for US Americans after they elected this? This is so ridiculous at so many levels: Not US hollywood culture or whatever Americans culturally exported in the past all around the world, but this will forever represent US Americans in my mind. That this is how they overall want to be seen and represented as all around the world, seemingly: “Israel, out of anger for what has taken place in the Middle East, has violently lashed out at a major facility known as South Pars Gas Field in Iran,” President Trump posted on X. “Unfortunately, Iran did not know this, or any of the pertinent facts pertaining to the South Pars attack, and unjustifiably and unfairly attacked a portion of Qatar’s LNG Gas facility.” “NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar,” the U.S. president also wrote, proceeding then to threaten to “massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before.” What even is this style of communication and thinking behind it from a leader of the richest country in the world? Is he a child? Who can even be impressed by this... unbelievable. Feels like we're like living in a very dumb, very deadly, reality show.
  • manyaoman 7mo ago
    The thing is that back in 2024 Kamala didn't exactly come across as a much better option, although in hindsight she likely would have been.
    • krapp 7mo ago
      Kamala was always obviously a better option than Trump. Let's not pretend people didn't know who and what Trump was, or that his behavior after 2024 came as a shock to anyone.
      • whacko_quacko 7mo ago
        A majority thought differently. They knew who Trump was and who Kamala was, and they voted for Trump. That's how it goes in a democracy... Anyways, they're getting what they voted for
• ryukafalz 7mo ago
  As someone who's been pushing for renewables for quite a while now it's dismaying that it's taken a war to accelerate this push, but I'm glad to see that it's happening at least. It's doubly dismaying that my own country (US) is still doubling down on fossil fuels despite everything. The concern about a new dependency on China is real, but renewables do have the advantage that once you have the infrastructure in place it keeps working without continuously importing fuel. Nonetheless, China has done a good job building up their PV/battery manufacturing capacity (including via subsidies for a while if I'm not mistaken) and to the extent the rest of the world wants to avoid a dependency on them we should do that too.
  • markus_zhang 7mo ago
    I guess the oil industry is laughing their ass off nowadays. They can sell at such a premium. Inflation? YP.
    • toomuchtodo 7mo ago
      It’s just pulling forward future gains while shrinking the time horizon, if the world speeds the transition to renewables and electrification from this. Short term gain for faster irrelevance. Oil to $200/barrel please, as long as possible, same with LNG. Edit: Iran attack wipes out 17% of Qatar’s LNG capacity for up to five years, QatarEnergy CEO says - https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/2026/03/19/iran-attack-wipes-out-17-of-qatars-lng-capacity-for-up-to-five-years-qatarenergy-ceo-says/ https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/2026/03/19/iran-attack-... - March 19th, 2026 Looks like the global clean energy transition will be getting back up to speed.
      • chii 7mo ago
        It will take longer than the duration of the war to realistically transition to renewables in any quantity that truly matters. So the oil companies are happy because this temporarily brought forward future demand and thus profit, as well as expend a bunch of money/resources from competitors of oil which predicates a high price per barrel to make financial sense. If/when oil prices drop back down, these renewable investments might not compete. To truly transition over will mean doing it with the world kicking and screaming imho. It cannot be made smooth.
• coldtea 7mo ago
  >energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence That would be the stupidest takeaway
  • lmc 7mo ago
    How so?
  • bdangubic 7mo ago
    if my country has 0 dependence on fossils, how many fucks would I have given for whatever is happening or will be happening in the future in shithole places like the middle east?
    • blitzar 7mo ago
      Won't someone think of the children, how are their schools going to get bombed if we dont do it?
      • bdangubic 7mo ago
        Children in Sudan? Myanmar? Sahel/Nigeria? Ethiopia? Or we care about just specific children and others not so much?
      • bdangubic 7mo ago
        we don’t care about all children, just selective children, yes?
        • blitzar 7mo ago
          other way around, we care about children, just not a select group of them. if they are being bombed in a foreign country or shot in a us school, no problem
• manyaoman 7mo ago
  Paradoxically it could also have the opposite effect if high energy prices lead governments to cut green energy plans.
• Sol- 7mo ago
  From what I've read, the immediate effect will likely be worse for CO2 emissions, because the alternative to (liquefied) gas is often coal power. Also, the various inputs that are needed for global manufacturing are also affected, so maybe even renewable tech gets more expensive. I'm not saying that the dependence on the middle east was good, but I think it's good to keep in mind that this was a pretty stable equilibrium even with the various questionable countries involved until the US initiated a global supply shock without a good reason.
