Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence • Hacker News Board

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

#441

Post by leonidasrup » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 1:38 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #429

leonidasrup wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is very slowly starting to understand, exiting nuclear power and installing a lot of intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind power and solar power, does not make your country independent of fossil fuels. China builds a lot of renewables, but they don't build them to replace fossil fuels, they build them in addition to fossil fuels. We should absolutely not follow this way.

Germany has plenty of coal (and gas) plants for when the dunkelflaute happen: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-s... But even if it didn't, not only grid-scale but also large-residential-scale batteries+PV is cheaper in Germany than industrially priced nuclear, and even "small" batteries+PV are cheaper than residential electricity: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/press-releases/.…

Yes, Germany has plenty of coal reserves. Germany has about as much subbituminous coal & lignite reserves as U.S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_reserves (But neither should Germany, U.S., China, India or any other country burn fossil fuels if possible).

The levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) are pure generation costs, you take total cost of generation (building power plant, operating costs, fuel, decommissioning) over expected life time and divide it total produced energy produced over expected life time. You don't take into account electric network as physical and economical system. For example you disregard transmission, demand for electricity, costs of stabilization of the energy grid, costs of backup - dunkelflaute.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCOE

The main problem of German electrification (and in general the whole Europe) are too high prices of electricity.

The problem of too high CO2 emissions are too low CO2 prices (zero in U.S., low in China).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand

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

#442

Post by ben_w » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 1:48 PM UTC

leonidasrup wrote: post #441

ben_w wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany has plenty of coal (and gas) plants for when the dunkelflaute happen: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-s... But even if it didn't, not only grid-scale but also large-residential-scale batteries+PV is cheaper in Germany than industrially priced nuclear, and even "small" batteries+PV are cheaper than residential electricity: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/press-releases/.…

Yes, Germany has plenty of coal reserves. Germany has about as much subbituminous coal & lignite reserves as U.S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_reserves (But neither should Germany, U.S., China, India or any other country burn fossil fuels if possible). The levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) are pure generation costs, you take total cost of generation (building power plant, operating costs, fuel, decommissioni…

> Yes, Germany has plenty of coal reserves.

I don't care, I was talking about power stations. Look at charts linked in previous comment.

> For example you disregard transmission, demand for electricity, costs of stabilization of the energy grid, costs of backup - dunkelflaute.

I literally said the word "dunkelflaute" on the first line; and I have absolutely accounted for that, that's why I said what I said about batteries, and why even with those renewables are cheaper.

Transmission and demand are approximately identical for all power sources, modulo only where the specific power lines go. Well, that and that in principle one can be off-grid for PV+batteries at a reasonable cost (especially for new builds given how much a grid connection costs in the first place), which is itself rather novel, but IMO will only be worth accounting for when almost all vehicles are EVs and/or literally all new houses come with PV and it's no longer optional (last I checked this was not yet the case).

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

#443

Post by Planktonne » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 1:55 PM UTC

lelanthran wrote: post #326

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…

> In my state, we removed protections for housing and employment discrimination against trans people because... one trans athlete existed? I think you're sort of proving the parent's point - when you're in an existential fight, is it really that important that you use the limited attention of the public to fight for the rights of a single person? Trans rights ain't even that popular; most people are okay with "you th…

> when you're in an existential fight, is it really that important that you use the limited attention of the public to fight for the rights of a single person?

Yes. That's what rights are. If we don't support them for one person, we don't have them for any person.

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

#444

Post by Planktonne » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 1:57 PM UTC

Jensson wrote: post #433

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The attention to those fringe issues is brought by those conservatives and lobbyists etc who explicitly want to distract and divide attention from climate change and renewables. It's strongly my opinion that there are far fewer people championing 'wokeness' than there are 'getting outraged by it's pervasiveness'. Mainly for the fact that all media like to seize upon controversy, thus turning minor fringe issues into…

> It's strongly my opinion that there are far fewer people championing 'wokeness' than there are 'getting outraged by it's pervasiveness'. Mainly for the fact that all media like to seize upon controversy, thus turning minor fringe issues into multiple days in a row of front page headline items. You fight this by keeping your own ranks in check. The right condemns nazis and racists, so you wont find any open racists…

> The right condemns nazis and racists, so you wont find any open racists and nazis in their ranks.

This is flagrantly inaccurate.

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

#445

Post by lesuorac » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 2:02 PM UTC

array_key_first wrote: post #387

lesuorac wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is 2.0 not like 1.0? Impounding government funds, check. Using CBP (ICE) against US citizens, check. Assassinating Iranian officials, check. Tariffs, check.

It's like all of this but punched up to 10. We're dumping metric shitloads of money into ICE and basically turning them into a domestic military. We weren't doing that before. The tariffs, too, reached levels never before seen. The thing is, it was really bad the first time. We got through in spite of the incredibly dogshit fiscal policy and foreign affairs. So, if you do that again but go 10x further... will we make…

> We're dumping metric shitloads of money into ICE and basically turning them into a domestic military. We weren't doing that before.

