Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 474 posts

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

#251

Post by tfourb »

Gravityloss wrote: post #237

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…

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.

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

#252

Post by usefulcat »

anovikov wrote: post #142
_alternator_ wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument that high oil prices are good for America is one of the most ridiculous ideas being pushed right now. Yes, on a trade deficit front, it slightly reduces the net amount of money leaving. But we are also the world’s largest consumer of oil, and it literally powers every part of our economy. Saying that America is better off with high gas prices is like saying Americans will eat more beef if the price of be…

Think of it this way: less trade deficit means more imports that come through without causing extra damage. It means more cheap products of all kinds for everyone. And yes this is exactly how petrostates work. I wonder why is it surprising. Sure their population also pays higher prices for gas at the pump when the oil goes up, but they massively win in every other way. It's simply a long, embedded stereotype of "high…

The price of oil isn't just about the "cost of gas at the pump". It's about how much it costs to transport anything. There aren't many products that don't need to be transported or that don't depend at least partially on something that does.

So yeah, when the price of oil goes up, oil companies make more money, and prices go up for pretty much everyone.

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

#254

Post by slashdev »

Tostino wrote: post #250
slashdev wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may or may not be true. But it won't stay in the ground as long as there is money to be made by extracting and consuming it. Right now all that's happening is the US is extracting that natural gas, and the middle east extracting that oil, and Europe is importing it. Which pollutes more and costs more. Just develop your domestic supplies. I don't follow your logic.

That is because that money is allowed to be made by externalizing the cost to future generations. People hate migrants enough as it is. Climate crisis migrations will make these "little" war migrations seem quaint.

I agree, but that's the world we live in.

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

#255

Post by _alternator_ »

anovikov wrote: post #147
_alternator_ wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like soft trolling. Global warming is canonically the opposite of a zero sum game. Everyone is losing.

Everyone is suffering sure, but what matters is relative degree of it. Side that suffers less, wins against others and that's the only thing that matters. And no, in China global warming means worsening desertification, in Russia it means melting permafrost that covers 60% of the country, same in Canada. Europe and the US are uniquely positioned to suffer the least from it and many industries will win outright. For e…

> Everyone is suffering sure, but what matters is relative degree of it.

Is that what matters?

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

#256

Post by nandomrumber »

davidw wrote: post #242
davedx wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been arguing with Europeans on twitter (including an environmental scientist) who believe this war shows we need to resume drilling in the North Sea and Groningen. It feels like this collective insanity will never end

Well "Europeans on Twitter" are probably the kind of people who look at the owner of the site posting about a homeland for white people and that kind of thing and aren't bothered too much by it.

[flagged]

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

#257

Post by gib444 »

outime wrote: post #105
schnitzelstoat wrote: post #2

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 situat…

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 cond…

Poor train service? (Recent accidents aside)

Any areas in particular?

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

#258

Post by empyrrhicist »

tac19 wrote: post #238
empyrrhicist wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for example the fight to allow transgender people to use whatever bathroom they choose Ugh, I'm going to regret commenting here, but it really seems like this obsession is almost entirely on the right wing. In the US, the centrist Dems have been banging the appeasement drum for my entire political life, and it's gotten us nowhere. Like... the right isn't going to wake up and start caring about climate change if eve…

> climate change is a bigger issue - so why can't we focus on it? What it needed was for strong left-wing people to stand up and denounce the distraction. To claim loud and proudly that transgender issues were not important when compared to climate change. To refocus the public on climate change and take the wind out of the fringe issue. Instead, we took to the street for BLM, when it wasn't an important issue, when…

There's a Guante lyric I really like about this topic that I think highlights how I feel about your argument:

"Those who turn hoses on water protеctors

Are those who cage "Stop Cop City" protеstors

And enforce the brutality of the border

Same ones who enforce bans on drag performers

Same ones who enforce bans

On crossing state lines for abortions

Some of those that work forces

Are the same that burn crosses

Are the same that burn everything

For the bosses"

I don't think we totally disagree, but I come down differently on where to point the blame.