  • jillesvangurp 7mo ago
    There are short term and long term effects. Overall these are good changes. There are a couple of points to make here. The lead time for new coal/gas plants is years. If it's not planned already, any newly planned plants are unlikely to come online this decade. The supply chains simply can't handle building more turbines and it takes years to fix that. Also, that investment is super risky in it self. Another point is that the cheapest and fastest way to add new capacity to grids is via renewables. That's why we see record breaking new capacity coming online on a regular basis. There is indeed a short term increase in emissions from electricity plants because the fastest way to bring more capacity online is to use existing underused plants. A lot of gas and coal plants are no longer running full time because they are too expensive to operate. But they haven't been decommissioned either. Some gas plants actually are used as peaker plants. Most older coal plants take too long to warm up for this. So, yes short term the expensive but quick way to provide extra power is via these plants. But of course, as soon as something more affordable comes online, these things go back to being utilized less. There are many tens/hundreds of GW of renewables and batteries being deployed in the next few years. Data centers add to all this pressure. That's long term a good thing because these too will want to long term reduce their OpEx by cutting as much dependence on gas/coal as possible. A final point to make is that despite all these increased emissions, there are also decreased emissions from electrification. Even if the power for an EV comes from an efficient gas/coal plant, it's actually better than the alternative of burning petrol in a combustion engine instead. Less emissions this way. Same for heat pumps. With a COP of 3-4, they outperform burning gas by 3-4x using electricity. Even if that electricity comes from a gas plant operating at 40-50% efficiency. Less gas gets burned. So these are all good effects even if the reason is a bit sad and unnecessary. This crisis is unnecessary. But I like that it is helping to kill fossil fuel companies faster. This long term erodes confidence in the market as a whole and drives decision makers to do exactly what the article suggests: cutting the dependency on fossil fuels as fast as possible. It's already resulting in measurable reductions in oil/gas imports in some countries.
• aa-jv 7mo ago
  I'm unpacking my electric motorbike[1] and its moped sister[2] from winter storage and preparing them both for a summer in a city in a nation which energy supply is mostly renewables. Of course, it took a lot of gasoline to get them here, but I sure as heck won't be using much gasoline to put them to solid use clocking up the kilometers, 100 at a time. Got a few deals on solar panels for the backyard that'll get me completely off the grid for the most part, and from then on it'll be maintenance mode and solar powered travel as priority number one .. [1] - https://www.blackteamotorbikes.com/ https://www.blackteamotorbikes.com/ [2] - https://unumotors.com/ https://unumotors.com/
• formvoltron 7mo ago
  lmao seriously this is how leaders lead? oh, surprise! blowing up oil infrastructure increases oil prices. shocking news. meanwhile.. didn't china start selling cars with sodium sulfur batteries?
• giantg2 7mo ago
  While it could be good to shift to renewable for other reasons, it's naive to assume that nations won't be dependent on others for critical minerals and metals needed to make solar/wind/batteries/etc.
  • shadowgovt 7mo ago
    They are, but unlike fossil fuels, those dependencies go down over time (modulo the utility growth that makes demand for everything go up, of course). If you buy fossil fuel from a country that may not be an ally forever, your demand remains constant (or goes up over time) because you are changing that fuel into a state that cannot be used again. If you buy, say, lithium, you put that in a battery and in the future, you can get more lithium from the ground but you can also grind up batteries and re-extract it when they fail. Battery ingredients are, generally, not consumable over even medium and long-term scale if you build out the recycling infrastructure to recapture those ingredients.
    • giantg2 7mo ago
      Yes, the shocks aren't as immediate if you have the infrastructure set up and you are out of the initial adoption phase. Even things like lithium and silver are limited resources, so getting more out of the ground will eventually face scarcity as energy demand has always increased over the long term.
      • triceratops 7mo ago
        Lithium is one of the most abundant elements on earth. Newer battery chemistries don't use lithium. By the time we use enough energy to run out of all the elements we could make batteries with, we're likely to be at the "cheap asteroid mining" level of technological development.
        • giantg2 7mo ago
          Abundant doesn't mean unlimited, nor does it mean economical or environmentally friendly to access. The point is that most countries would need to import metals and minerals critical to renewable energy.
