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Iran war energy crisis is a renewable energy wake-up call

193 points by mooreds

by vmsp

10 subcomments

As a Portuguese I have a more nuanced view of these type of takes.
We invested _heavily_ and prematurely in renewable energies -- see my comment from a couple of years ago [0]. Since then, our energy prices were high for a while and now they're not much lower than the EU's average because all that investment needs to be amortized [1]. Two years ago, we ran a whole month on renewables [2]. Despite this, our increase in energy prices since the Iran war started has been dramatic and the price of everything has been going up significantly. I can't help but think about the ROI on all those renewables if they can't help make our lives easier at a time like this. I'd much rather we go nuclear.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37719568
[1]: https://eco.sapo.pt/2026/03/11/precos-da-eletricidade-e-gas-...
[2]: https://www.portugalglobal.pt/en/news/2024/april/renewable-e...

by stared

3 subcomments

See a wider perspective on how energy sources shape geopolitics: "The pivot" by Charlie Stross https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45621074.
And yes, solar energy is not only greener (less CO2, less PM2.5), but also frees us from dependency on other countries. The future can be less centralized.
Some countries (Russia included) will lose their bargaining chip. Other countries (USA included) will lose the incentive to 'democratize' the Middle East.

by ZeroGravitas

0 subcomment

Well hopefully.
People have noticed that the weird social media bot accounts that are usually posting in the UK about Muslim immigrants have all suddenly shifted to talking about drilling for more oil in the north sea.
This is a bad idea for multiple reasons, but clearly someone wants you to think that is the solution rather than wind, solar, batteries, evs and heat pumps.
They've partially succeeded each time we've gone through this kind of fossil energy crisis, and they'll likely partially succeed this time.
I'd guess the propaganda is slightly harder to make in the 70% of countries where they import fossil fuels and the political/media landscape isn't so broken that they can pretend otherwise to dig themselves deeper into a hole.

by stavros

17 subcomments

I don't understand how we're still using fossil fuels. I thought the only thing that would save us from the scourge is if renewables were cheaper, but even with solar being cheaper than everything else, we're still deploying fossil fuels.
Is it because of the interests of fossil fuel companies and their lobbying, or am I missing some economic factor?

by oldnetguy

3 subcomments

I would argue a nuclear one as well. Energy independence and abundance should rely on a number of sources of energy.

by Bender

0 subcomment

How much impact do petrochemicals have on renewables? e.g. Ethylene used for plastics, propylene, butadiene for synthetic rubber and aromatics like benzene. Do renewables still exist at the same volume and cost without petrochemicals or when their costs sky-rocket during a war?
How many here have stocked up on solar panels, charge controllers, wire, terminal blocks, high current fuses, home grid batteries, inverters and such? The only thing I am missing is solar panels. Currently I charge my batteries with a generator when commercial power is out. I backed out on a solar panel deal for a bunch of dumb reasons. I run my computer and network equipment on inverters 100% of the time to clean up commercial power and deal with the rare brown outs from tension breakers reclosers during high wind events.

by chaostheory

2 subcomments

Renewable energy just has bad marketing. Instead of just emphasizing their environmental benefits, everyone forgot that they’re also a stop gap for any issues with other sources of energy. China gets it. It’s the same reason why EVs are so important: they give us energy source flexibility. An EV can run on anything that creates electricity which includes coal, nuclear, natural gas, oil, in addition to renewables

by lemoncookiechip

0 subcomment

Totally agree, although an issue that's not talked about enough is that this isn't simply an energy crisis, but a logistics crisis for other products from the region (helium, fertilizers, rare minerals, etc) and to the region that affect other sectors of our global economy highly.
Also another issue that's not being talked about at all is the impact the war will have in displacing a population of 90 million people. For reference, Syria only had 20 million people and the impact was quite big, although we're still far from reaching that point for now.

by asdff

2 subcomments

I think no matter what your energy source it is liable to be precision struck back to the stone age in this era within days by a motivated group. People need to come to terms with this new reality. I fear too many people think we are still fighting like last centuries wars.

by ramon156

0 subcomment

In a perfect world we're solar/wind/nuclear/whatever powered, and every city/town has their iwn battery grid. Grids can take/give from each other, and they're COMMUNITY OWNED (!)
Sadly elec. companies are not a fan of this

by amelius

0 subcomment

More a decentralized energy wake-up call. Though in practice that's probably the same thing.