> What it needed was for strong left-wing people to stand up and denounce the distraction.

I mean, that did happen.

> To claim loud and proudly that transgender issues were not important when compared to climate change.

That was said, along with housing prices/inflation/corruption.

> Instead, we took to the street for BLM, when it wasn't an important issue

Here's where you're really, really losing me. You're:

1. Pivoting to a totally different issue

2. Ignoring the role of the media in promoting the most controversial takes and presentation of both issues. It sucks to blame people for having values when the real problem is for-profit engagement-based media.

3. Ick - it really rubs me the wrong way to see people say "BLM wasn't an important issue when compared to climate change". That seems really easy to say if you're not under routine threat of state violence, but BLM was a reaction to a very real epidemic of state violence against black people. To those people, that kind of immediate threat IS as big a deal as climate change. If anything, criticize the branding of "defund the police" (which was so bad I half wonder if it was a psyop).

Moreover, part of my original point was that climate change isn't a separate thing - it's a problem because the same systems that use wedge issues to divide us all benefit from the unsustainable status-quo.

The realpolitik take on this seems so short sighted - it takes for granted that some progress can be made on climate change by ignoring our values, while also ignoring that alienating the affected groups makes it harder to change our society enough to do anything about climate change.

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

#259

Post by slashdev »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #222
slashdev wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it can. I won't live to see it, and I hope I live 50 years more. You're living in a fantasy world that doesn't exist. Global consumption of coal, oil, and natural gas all rose in 2025. We've not even peaked yet.[1] [1] https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/12/record-fossi...

I've done my best to educate with facts and citations. Appreciate the discussion regardless. My offer stands to pay for you to talk to a subject matter expert. Edit (to respond to your edit): > Global consumption of coal, oil, and natural gas all rose in 2025. We've not even peaked yet. Do you think global LNG consumption will peak considering a material amount of production has been taken offline for the next five y…

We're making great progress, this is true. But we're also still increasing our consumption of fossil fuels.

Let's put a number on it. When do you think we reach 50% of today's consumption of fossil fuels? IEA seems to think it continues to grow until 2050. https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/iea-energy-outlook-2025-9.69...

If that's true, I don't think we reach 50% of current levels by 2100. That's my very non-scientific WAG. I'll be long dead by then. Europe, if they continued drilling in the North Sea and Groningen would have long since exhausted them - a great capital expenditure and investment to bring things back to the original subject of conversation.

What do you think? That would give me a good window into how realistic your view is.

I think where you're going wrong is perhaps not taking into account continued increases in per-capita energy usage worldwide. But of course that will happen, not just because of population growth, not just because of the rest of the world rising slowly towards Western standards of living, but continued technological progress which depends on energy (or at least it has been that way historically.)

Doomberg (the green chicken) correctly observes that when we add a new energy source to the mix, we don't tend to decrease our consumption of previous energy sources.

For example: global wood consumption for energy is at or near all-time high levels, with approximately 2 billion cubic meters (m³) of wood fuel consumed in 2023, up from 1.5 billion m³ in 1961. While the percentage of global energy provided by wood has plummeted from over 90% in the early 19th century to around 3-6% today, the total volume burned has increased, driven by population growth in developing nations and increasing bioenergy use in developed ones.

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

#260

Post by myth_drannon »

clydethefrog wrote: post #188
nradov wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Israeli missile defense systems have worked amazingly well considering the scale of the threat.

Just last night: "It’s worth pointing out that Hezbollah has managed to get rockets right down to the south of Israel today – and that is unprecedented. Never before has Hezbollah managed to get rockets so far south into Israel." https://aje.news/b8762y?update=4414645

Sending is easy, but hitting something... They are shooting at an open desert and Gaza while exposing their launch teams.
Post reply on HN