5 ms·

Iran Shock Jolts Asia and Europe to Speed Up Energy Transition

136 points by toomuchtodo 5mo ago

firefoxd 5mo ago
Remember, we didn't know how to pronounce hormuz until bombs started falling on people's head. The bombs and those who dropped them caused the problem. This isn't an energy issue.
- vizzier 5mo ago
  > This isn't an energy issue. Renewables don't have the same level of external dependence on a constant flow of instantaneously used fuel. So while I do agree with you, it is an energy issue regardless of your politics.
- kakacik 5mo ago
  Hormuz was in the news quite a bit in the past decade, if you followed the region at least a bit. Anyway electric cars will have some boom now.
- netsharc 5mo ago
  Well, the Trump-Netanyahu axis turned it from "We're going to have an inhospitable planet within the next century" problem to a "We need an affordable alternative source of energy right now" problem...
- KaiserPro 5mo ago
  > we didn't know how to pronounce hormuz until bombs started falling I mean that might be true for you, but its been on the radar over here for a number of years. (it was also a key risk with Iran identified by a number of key intelligence think tanks. especially around the time of the anti-nuclear treaty negotiations) But to your point, youre right its not an energy issue, its an energy and materials issue. There are lots of pre-cursor chemicals and products that come out of that region that the modern world needs to function. The more pressing issue is the fertiliser price spike: https://ycharts.com/indicators/fertilizers_index_world_bank https://ycharts.com/indicators/fertilizers_index_world_bank which has yet to fully mateirlaise. You'll note that spike corolate with lots of civil unrest
- dbt00 5mo ago
  I cannot stress enough how historically ignorant of a perspective this is. I don't know how you meant this, but Hormuz has been one of the most critical geopolitical choke points since 1979, and Iran has spent 45 years preparing to use it for leverage in exactly this situation. None of these facts should be a surprise to leaders of nations.
  - irishcoffee 5mo ago
    Well apparently over 95% of that 45 years of preparing has been obliterated, their currency is in free fall, 2M people have become unemployed over there in the last few months, and a handful of idiots are playing a game of chicken with global implications. What a mess.
    - analognoise 5mo ago
      I mean, their planning has been very effective. It's a decentralized strategy that plays to their strengths; it doesn't take a lot to hold the strait closed, and they can pressure everyone in the region very easily by attacking infrastructure (oil, but also desalinization plants). Their planning is so good it's turned this into the largest strategic embarrassment in the last... 80 years?
      - irishcoffee 5mo ago
        Conversely, Tehran is losing almost half a billion dollars a day. Nobody wins this stupid thing.
        hedora 5mo ago
        Their military is at something like 66% the missile/drone capacity it was at when the war started, and the US is what? Out of patriots? They also now know they will beat the US in an all out conflict, which was unthinkable before this war started. The main loss seems to be that with the Iranian / US supply lines into Ukraine slowing down, Ukraine has been able to build a domestic military drone complex that’s arguably more advanced than Iran’s.
- jjk166 5mo ago
  It's dropping that one last straw on the camel's back which caused the problem. This isn't an overburdened camel issue.
- daheza 5mo ago
  I’ve seen this “we didn’t know how to pronounce Hormuz” line being repeated across the internet the last few days. Is it perhaps a new right aligned talking point meant to backtrack some of the “Trump is so incompetent” lines the left has been throwing out by making it seemn like EVERYONE was surprised by the events of the war? It would be neat if there was some tracking of these kinds of political catch phrases sources and timelines, maybe that exists already.
- quadhome 5mo ago
  You must be young. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanker_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanker_war
decimalenough 5mo ago
Oceania too: Australia installed 442 MW of residential solar and 2.5 GWh of residential batteries in the month of April alone. Both numbers are partly juiced by changes to a rebate program from May, but the overall trend remains explosive growth. https://reneweconomy.com.au/households-still-going-big-on-solar-and-storage-but-new-battery-rebate-settings-calm-red-hot-market/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/households-still-going-big-on-so...
- jorblumesea 5mo ago
  very jealous of how cheap AUS solar prices are. < $1 AUD per watt after rebate
  - BLKNSLVR 5mo ago
    Don't be jealous of our peak power price though: $0.56/kWh (I have a battery though, so I rarely pay full tote - which is one of the reasons I got a battery)
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    - greendave 5mo ago
      Not jealous but that’s no worse than much of California (assuming those were USD you quoted, not AUD).