• pjmlp 7mo ago
  Easier said than done, during this week many German regions are on general strike, thus everyone just switched back to their cars, complaining about unions, their power in infrastructure and so on. Naturally most of those cars are combustion based, because it is still very expensive to buy a new EV, and even used ones are more expensive than new combustion cars, and there is the whole question of how damaged the battery will be anyway.
  • ponector 7mo ago
    That's not true, you can get a cheap new EV, pricing for electric Dacia without subsidy starts from €16k. And used Zoe or i3 are really cheap.
    • pjmlp 7mo ago
      That is still expensive versus traditional cars.
      • ponector 7mo ago
        Is it? You can't even find a German car in the same price range.
        • pjmlp 7mo ago
          Not everyone buys German cars, rather something that simplifies their daily lives, with a motor and some amenities. That looks like a bit Apple mentality applied to cars.
• uyzstvqs 7mo ago
  Europe and the US need to bring manufacturing of EVs, batteries, solar, and relevant components back locally. Use automation to make it more feasible. We need rooftop solar + regional SMRs for a cheap, stable energy supply. To do so, we need to adapt regulation & deregulate. This needs to happen now. If we continue on like this, we'll decelerate back to the stone age.
• shevy-java 7mo ago
  Honestly, those who attacked Iran should cover the global increase in energy costs for everyone else. Why do I have to pay more for the orange guy? Instead he benefits with his superrich buddies.
• phtrivier 7mo ago
  > China has, however, been relatively insulated from the crisis due to its ample emergency oil reserves and high rate of electrification, with EVs representing more than half of its domestic new car sales and its grid more than 50% powered by renewable energy sources. In the U.S., by comparison, EVs are less than 10% of the market, while renewable power is around a quarter of the nation's electricity generation. My favorite quote from "Studio 60 on the Sunset Street" (an antique show from the late 2000s) is from the CEO of a fictional media conglomerates, coming back from a trip to Macau with disbelief: "Tell you kids to learn Mandarin." The USA is either handing the future on a plate to the Chinese Empire ; or acting like a "chaos monkey" in an anti fragile system, giving just enough scares to the rest of the world to get their act together. Maybe climate change could not do that because of the long timescale and unpalpability of the issues. Maybe the first few oil shocks were not enough because you could hope for better days. Maybe market pressure was not enough because incumbents fossil fuel industries could always buy the right élections to set up the right incentives ; and also, people don't want to change. Maybe the perfect storm will nudge it ? That, or we'll just have to speak Mandarin. They do that in Firefly, after all..
• throwccp 7mo ago
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• theo1996 7mo ago
  Iran tried to ditch fossil fuel for atomic but cIA said no.
  • swarnie 7mo ago
    Now you see, the only country to have used a nuclear weapon in anger also elected itself as world arbitrator of who gets energy and who doesn't, because reasons. Every country should be speed running nuclear tech as fast as possible if only to scare the freedom fighters away...
  • geraneum 7mo ago
    Not to say that the three letter agency is not sinister, but I’m pretty sure the problem was enrichment not use. Good old days…!
• heyitsmedotjayb 7mo ago
  We should generate our own power on our own land with our own technology - one day it will seem like insanity that we ever outsourced our most precious resource to the other side of the world, and relied on international shipping/markets to deliver it. Solar is a miracle technology. Wind is very good. Hydro and nuclear can supply large base load. Our own oil can supply peakers. What are we doing in the middle east?
• lokimoon 7mo ago
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• maxglute 7mo ago
  Wonder if Chinese solar involution finally going to end, time to jack up prices, and crank factories to full utilization. PRC can make enough solar to replace global oil / lng and good parts of coal in ~10 years, assuming storage also scales proportionally soon.
• rootusrootus 7mo ago
  Slightly different reasons, of course, but I imagine that right about now the regime in Cuba is wishing they had put more effort into solar. Being heavily reliant on oil when you do not produce it yourself is a vulnerable position to be in.
• zahirbmirza 7mo ago
  Fossil-fuel subsidies from governments totalled $7trn in 2022. Thats about 7% of global GDP. The world spends 4% of GDP on education. Source Monocle Magazine no.190 page 88. There is a lot to unpack here and also an obvious solution.
