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Comments (310)

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  ryukafalz
  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.
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  schnitzelstoat
  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.
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  pibaker
  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.
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  Gravityloss
  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!
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  markus_zhang
  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.
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  lm28469
  The US about to discover you can't just blindly follow fanatics in religious wars without any consequences.
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  Sol-
  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.
• hliyan
  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.
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  sharemywin
  Wonder how much WFH could help. Seems like during covid demand went way down.
• hamo_vv54
  this is more nuanced than the title suggests. worth reading the whole thing
• heyitsmedotjayb
  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?
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  Delphiza
  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.
• pjmlp
  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.
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  thedangler
  In a world where peoples home might be taken away because interest go up because oil prices is nuts.
• a3w
  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)?
• maxglute
  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
  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
  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.
• manyaoman
  Paradoxically it could also have the opposite effect if high energy prices lead governments to cut green energy plans.
• uyzstvqs
  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.
• phtrivier
  > 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..
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  theo1996
  Iran tried to ditch fossil fuel for atomic but cIA said no.
• sharpshadow
  Really looks like the spark was there before so that Iran could get attacked at all.
• aa-jv
  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/[2] - https://unumotors.com/
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  giantg2
  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.
• gethwhunter34
  surprised this isn't talked about more
• phendrenad2
  How will this affect datacenters? Could AI become expensive?
• blondie9x
  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?
• diego_moita
  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.
• shevy-java
  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.
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  noobermin
  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.
• formvoltron
  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?
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  megous
  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.
• throwccp
  [dead]
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  coldtea
  >energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependenceThat would be the stupidest takeaway
• lokimoon
  Thank god for Elon musk, the only guy actually doing anything with solar, batteries, and affordable electric cars. Everyone else is just talking advantage of the situation for their own profit.