      - Andaith 5mo ago
        I'd have assumed it was AUD, and even then it's high. I pay 0.28/kWh AUD in Sydney. That'd be 0.2/kWh USD.
      - BLKNSLVR 5mo ago
        That's AUD, so maybe California's a (fair) bit worse then. I always thought the US had pretty darn cheap power. Looks like California's maximum peak rate is US$0.74/kWh (without including the baseline credit), which is equivalent to AUD$1.04/kWh Yeahnah, I don't know what I'm complaining about then. Get solar panels, get batteries!
programmertote 5mo ago
I'm assuming that China, with its industrial power and leadership position to produce a bunch of green energy components (like solar panels), is well-positioned to benefit from this.
- decimalenough 5mo ago
  That's a bit of an understatement. Essentially all residential scale solar panels and batteries are now built in China.
  - observationist 5mo ago
    So is it bad that governments don't allow the processes and manufacturing to take place in their own countries, allowing independence and market dynamics and economies of scale to result in yet another order of magnitude cost reduction in solar? Or is it good that China doesn't do ecological protections, worker protections, or the things that western countries do, so we get to profit from the exploitation and pollution of their people and land? It'd sure be awesome if regulations and regulators in Western countries weren't stupid. This whole game is just insane. Let's just pawn it of on China, arbitrage the regulatory and human rights differential, and pretend the value is the same as if it's locally manufactured. Then we pocket the difference! Number go up!
    - analognoise 5mo ago
      Trump cancelled a ton of green energy initiatives, why are we blaming the same regulators you imply are a good thing by pointing out that China "doesn't do ecological protections"?
    - ben_w 5mo ago
      Economists have this thing called "comparative advantage". E.g. the US specialises in software; China in PV and batteries; EU in industrial equipment; the Middle East, oil; Australia IIRC is minerals; each trades what they're optimised for in exchange for what the others are optimised for, and are better off for it. This works only so long as nobody is dominating a strategic sector, something that everyone needs but they are such a major player they get to set the prices. Monopolistic behaviour, but from a nation that cannot be sued for it rather than a corporation which can be ordered broken up. Unfortunately, OPEC was already a thing even before Hormuz, the MAGA tariffs are confused and seem to be trying to make the US into an autarky but also keeping trade open so it can be taxed, and China seems to want to be dependent on nobody else while also keeping everyone else dependent on them, which currently leaves the EU and similar currently holding this particular hot potato and goodness only knows in which direction and on what schedule we'll yeet it elsewhere.
decimalenough 5mo ago
https://archive.is/nA1UT https://archive.is/nA1UT (includes complimentary subscription in botnet)
pstuart 5mo ago
This is the only good thing to come out of this unnecessary war.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 5mo ago
  Well there is the real possibility that this is going to cause a Blue Wave, which will at least slow down some of the more insane actions.
  - pstuart 5mo ago
    Yeah, that would be wonderful too, but I didn't want to engage the downvoters (like you apparently did). This is a forum for discussing "hacking", not for political tribalism (not addressed to you but to them). SMDH.
    - karmakurtisaani 5mo ago
      Here we only discuss how cool tech the Torment Nexus has inside it. Not who is building it and why.
- hx8 5mo ago
  I haven't checked the numbers, but wouldn't reducing the global oil supply have a direct and positive impact on carbon emissions?
  - pstuart 5mo ago
    Sure, but I'd wrap that up into the renewables box.
  - toomuchtodo 5mo ago
    If a temporary disruption, we’d go back to business as usual as soon as the supply constraint abated. The scale and time duration oil flows will be disrupted has led to a “burn the ships” transition, because it is simply the more economically rationale path now. More rapid global energy transition means the forward carbon emissions curve gets bent down. https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Irans-Oil-Exports-Collapse-to-Six-Year-Low-as-Blockade-Tightens.html https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Irans-Oil... https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Persian-Gulf-Oil-Tanker-Traffic-May-Never-Fully-Recover.html https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Persian-Gulf-Oil-... https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/28/oil-inventory-exxon-strait-hormuz-iran-war.html https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/28/oil-inventory-exxon-strait-h...
FrustratedMonky 5mo ago
