Earlier quoted context omitted.
If only we had some way to store energy
At scale.
You mean like 27 Gwh of yearly installed capacity kind of scale? https://www.solarpowereurope.org/press-releases/new-report-e...
Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence
281–290 of 474 posts
Re: Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
They also spent decades sending money to the US to buy influence and protection, which instantly vaporized the second a missile was launched their way.
The big story I think is how handily they took out billions of dollars of US radars and that these air defense systems are not up to the task (we actually already knew this from Ukraine, but media worked overtime to ignore this fact). In a way, all this supposedly "superior" US and Israeli tech (at least on the defense side, offense is a different story) has been exposed. I do think focused engineering efforts could…
This is not mostly true: Israel's anti air defense works surprisingly well against Iran's attack, the issue has always been 2 things:
Who has more missiles to throw?
And the Patriot is still top class in it's designed goal: shooting down ballistic and cruise missiles.
The second big thing is that no one has designed air defense to take into account effectively slow moving artillery pieces that have the same maneuverability as a missile.
Because that is what drones are and what has been the biggest glaring problem for but the USA, Israel and Russia (the gulf states both use Russian and US anti air defense).
Re: Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Well, I think that's a bit of an aside but sure:
- Track maintenance is horrendous, and it's public knowledge (not that it wasn't known before, it was just hidden)
- Many high-speed trains are now running much slower after the accident, and will continue to do so. Also, compensation for delays has been significantly reduced
- Some rather important routes (Madrid-Málaga, for example) still have no service after the accident
- The public train company (Renfe) is now setting up a bus company and openly saying that this is going to be very useful for years to come (wink wink)
- Cercanías is absolute garbage in most areas but especially in Madrid, with constant delays, broken trains, etc
- The pricing situation has improved with recent competitors (Ouigo, Iryo, etc) but it's often still laughable - I've been taking flights instead of trains when I travel there since they're much cheaper (and nowadays definitely much faster, given all the issues)
I could continue but I guess that's plenty. I'd say taking a train in Spain nowadays is an exercise of faith for many.
Re: Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 1. Pivoting to a totally different issue No, i am not. It's the exact same issue. If you honestly believe that climate change is an existential crisis, then ALL other issues are by definition less important. That might be difficult to accept, because it feels like saying other issues aren't important. But that's not what i'm saying at all. What i'm saying is, if something is about to destroy the entire world, then…
> No, i am not. It's the exact same issue. If you honestly believe that climate change is an existential crisis, then ALL other issues are by definition less important. You're using a very superficial argument and ignoring several of my points. If your literal home is on fire, is putting it out or running to safety less important than climate change? If you need to change an entire economic system to solve climate ch…
I didn't ignore any of your points. If your house is on fire, then put it out. But DON'T start a social movement that distracts from climate change.
Don't distract everyone by claiming that fire is the most important thing, worthy of gathering during a pandemic about.
This isn't about propaganda, well not in the sense you're using it. The argument, which you seem to disagree with, is the importance of focusing on a single existential issue, and ignoring everything else. To actually prove to people that are doubters, that WE actually BELIEVE what we're saying. That this really is the key thing to be worried about.
Everything else you're saying all amounts to the same argument, that climate change isn't important enough to take focus away from these other important issues. We just fundamentally disagree. And I contend your attitude is exactly why we have had so much trouble convincing the doubters that we're serious about climate change... when we're so willing to give just as much (if not more) energy to these other "distractions"
Re: Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s just pulling forward future gains while shrinking the time horizon, if the world speeds the transition to renewables and electrification from this. Short term gain for faster irrelevance. Oil to $200/barrel please, as long as possible, same with LNG. Edit: Iran attack wipes out 17% of Qatar’s LNG capacity for up to five years, QatarEnergy CEO says - https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/2026/03/19/iran-attack-...…
If you tell me I can make 10 million bucks this year, with the penalty of not making anything for the rest of my life, I guess I don’t mind?
Would you have made it anyway? Can we stop you? Does it cause a negative externality that will be more rapidly diminished if you pull forward this gain? Consider it a premium paid by fossil fuel consumers to encourage a more rapid transition from fossil fuels by pushing pain into the energy market for the next half decade.
Congrats to those who won the lotto, enjoy your luck.
Re: Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence
#286Earlier 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...
Doesn't the world only have about 50 years [0] worth of oil remaining in the ground? Climate change and war aside, it seems like that should be a major reason to accelerate the change to renewables. [0] https://www.worldometers.info/oil/
No I don't think so. The oil industry is very good at discovering and developing resources previously thought to be out of reach.