by neogodless

0 subcomment

Related:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47437516 Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence (reuters.com)
~3 days prior, 447+ commments

by Joker_vD

4 subcomments

Yeah, remember how the energy crises in the 70s served as a wake-up call and made us switch to renewable energy? Me neither. In fact, AIUI, the main consequence was the significant increase of the global oil extraction.

by le-mark

0 subcomment

> First they’ll take our gasoline cars then our guns!!!
Courtesy of Fox News.

by maxdo

0 subcomment

right now the main real renewable is solar, solar , is almost controlled by china, another country to start the war quite soon :) sure.
the wake up call for EU , US , and rest of the west that is not happening, that national interest is a real thing. Not a fiction.

by gnarlouse

0 subcomment

The Iran War crisis is a billionaire alignment problem wakeup call, too.

by christophilus

1 subcomments

If there is ever a war with China, that will be a fossil fuel wake-up call, at least she it comes to solar panels and batteries.

by jmyeet

4 subcomments

This war will likely go down as the dumbest geopolitical move in US history (so far, at least). And I don't think it's even close. I cannot overstate the significance of it. I think historians will mark this as at least the symbolic end of American Empire. And I don't say that lightly. It will redefine the geopolitical landscape for the rest of the century.
If we're talking about renewables, one has to talk about China [1]:
> In 2024 alone, China installed 360 gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar capacity. That’s more than half of global additions that year, and it brings total installed capacity to 1.4 terawatts (TW) – that’s roughly a third of the entire world’s 4.5 TW
And in 2025 [2]:
> Clean-energy sectors contributed a record 15.4tn yuan ($2.1tn) in 2025, some 11.4% of China’s gross domestic product (GDP) – comparable to the economies of Brazil or Canada.
and
> In 2025, China achieved another new record of wind and solar capacity additions. The country installed a total of 315GW solar and 119GW wind capacity, adding more solar and two times as much wind as the rest of the world combined.
China has decided long ago that this was of national security interest and it has become a national project to move to renewable energy in a way that I don't think any other country is capable of and on a scale that's hard to conceptualize.
Europe and the US have shown themselves to be completely incapable of planning long term and acting in national interest with regards for fossil fuels. There's no poliitical will. Both are captured by the interests of enriching the billionaire class in the short term. When it all goes to shit, which it will, they'll all leave and/or the rest of us will pay for this lack of foresight.
[1]: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/12/china-adding-more-re...
[2]: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-clean-energy-drove-more...

by luxurytent

1 subcomments

I keep thinking this war will both be written down as one of the Trump administration worst mistakes while also being the catalyst for a clean(er) energy revolution. We can.. do it all, but there has been a lack of will and incentive. These incentives are strong.

by sb057

1 subcomments

I am speaking from a position of total ignorance, so this is probably a dumb take, but I don't see why rich nations[1] don't simply subsidize mass nuclear energy production as state policy. The two main issues with nuclear are unit cost (solvable if you build dozens/hundreds in serial production) and financing (a reactor with a 30 year payback period is much more viable with 3.5% sovereign financing compared to 8% private bonds). France did it 50 years ago with more primitive reactor designs. China is currently doing it somewhat halfheartedly. I bet if the U.S. committed to $2 trillion to one standardized design and heavily used eminent domain, America would have knocked electricity costs down by half within a decade.
[1] Honestly probably only really viable in China and the U.S. plus maybe South Korea; nuclear is unpopular in Japan after Fukushima, and I doubt the E.U. would be able to coordinate everything. Everyone else is probably too poor outside of petrostates, which have the whole petro thing going on.

by boxed

0 subcomment

Ukraine was too...

0 subcomment

by cpursley

2 subcomments

It’s not just about energy, but also industrial (think neon, helium) and agricultural inputs (nitrogen, urea). Even if energy was solved, there’s not really replacements for these. Well, regenerative agriculture but not sure that will feed as many people.

by OneDonOne

3 subcomments

Modern civilization requires semiconductors, concrete, asphalt, fertilizer, and plastics to function. Never mind aviation and marine fuel to function. All of these require hydrocarbons. As long as that is the case, renewable power will continue to be a niche.