What if? Trump is playing 5.7-D chess. He knows his base is full of idiots. He bombs Iran to create a crisis that wakes up his base to "wut, oil, need oil". This was only way to get them to use renewables and re-think that maybe electric vehicles are not just 'woke' but also can help 'national security'. Create Crises, to swing economy to electric and renewables faster than EV subsidies ever could.
- electrondood 5mo ago
  Why would you attribute to genius what is more likely explained by idiocy?
- actionfromafar 5mo ago
  ... is this a common sentiment?
- dbt00 5mo ago
  I mean, what if he's not?
- BLKNSLVR 5mo ago
  Have you heard him talk? He can't even stay consistent in 1D.
- SigmundA 5mo ago
  What if he's is just an evil Chauncey Gardiner?
  - riffic 5mo ago
    that's way too high brow of a reference for this crowd.
- FrustratedMonky 5mo ago
  I am surprised by the downvotes. Am I being downvoted by Trump Fans? For making fun. or Am I being downvoted by Trump haters because even a satirically positive view of him, is too positive. Don't even make fun, if the fun is showing him in too positive a light?
yesbut 5mo ago
silver linings
shevy-java 5mo ago
I am still pissed at Trump and the oligarch bros. They really need to pay for the costs they caused here. I also blame them from rising RAM prices. Why do we have to pay for any of that? We also need to get off of oil. I know this is not realistic for many reasons, but it is a weakness of many economies that they are so insanely dependent on a few countries with a lot of oil and gas. It basically gives other countries ways to blackmail.
UncleOxidant 5mo ago
Who knew that Trump was going to speedrun The Green New Deal?... just for every other country except the US.
- glaucon 5mo ago
  It's hilarious (or would be if it didn't involve killing people), the same dullards who wanted to "drill, baby, drill" have accelerated the move to renewables in a way they would have struggled to do if they were the most greeny administration ever seen.
- ASinclair 5mo ago
  It's not all sunshine and rainbows. Countries are turning to coal as well. There aren't natural chokepoints for coal distribution like the Straight of Hormuz.
jmyeet 5mo ago
Ok, I have to comment about the chart on oil prices that shows a massive rise from 2020 to 2022, which the article blames on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, even though that didn't happen until early 2022 and the spike began 2 years earlier. That's just jouranlistic misconduct. Let me tell you what actually happened because, for some reason, nobody actually talks about it. First, some context: 1. OPEC/OPEC+ meet every 3 months to adjust output based on expected demand to keep oil prices relatively stable. That is, they want to maintain a floor and a ceiling. Too low and they don't make enough money. Too high and it causes political instability and threatens oil-for-security guarantees that have existed since FDR agreed to such with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia in 1945; 2. Oil has different flavors based largley on how light or heavy the hydrocarbon blend is (called API Gravity) and the sulfur content. this is what Brent and West Texas Light Crude means. Generally, lighter crude is more valuable because it makes more valuable products like avgas and gasoline; 3. Oil is traded on both spot (physical) markets and future (paper) markets. A futures contract is a standardized contract for 1000 barrels of oil of a particular blend delivered or received (depending on which side you're on) on a given date. Generally, when we see oil prices in the news we are looking at futures prices. Historically short-dated futures prices and spot prices have been pretty similar. Spot prices are proprietary but this didn't matter. Now it does as that link has been broken [1] 3. When the world shut down in March 2020 due to the pandemic oil demand fell off a cliff and supplies backed up in production facilities. People weren't taking delivery and oil prices briefly went negative (technically, this was an "extreme contango" market); 4. Because of this, the Trump administration cajoled MBS to get OPEC to cut oil production [2][3][4]. This was a 2 year agreement that initially cut oil production by 9.7 million barrels per day ("Mbpd") going to to 6.3Mbpd ultimately. IMHO the administration panicked that US oil producers would go belly up. This represented ~10% of the world's crude oil supply; 5. In 2021 oil demand came roaring back. Prices went through the roof; and 6. Republicans blamed Biden. The Biden administration tried to get OPEC to increase production [5] and Biden never blamed OPEC or even Trump. Democrats took the "oil companies bad" approach. This 2 year deal was completely unnecessary. OPEC would've cut production as necessary anyway. And it entirely matches the increase in oil and gas prices and inflation for this 2 year period and nobody ever mentions it. Russia invading Ukraine in early 2022 was just the cherry on the cake. Look at that chart. Where it's marked as "COVID-19" is March-April 2020. The deal begins in June 2020. It ended in June 2022, which is at the exact point of the big red bar to the right of the Russian invasion, after which oil prices dropped despite the fact that the war was still