People have been talking about peak oil for decades, as long as I can remember, and it never happened.
I think we're technologically capable of extracting more oil, coal, and gas than we would ever want to. We would cook ourselves with the damage we'd do to the climate. I think that's the real constraint - and I hope we pay attention to it.
Re: Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Israeli missile defense systems have worked amazingly well considering the scale of the threat.
Not against the fast ballistics.
Ballistics are much harder to shoot down period there is not a single system that has 100% success rate, Ukraine reports around 42-77% success rate[1].
Hence why army folks were so alarmed by Russia/China developing and having ready prototypes that can go hypersonic.
[1]https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/comme...
Re: Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the continued survival of civilization depends on leaving fossil fuel in the ground. If the transition isn't fast enough then we will have horrible, lethal shortages, but that's still better than the worst climate scenarios.
You’re willing to sacrifice the lives of at least some poor people who exist now, or are likely to exist in the near future, for a theory that is unfalsifiable. That’s not since. That’s brainwashing, and it’s not even good brainwashing.
> You’re willing to sacrifice the lives of at least some poor people who exist now, or are likely to exist in the near future, for a theory that is unfalsifiable.
What exactly do you mean with "unfalsifiable"? We actually measure atmospheric CO2, sea level and temperature; that's plenty falsifiability to me. And the greenhouse effect itself is not even in question.
Fossil emissions are sacrificing people not just from climate change in the future, but right now from air pollution, too (about 5M deaths per year actually, according to https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38030155/).
Re: Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why would you invest in nuclear power, which is several times more expensive per kwh than wind + battery in Denmark Strategic mix. I'm not saying its a good or bad idea, but nuclear can be used as a tool with batteries to make wind much more reliable. urianium sourcing can be an issue, but sadly so are batteries. (granted nuclear fuel is changed more often)
> Strategic mix Nuclear doesn't vibe well with a grid that is supposed to be dominated by renewable electricity generation. You can't simply increase or decrease nuclear generation and even if you could, it would make the economics even worse, if you wouldn't keep their utilization at maximum capacity. So if nuclear is supposed to have a "strategic" effect on your electricity mix, you have a substantial (20-40%) bloc…
> You can't simply increase or decrease nuclear generation and even if you could, it would make the economics even worse, if you wouldn't keep their utilization at maximum capacity.
you totally can, and for keeping the grid stable, they are absolutely grand.
But to your point, pan continental links are not that practical for making up ~30% of a country's peak demand.
> you have a substantial (20-40%) block of your electricity generation that is essentially static. That in turn requires you to have static demand.
If you look at the grid on aggregate, there is always a static demand. If you look at https://grid.iamkate.com/ you'll see the variance in use is 30% over 24 hours.
For denmark (and the UK) wind is a great source of power, but its not always there, even at grid level. Currently the UK uses gas to bridge that demand. The UK is rolling out batteries, and thats going to help with price in the peaks. (currently most of them are used to stabilise rather than "peaking") But _currently_ battery capacity is only really measured in hours. Ideally we'll be measuring capacity in weeks. The hard part there is pricing reserve capacity, especially as it leaks.
Now, where nuclear comes in, is allowing the grid to arbitrage night time production from nuclear, into peak demand or, when wind is short. (in addition to bridging/stabilising) This gives a country more options to
We will see something like this bridging capacity in spain in the next few years. They have a much less well developed battery grid, but have more sun so the generation is a bit more predictable day to day. The problem spain needs to overcome is the morning and evening peaks. From memory its something like 1-2 gigawatts (but it could be more.)
Re: Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence
#290Yeah, 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…
Levelized Cost of Energy for solar is 30-60$ and 100-200$ for nuclear. In the case of Spain, it is cheaper to build more energy lines with Morocco and battery storage than to use nuclear. Spain already has some of the cheapest energy in Europe thanks to renewables. In the case of Germany, nuclear makes sense, but it is not clear where you would buy fuel for it, It might still be a supply chain risk since Russia and K…
>Levelized Cost of Energy for solar is 30-60$ and 100-200$ for nuclear.
With the storage for shitty winter weeks? What's the source on that one? Mind you I love solar since i'd like to go relatively off grid one day but i've heard too much bullshit around this.
>but it is not clear where you would buy fuel for it, It might still be a supply chain risk since Russia and Kazakhstan are the main players there.
There's a lot of locations from my understanding and a lot more that don't produce anything simply because Russia and Kazakhstan and such don't make it worthwile. It's a tiny share of the cost of production in the end.