• diego_moita 7mo ago
  If past crisis are any indication this "push" won't last. We've had crisis with fossil fuels since OPEC's first big price increase in 1973 and the pattern is always the same: first the whole world realizes they need to find alternative sources of energy. Then, after a while, politicians go "drill, baby, drill". Oil is an addiction and most people don't drop addictions by their own.
• hliyan 7mo ago
  I heard somewhere that there is some sort of evangelical Christian sect in Korea that believes the current US president was sent by God. Not as a positive force, but as a force to end the global status quo (which I suppose they consider unjust). I find this fascinating because the US president's actions so far have: exposed decade-old myths about the rule-based international order, caused the EU to seek more self-reliance, caused former enemies in Asia to consider alliances and now accelerate the end to fossil fuel dependence. One could argue that the results of his actions are indistinguishable from that of a double agent's.
  • roncesvalles 7mo ago
    I still think Trump has been a net good upon the world. Trump's actions have actually jumpstarted economic reforms in several countries. For example, just last year Canada made serious moves towards "One Canadian Economy"[1] to rationalize interprovincial trade among other things. The developed world, but especially NATO countries, need to wean off America's teat for their own good. [1] https://www.canada.ca/en/one-canadian-economy/services/building.html https://www.canada.ca/en/one-canadian-economy/services/build...
  • Spivak 7mo ago
    And then there's the theory that the man is also the biblical antichrist which I think fits the prophecy reasonably well. Revelations has some pretty specific details that match up which I find quite entertaining.
• blondie9x 7mo ago
  We consume 101 million barrels of oil per day. The amount of oil humans consume per day has doubled since 1980. Is this the way we finally wake up to the urgency of addressing the climate crisis caused by burning fossil fuels?
• phendrenad2 7mo ago
  How will this affect datacenters? Could AI become expensive?
• Gravityloss 7mo ago
  It feels so slow. I would like to have an electric car or e-bike. I live in a building that is part of a housing company that has many owners (most of them people living here). It is slow to decide and implement renovation, and the pipeline is basically full for a few years. We might get car charging infrastructure only a few years down the line. Maybe a bike shed for e-bike charging a year after that? What happened to those optimistic ideas where every lamp post had a charger? I would pay for that. I also see these small transformer huts on the streets. What if at least those had neighborhood high speed chargers, it shouldn't cost much since basically there's a good power source right there? There's just so much friction. I hope some enterpreneur here makes these things real!
  • nolist_policy 7mo ago
    With e bikes you can charge the battery in your home.
    • tencentshill 7mo ago
      Then we need regulation to make sure every ebike and scooter sold is safe to charge without exploding. No cheap batteries.
  • tfourb 7mo ago
    Depending on the public charging infrastructure in your area, it is already quite feasible to own an electric car without your own wall box. Modern BEVs can charge basically to full within 20 minutes. If your supermarket has a public charger and your driving and shopping cycles are matching (or can be aligned depending on your daily driving distance), you can simply plug in while you shop for your groceries. Also, you can check if there is someone else on your street who has a charger and who might be willing to let you charge in exchange for a little surcharge on the electricity you consume.
• a3w 7mo ago
  Is it 1973? We could invest in solar instead of kings that might ship their energy to us in peace time (i.e. killings happens only within each states borders)?
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• h4kunamata 7mo ago
  Nothing will happen!! If countries worldwide had to have their reality checked due a WW3 to find solutions for the a fossil fuel alternative, better than pushing lithium everywhere with devasting consequences, tells you everything that is wrong in our society.
• JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
  "The world’s biggest energy consumer nations are now back at the drawing board: Europe last week unveiled new financial guarantees for atomic power after decades of closing nuclear plants. Other major importers are planning to source fuel from a broader array of suppliers to hedge their risk." I'm not seeing it. The European plan sounds like another goal to have a proposal in ten years [1]. And hedging imports of fossil fuels doesn't reduce dependence, just dependence on a particular source. [1] https://www.nucnet.org/news/von-der-leyen-sets-out-eu-smr-strategy-with-eur200m-guarantee-at-paris-nuclear-summit-3-2-2026 https://www.nucnet.org/news/von-der-leyen-sets-out-eu-smr-st...
• maybeereeeee 7mo ago
  Looking and biasing only via population numbers. It's pretty clear that to "save" the world you need most of asia and africa to be run on renewables. This shock will hopefully have better effects long term.
• pfannkuchen 7mo ago
  Environmentalists are behind the war, follow the money!