going on (and still is). [1]: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/iran-war-has-shattered-oils-price-compass-2026-04-16/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/iran-war-has-sha... [2]: https://www.reuters.com/article/economy/special-report-trump-told-saudi-cut-oil-supply-or-lose-us-military-support--idUSKBN22C1V3/ https://www.reuters.com/article/economy/special-report-trump... [3]: https://www.reuters.com/commentary/reuters-open-interest/trump-broke-opec-he-may-regret-it-2026-05-05/ https://www.reuters.com/commentary/reuters-open-interest/tru... [4]: https://www.reuters.com/article/business/opec-agrees-largest-ever-oil-output-cut-of-9-7-million-bpd-sources-idUSKCN21U0R0/ https://www.reuters.com/article/business/opec-agrees-largest... [5]: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-call-opec-its-allies-increase-oil-production-cnbc-2021-08-11/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-call-opec-its-a...
cm2187 5mo ago
Right now the UK makes up the volatility of its heavy reliance on wind with LNG. So this isn't exactly a hedge against gas shortage.
- toomuchtodo 5mo ago
  Ember Energy: British power prices are increasingly independent from gas - https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/british-power-prices-are-increasingly-independent-from-gas/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/british-power-price... - May 13th, 2026 * 15% of British power generation is already de-linked from the gas power price. This is from 10 GW of operational renewable capacity currently covered by the price-setting Contracts for Difference scheme. * A third (36%) of power generation in Britain will be priced independently of gas by 2030, according to forecasts of generation from the Contracts for Difference scheme. Up to 36 GW of competitively-priced new wind and solar is under development by 2032 through the scheme. * Hours where gas was below 20% of Britain’s electricity mix averaged £60/MWh in 2025, compared to £130/MWh in hours where gas made up more than 50% of the mix. * The gas share of power generation fell to a second record monthly low in a row in Britain in April 2026. The gas share in both March (27%) and April (19%) was the lowest per month in over a decade. In March, wind supplied a monthly record 42% of all power generation. (As more wind, solar, batteries, and transmission are deployed in the UK, fossil gas power share will continue to decline until pushed out of the generation mix)
  - cm2187 5mo ago
    Looking at peak wind isn't particularly helpful I'm afraid. The problem is what happens when there is no wind, like in early May (https://gridwatch.co.uk/ https://gridwatch.co.uk/). Having more wind capacity isn't helping. Batteries are for smoothing minutes/hours not days. Solar obviously only a few hours a day and weak at this latitude.
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    - fpoling 5mo ago
outside1234 5mo ago
Trump is going to end up being the best thing that ever happened to EVs too.
- glaucon 5mo ago
  He _says_ he doesn't like renewables but secretly he loves them ;-)
newaccount670 5mo ago
Hormuz being closed hurts Iran way more than it does the US. It's shocking that they're persisting on this strategy. That's the problem with authoritarians though: they'd rather rule over rubble than be an average citizen in a prosperous society.
- seanmcdirmid 5mo ago
  Its probably all reflex at this point. The USA killed almost all the top leadership early on in the war, leading to a sub-optimal leadership transition with the feeling that the country didn't have much left to lose. I'm not sure what the US leadership was thinking, maybe they really bought the "the people will overthrow the government and not hate the US if we just do a few strategic assassinations" spiel?
- LarsKrimi 5mo ago
  It's not about the US vs Iran. It's Iran turning the strait into a wedge between US and the rest of their previous partners. The US has enough oil for themselves, but the hurt is felt everywhere else. And the cause of that hurt points in one direction (the US)
  - spwa4 5mo ago
    The argument that the US is the 'cause' of the hurt ignores the fact that Iran is essentially taking the global economy hostage to achieve a political goal. By blocking the strait, Iran isn't targeting the US ... as you noted, the US is energy independent. They are targeting the developing nations and allies of the West. To blame the US for the pain caused by an Iranian blockade is to ignore the agency of the actor actually causing the harm. You cannot blame the victim of a provocation for the destructive methods the assholes chooses to use. Oh, and Iran is committing a warcrime doing this. For months, constantly. This is pure terrorist tactics, taking innocents hostage in the hope that makes the police go away. What we need, sorry, is another round of sniper shots, making it clear to the IRGC what the correct response is to hostage taking.
    - cbolton 5mo ago
tim-tday 5mo ago
I drive a Mercedes. My grandfather rode a camel. The oil has made us rich. But the oil riches will end. My grandchildren will ride camels.

