Comment by nine_k
5 hours ago
The current wars in Europe and the Middle East paradoxically push the world towards non-fossil enery like few things did before. Both oil and natural gas prices have skyrocketed on global markets, and will likely rise more, as Ukraine continues to target Russian oil infrastructure, and Houtis continue to stymie Saudi oil exports.
Nothing hampers solar, wind, and batteries though; at worst it takes longer to ship the key components from China to Europe around Africa.
The current wars in Europe and the Middle East could paradoxically push the world towards more domestic energy production, be it fossil or non-fossil energy.
For example in reaction to 1973 Arab oil embargo Carter boosted energy efficiency and solar and promoted coal.
" "America indeed is the Saudi Arabia of coal, and my goal as President of the United States is to see on the world energy markets Arab oil replaced with Illinois coal," Carter told miners and employees of the Old Ben Coal Mine No. 25. He also boasted that the country would, "produce more coal in 1980 than has ever before been produced in the United States of America." "
https://www.npr.org/2024/12/29/1158426645/jimmy-carters-envi...
New coal gasification projects in India
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/india-clears-4-billi...
>The current wars in Europe and the Middle East could paradoxically push the world towards more domestic energy production, be it fossil or non-fossil energy.
Fossil fuel is still going strong and will probably stay so for the next 50 years. Like I just learned Taiwan makes most of its energy from coal and LNG and is set to denuclearize, which blew my mind given their cutting edge manufacturing economy, but kinda makes sense when you factor in their geography and geopolitics.
Global fossil fuel usage fell last year. We are on a trajectory to massively cut out fossil fuels and replace them with renewables. This was before global petroleum movement was blocked through the Strait. Check out the juicy details in the Ember 2026 report[0].
Some highlights:
[0] https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-...
1 reply →
It's fun watching the right wing try to square this circle. Especially in the UK where we import most of our fossil fuels.
We could have sovereign control over our energy supply with renewables and electrification. Yay, we become a great sovereign nation free to do whatever we want with our great British energy supply!
But no, the right wing answer is to develop a couple of gas fields in the north sea that would supply a tiny amount of actual energy requirements, and do nothing for prices as it all goes into a global trading platform.
I know the reason, it's hard to say no to all that money from the fossil industry, and walk back decades of indoctrinating your base at their behest. Even if it means making your country energy independent...
>Nothing hampers solar, wind, and batteries though; at worst it takes longer to ship the key components from China to Europe around Africa.
Except you know, all the actual mining and manufacturing of those things, which isn't in the west but mostly in China.
Before, say, 2022 or 2026 for that reason, oil, coal, lithium, silicon, iron, etc were mined, processed, and shipped as usual. By now, the production and shipping of oil and oil-based fuels, and, to a lesser extent, LNG is hampered by wars. The production and shipping of what is required to build solar, wind, and even nuclear power sources continues, mostly unaffected by the wars, which makes these power sources relatively (even) more attractive.
Sadly, it does not mean that EU or USA grew less dependent on China for solar panels, industrial chemicals, or a lot of other things. OTOH, they did not grow more dependent either.
so what if theyre made in china?
Hopefully the penny will start to drop. Any minute now.
3 replies →
Yup. The best thing Trump did for Climate Change was to start a war with Iran.
> Nothing hampers solar, wind, and batteries though;
For now.
The majority of solar panels are made in China (85%), and they plan to invade Taiwan in just a few years, possibly as soon as 2027, at which point either we let them take control of AI chip production or defend Taiwan and cut ourselves off from the source of almost all manufactured products, and especially solar panels.
>and they plan to invade Taiwan in just a few years
Can you share your sources for that valuable intelligence? Military analysts would really be interested to learn that. Or is that form the same manufactured scaremongering genre as "Iran is 6 weeks away from building nuclear weapons" and "Iraq has WMDs" to justify endless defense spending, military interventions and warmongering.
> at which point either we let them take control of AI chip production
You can't just commandeer semi fabs like you're carjacking a Hyundai for a joyride. Semi fabs need constant parts and on-prem staff and always-on telemetry from ASML & friends to run. If that's gone, you're left with a very expensive warehouse that can't do shit.
You don't build out a massive fleet of amphibious landing craft, mobile piers, and other similar Navy ships that can only be used for invading another country via the sea... for self-defense. These have one purpose, and China is mass-producing them.
https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-CHINA/TAIWAN-INVASION/z...
https://www.ft.com/content/36a00ba4-6178-4267-9786-3e0b59abe...
https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-taiwan-military-naval-...
> "Iran is 6 weeks away from building nuclear weapons"
It is the breakout time, not the schedule.
It is incredible to me how pervasive the misunderstanding of this statement is!
I've had real-life conversations with project managers just like this:
PM: "How long would this project take?"
Me: "One month."
... two weeks later ...
PM: "How long would the project take to finish?"
Me: "One month."
PM: "You said that two weeks ago! It should only take two weeks to finish!"
Me: "Why would you think that? We never started the project! It wasn't approved. You didn't approve it, personally. The effort is four weeks. If you approve and we start today, it will still take that long to complete."
... two more weeks later ...
PM: "Why isn't the project finished!? You said one month a month ago!"
Me: "... wat?"
Taiwan cannot make chips without western inputs and spare parts, so China taking over Taiwan or Korea or Japan doesn’t really give them access to making those chips.
Rather, in a case of such an acute confrontation, it denies their adversaries access to the highest-end chips, too.
But the solar panels we already have don't suddenly stop working, which is an important difference between sourcing solar panels from a potential enemy and sourcing raw fossil fuels from one. There's also nothing stopping the US or other trading partners from making solar panels, China is just the most convenient and cheapest source as it is for many other things. And to that point, the end of trade between the US and China would be incredibly damaging to both countries whether or not we buy solar panels from them now.
I asked Claude, and now I know that there are nice, basically undetectable, plausibly deniable ways to render solar panels useless within months, or, with some preparation, days. It seems that open-source, carefully scrutinized panel controller firmware may be critically important.
1 reply →