136 points by toomuchtodo 5mo ago

Remember, we didn't know how to pronounce hormuz until bombs started falling on people's head. The bombs and those who dropped them caused the problem. This isn't an energy issue.

vizzier 5mo ago
> This isn't an energy issue. Renewables don't have the same level of external dependence on a constant flow of instantaneously used fuel. So while I do agree with you, it is an energy issue regardless of your politics.
kakacik 5mo ago
Hormuz was in the news quite a bit in the past decade, if you followed the region at least a bit. Anyway electric cars will have some boom now.
netsharc 5mo ago
Well, the Trump-Netanyahu axis turned it from "We're going to have an inhospitable planet within the next century" problem to a "We need an affordable alternative source of energy right now" problem...
KaiserPro 5mo ago
> we didn't know how to pronounce hormuz until bombs started falling I mean that might be true for you, but its been on the radar over here for a number of years. (it was also a key risk with Iran identified by a number of key intelligence think tanks. especially around the time of the anti-nuclear treaty negotiations) But to your point, youre right its not an energy issue, its an energy and materials issue. There are lots of pre-cursor chemicals and products that come out of that region that the modern world needs to function. The more pressing issue is the fertiliser price spike: https://ycharts.com/indicators/fertilizers_index_world_bank https://ycharts.com/indicators/fertilizers_index_world_bank which has yet to fully mateirlaise. You'll note that spike corolate with lots of civil unrest
dbt00 5mo ago
I cannot stress enough how historically ignorant of a perspective this is. I don't know how you meant this, but Hormuz has been one of the most critical geopolitical choke points since 1979, and Iran has spent 45 years preparing to use it for leverage in exactly this situation. None of these facts should be a surprise to leaders of nations.
- irishcoffee 5mo ago
  Well apparently over 95% of that 45 years of preparing has been obliterated, their currency is in free fall, 2M people have become unemployed over there in the last few months, and a handful of idiots are playing a game of chicken with global implications. What a mess.
  - analognoise 5mo ago
    I mean, their planning has been very effective. It's a decentralized strategy that plays to their strengths; it doesn't take a lot to hold the strait closed, and they can pressure everyone in the region very easily by attacking infrastructure (oil, but also desalinization plants). Their planning is so good it's turned this into the largest strategic embarrassment in the last... 80 years?
    - irishcoffee 5mo ago
      Conversely, Tehran is losing almost half a billion dollars a day. Nobody wins this stupid thing.
      - hedora 5mo ago
        Their military is at something like 66% the missile/drone capacity it was at when the war started, and the US is what? Out of patriots? They also now know they will beat the US in an all out conflict, which was unthinkable before this war started. The main loss seems to be that with the Iranian / US supply lines into Ukraine slowing down, Ukraine has been able to build a domestic military drone complex that’s arguably more advanced than Iran’s.
jjk166 5mo ago
It's dropping that one last straw on the camel's back which caused the problem. This isn't an overburdened camel issue.
daheza 5mo ago
I’ve seen this “we didn’t know how to pronounce Hormuz” line being repeated across the internet the last few days. Is it perhaps a new right aligned talking point meant to backtrack some of the “Trump is so incompetent” lines the left has been throwing out by making it seemn like EVERYONE was surprised by the events of the war? It would be neat if there was some tracking of these kinds of political catch phrases sources and timelines, maybe that exists already.
quadhome 5mo ago
You must be young. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanker_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanker_war

decimalenough 5mo ago

Oceania too: Australia installed 442 MW of residential solar and 2.5 GWh of residential batteries in the month of April alone. Both numbers are partly juiced by changes to a rebate program from May, but the overall trend remains explosive growth. https://reneweconomy.com.au/households-still-going-big-on-solar-and-storage-but-new-battery-rebate-settings-calm-red-hot-market/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/households-still-going-big-on-so...

jorblumesea 5mo ago
very jealous of how cheap AUS solar prices are. < $1 AUD per watt after rebate
- BLKNSLVR 5mo ago
  Don't be jealous of our peak power price though: $0.56/kWh (I have a battery though, so I rarely pay full tote - which is one of the reasons I got a battery)
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - greendave 5mo ago
    Not jealous but that’s no worse than much of California (assuming those were USD you quoted, not AUD).
    - Andaith 5mo ago
      I'd have assumed it was AUD, and even then it's high. I pay 0.28/kWh AUD in Sydney. That'd be 0.2/kWh USD.
    - BLKNSLVR 5mo ago
      That's AUD, so maybe California's a (fair) bit worse then. I always thought the US had pretty darn cheap power. Looks like California's maximum peak rate is US$0.74/kWh (without including the baseline credit), which is equivalent to AUD$1.04/kWh Yeahnah, I don't know what I'm complaining about then. Get solar panels, get batteries!

programmertote 5mo ago

I'm assuming that China, with its industrial power and leadership position to produce a bunch of green energy components (like solar panels), is well-positioned to benefit from this.

decimalenough 5mo ago
That's a bit of an understatement. Essentially all residential scale solar panels and batteries are now built in China.
- observationist 5mo ago
  So is it bad that governments don't allow the processes and manufacturing to take place in their own countries, allowing independence and market dynamics and economies of scale to result in yet another order of magnitude cost reduction in solar? Or is it good that China doesn't do ecological protections, worker protections, or the things that western countries do, so we get to profit from the exploitation and pollution of their people and land? It'd sure be awesome if regulations and regulators in Western countries weren't stupid. This whole game is just insane. Let's just pawn it of on China, arbitrage the regulatory and human rights differential, and pretend the value is the same as if it's locally manufactured. Then we pocket the difference! Number go up!
  - analognoise 5mo ago
    Trump cancelled a ton of green energy initiatives, why are we blaming the same regulators you imply are a good thing by pointing out that China "doesn't do ecological protections"?
  - ben_w 5mo ago
    Economists have this thing called "comparative advantage". E.g. the US specialises in software; China in PV and batteries; EU in industrial equipment; the Middle East, oil; Australia IIRC is minerals; each trades what they're optimised for in exchange for what the others are optimised for, and are better off for it. This works only so long as nobody is dominating a strategic sector, something that everyone needs but they are such a major player they get to set the prices. Monopolistic behaviour, but from a nation that cannot be sued for it rather than a corporation which can be ordered broken up. Unfortunately, OPEC was already a thing even before Hormuz, the MAGA tariffs are confused and seem to be trying to make the US into an autarky but also keeping trade open so it can be taxed, and China seems to want to be dependent on nobody else while also keeping everyone else dependent on them, which currently leaves the EU and similar currently holding this particular hot potato and goodness only knows in which direction and on what schedule we'll yeet it elsewhere.

decimalenough 5mo ago

https://archive.is/nA1UT https://archive.is/nA1UT (includes complimentary subscription in botnet)

pstuart 5mo ago

This is the only good thing to come out of this unnecessary war.

0cf8612b2e1e 5mo ago
Well there is the real possibility that this is going to cause a Blue Wave, which will at least slow down some of the more insane actions.
- pstuart 5mo ago
  Yeah, that would be wonderful too, but I didn't want to engage the downvoters (like you apparently did). This is a forum for discussing "hacking", not for political tribalism (not addressed to you but to them). SMDH.
  - karmakurtisaani 5mo ago
    Here we only discuss how cool tech the Torment Nexus has inside it. Not who is building it and why.
hx8 5mo ago
I haven't checked the numbers, but wouldn't reducing the global oil supply have a direct and positive impact on carbon emissions?
- pstuart 5mo ago
  Sure, but I'd wrap that up into the renewables box.
- toomuchtodo 5mo ago
  If a temporary disruption, we’d go back to business as usual as soon as the supply constraint abated. The scale and time duration oil flows will be disrupted has led to a “burn the ships” transition, because it is simply the more economically rationale path now. More rapid global energy transition means the forward carbon emissions curve gets bent down. https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Irans-Oil-Exports-Collapse-to-Six-Year-Low-as-Blockade-Tightens.html https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Irans-Oil... https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Persian-Gulf-Oil-Tanker-Traffic-May-Never-Fully-Recover.html https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Persian-Gulf-Oil-... https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/28/oil-inventory-exxon-strait-hormuz-iran-war.html https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/28/oil-inventory-exxon-strait-h...

FrustratedMonky 5mo ago

What if? Trump is playing 5.7-D chess. He knows his base is full of idiots. He bombs Iran to create a crisis that wakes up his base to "wut, oil, need oil". This was only way to get them to use renewables and re-think that maybe electric vehicles are not just 'woke' but also can help 'national security'. Create Crises, to swing economy to electric and renewables faster than EV subsidies ever could.

electrondood 5mo ago
Why would you attribute to genius what is more likely explained by idiocy?
actionfromafar 5mo ago
... is this a common sentiment?
dbt00 5mo ago
I mean, what if he's not?
BLKNSLVR 5mo ago
Have you heard him talk? He can't even stay consistent in 1D.
SigmundA 5mo ago
What if he's is just an evil Chauncey Gardiner?
- riffic 5mo ago
  that's way too high brow of a reference for this crowd.
FrustratedMonky 5mo ago
I am surprised by the downvotes. Am I being downvoted by Trump Fans? For making fun. or Am I being downvoted by Trump haters because even a satirically positive view of him, is too positive. Don't even make fun, if the fun is showing him in too positive a light?

yesbut 5mo ago

silver linings

shevy-java 5mo ago

I am still pissed at Trump and the oligarch bros. They really need to pay for the costs they caused here. I also blame them from rising RAM prices. Why do we have to pay for any of that? We also need to get off of oil. I know this is not realistic for many reasons, but it is a weakness of many economies that they are so insanely dependent on a few countries with a lot of oil and gas. It basically gives other countries ways to blackmail.

UncleOxidant 5mo ago

Who knew that Trump was going to speedrun The Green New Deal?... just for every other country except the US.

glaucon 5mo ago
It's hilarious (or would be if it didn't involve killing people), the same dullards who wanted to "drill, baby, drill" have accelerated the move to renewables in a way they would have struggled to do if they were the most greeny administration ever seen.
ASinclair 5mo ago
It's not all sunshine and rainbows. Countries are turning to coal as well. There aren't natural chokepoints for coal distribution like the Straight of Hormuz.

jmyeet 5mo ago

Ok, I have to comment about the chart on oil prices that shows a massive rise from 2020 to 2022, which the article blames on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, even though that didn't happen until early 2022 and the spike began 2 years earlier. That's just jouranlistic misconduct. Let me tell you what actually happened because, for some reason, nobody actually talks about it. First, some context: 1. OPEC/OPEC+ meet every 3 months to adjust output based on expected demand to keep oil prices relatively stable. That is, they want to maintain a floor and a ceiling. Too low and they don't make enough money. Too high and it causes political instability and threatens oil-for-security guarantees that have existed since FDR agreed to such with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia in 1945; 2. Oil has different flavors based largley on how light or heavy the hydrocarbon blend is (called API Gravity) and the sulfur content. this is what Brent and West Texas Light Crude means. Generally, lighter crude is more valuable because it makes more valuable products like avgas and gasoline; 3. Oil is traded on both spot (physical) markets and future (paper) markets. A futures contract is a standardized contract for 1000 barrels of oil of a particular blend delivered or received (depending on which side you're on) on a given date. Generally, when we see oil prices in the news we are looking at futures prices. Historically short-dated futures prices and spot prices have been pretty similar. Spot prices are proprietary but this didn't matter. Now it does as that link has been broken [1] 3. When the world shut down in March 2020 due to the pandemic oil demand fell off a cliff and supplies backed up in production facilities. People weren't taking delivery and oil prices briefly went negative (technically, this was an "extreme contango" market); 4. Because of this, the Trump administration cajoled MBS to get OPEC to cut oil production [2][3][4]. This was a 2 year agreement that initially cut oil production by 9.7 million barrels per day ("Mbpd") going to to 6.3Mbpd ultimately. IMHO the administration panicked that US oil producers would go belly up. This represented ~10% of the world's crude oil supply; 5. In 2021 oil demand came roaring back. Prices went through the roof; and 6. Republicans blamed Biden. The Biden administration tried to get OPEC to increase production [5] and Biden never blamed OPEC or even Trump. Democrats took the "oil companies bad" approach. This 2 year deal was completely unnecessary. OPEC would've cut production as necessary anyway. And it entirely matches the increase in oil and gas prices and inflation for this 2 year period and nobody ever mentions it. Russia invading Ukraine in early 2022 was just the cherry on the cake. Look at that chart. Where it's marked as "COVID-19" is March-April 2020. The deal begins in June 2020. It ended in June 2022, which is at the exact point of the big red bar to the right of the Russian invasion, after which oil prices dropped despite the fact that the war was still going on (and still is). [1]: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/iran-war-has-shattered-oils-price-compass-2026-04-16/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/iran-war-has-sha... [2]: https://www.reuters.com/article/economy/special-report-trump-told-saudi-cut-oil-supply-or-lose-us-military-support--idUSKBN22C1V3/ https://www.reuters.com/article/economy/special-report-trump... [3]: https://www.reuters.com/commentary/reuters-open-interest/trump-broke-opec-he-may-regret-it-2026-05-05/ https://www.reuters.com/commentary/reuters-open-interest/tru... [4]: https://www.reuters.com/article/business/opec-agrees-largest-ever-oil-output-cut-of-9-7-million-bpd-sources-idUSKCN21U0R0/ https://www.reuters.com/article/business/opec-agrees-largest... [5]: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-call-opec-its-allies-increase-oil-production-cnbc-2021-08-11/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-call-opec-its-a...

cm2187 5mo ago

Right now the UK makes up the volatility of its heavy reliance on wind with LNG. So this isn't exactly a hedge against gas shortage.

toomuchtodo 5mo ago
Ember Energy: British power prices are increasingly independent from gas - https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/british-power-prices-are-increasingly-independent-from-gas/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/british-power-price... - May 13th, 2026 * 15% of British power generation is already de-linked from the gas power price. This is from 10 GW of operational renewable capacity currently covered by the price-setting Contracts for Difference scheme. * A third (36%) of power generation in Britain will be priced independently of gas by 2030, according to forecasts of generation from the Contracts for Difference scheme. Up to 36 GW of competitively-priced new wind and solar is under development by 2032 through the scheme. * Hours where gas was below 20% of Britain’s electricity mix averaged £60/MWh in 2025, compared to £130/MWh in hours where gas made up more than 50% of the mix. * The gas share of power generation fell to a second record monthly low in a row in Britain in April 2026. The gas share in both March (27%) and April (19%) was the lowest per month in over a decade. In March, wind supplied a monthly record 42% of all power generation. (As more wind, solar, batteries, and transmission are deployed in the UK, fossil gas power share will continue to decline until pushed out of the generation mix)
- cm2187 5mo ago
  Looking at peak wind isn't particularly helpful I'm afraid. The problem is what happens when there is no wind, like in early May (https://gridwatch.co.uk/ https://gridwatch.co.uk/). Having more wind capacity isn't helping. Batteries are for smoothing minutes/hours not days. Solar obviously only a few hours a day and weak at this latitude.
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  - fpoling 5mo ago

outside1234 5mo ago

Trump is going to end up being the best thing that ever happened to EVs too.

glaucon 5mo ago
He _says_ he doesn't like renewables but secretly he loves them ;-)

newaccount670 5mo ago

Hormuz being closed hurts Iran way more than it does the US. It's shocking that they're persisting on this strategy. That's the problem with authoritarians though: they'd rather rule over rubble than be an average citizen in a prosperous society.

seanmcdirmid 5mo ago
Its probably all reflex at this point. The USA killed almost all the top leadership early on in the war, leading to a sub-optimal leadership transition with the feeling that the country didn't have much left to lose. I'm not sure what the US leadership was thinking, maybe they really bought the "the people will overthrow the government and not hate the US if we just do a few strategic assassinations" spiel?
LarsKrimi 5mo ago
It's not about the US vs Iran. It's Iran turning the strait into a wedge between US and the rest of their previous partners. The US has enough oil for themselves, but the hurt is felt everywhere else. And the cause of that hurt points in one direction (the US)
- spwa4 5mo ago
  The argument that the US is the 'cause' of the hurt ignores the fact that Iran is essentially taking the global economy hostage to achieve a political goal. By blocking the strait, Iran isn't targeting the US ... as you noted, the US is energy independent. They are targeting the developing nations and allies of the West. To blame the US for the pain caused by an Iranian blockade is to ignore the agency of the actor actually causing the harm. You cannot blame the victim of a provocation for the destructive methods the assholes chooses to use. Oh, and Iran is committing a warcrime doing this. For months, constantly. This is pure terrorist tactics, taking innocents hostage in the hope that makes the police go away. What we need, sorry, is another round of sniper shots, making it clear to the IRGC what the correct response is to hostage taking.
  - cbolton 5mo ago

tim-tday 5mo ago

I drive a Mercedes. My grandfather rode a camel. The oil has made us rich. But the oil riches will end. My grandchildren will ride camels.