CBP was already removing protesters and putting them into unmarked vans during 1.0. Pretty famously trump held a bible upside down after CBP removed them.

I think the thing missed is Trump didn't come from nowhere. You don't actually want to go back to the Obama years where he inflated the price of housing so the bubble didn't have to pop. Or where he was drone striking the middle east instead of withdrawing troops. Or sending "Unlawful combatants" to Guantanamo instead of closing it down and following international law. Or where he continued to cover up for Epstein ...

Not a big fan of "you have to have Hoover before FDR" but you don't want to go back to the way things were. You want to go forward to FDR 2.0.

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

#446

Post by stackbutterflow » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 2:08 PM UTC

Planktonne wrote: post #444

Jensson wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's strongly my opinion that there are far fewer people championing 'wokeness' than there are 'getting outraged by it's pervasiveness'. Mainly for the fact that all media like to seize upon controversy, thus turning minor fringe issues into multiple days in a row of front page headline items. You fight this by keeping your own ranks in check. The right condemns nazis and racists, so you wont find any open racists…

> The right condemns nazis and racists, so you wont find any open racists and nazis in their ranks. This is flagrantly inaccurate.

You can't discuss any longer with someone who believes that. You're in "the sky is green" territory.

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

#447

Post by empyrrhicist » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 2:54 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #402

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…

> the right isn't going to wake up and start caring about climate change if everyone just shuts up and lets them discriminate against the hate group of the moment No. But a lot of people in the center will listen to academics again if they don't think they're being lectured on a new definition of bigotry every fifteen minutes. Also, from what I can tell, the issue of trans rights caused issues in the centre when it l…

> No. But a lot of people in the center will listen to academics again if they don't think they're being lectured on a new definition of bigotry every fifteen minutes.

I get annoyed by some performative language games too, but I just don't see any evidence that your broader claim here is true.

> Also, from what I can tell, the issue of trans rights caused issues in the centre when it lept to kids' sports.

Most people are willing to acknowledge that the sports issue is a bit complicated, but it's also such an incredibly niche issue and so much lower stakes than everything else. People got off their couches for the sports thing because it's a "safe" environment in which to express hatred towards an out group. You can tell that it was never about sports by the actions taken by the loudest complainers on the issue (enshrining housing and employment discrimination, weird laws about forcing teachers to report violations of religious principles to parents, creepy nonsense like the bill to make lists of all trans people or mass cancel all of their drivers licenses etc.)

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

#448

Post by roryirvine » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 3:20 PM UTC

Arnt wrote: post #315

myrmidon wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This appears to directly contradict you, with exploration activity increasing in 2025 (compared to 2024) to 49 wells: https://www.norskpetroleum.no/en/exploration/exploration-act...

You're right. There must be something more to it. I notice that all the recent finds on sodir.no are close to existing fields, like 5km, or even in existing fields. My friend who told me this works in strange places, far from existing infrastructure. I assume there are different kinds of equipment, and he was talking about his kind, and I understood it to be more general.

If it's anything like the situation in the UK's part of the North Sea then it'll be development of new wells in existing fields rather than entirely new exploration.

The majors have effectively abandoned new drilling, leaving a bunch of smaller or independent players - but even they are mostly doing limited appraisal & development operations rather than exploration in the traditional sense.

If the Iran situation drags on for more than a year then there'll likely be a temporary increase in activity, but the declining trend will almost certainly continue in the longer term even without further regulatory intervention.

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

#449

Post by leonidasrup » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:08 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #442

leonidasrup wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Germany has plenty of coal reserves. Germany has about as much subbituminous coal & lignite reserves as U.S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_reserves (But neither should Germany, U.S., China, India or any other country burn fossil fuels if possible). The levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) are pure generation costs, you take total cost of generation (building power plant, operating costs, fuel, decommissioni…

> Yes, Germany has plenty of coal reserves. I don't care, I was talking about power stations . Look at charts linked in previous comment. > For example you disregard transmission, demand for electricity, costs of stabilization of the energy grid, costs of backup - dunkelflaute. I literally said the word "dunkelflaute" on the first line; and I have absolutely accounted for that, that's why I said what I said about bat…

If you want to go off-grid I would recommend in addition to PV+batteries also a passive house. In the long-term costs nothing beats good thermal insulation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house

The grid connection cost are so high because the high electric system costs, which are distributed to the market participants using grid connection cost: the transmission costs (upgrade costs of electric lines - digging earth is surprisingly costly, overhead power lines are cheaper but they are not for free, upgrade costs of transformers), costs of backup - Germany plans to build new gas power plants, which will have a very low utilization.

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

#450

Post by leonidasrup » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC

Chyzwar wrote: post #364

modo_mario wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Russia and Kazakhstan control almost 50% of global production and enrichment of uranium. Even today 17% EU supply come from Russia. Uranium mining is not pretty, read about "in situ leaching" mining.

Kazakhstan does uranium mining but doesn't do uranium enrichment. Other big uranium mining countries, which don't do uranium enrichment, are: Namibia, Canada, Australia, Uzbekistan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_Uranium_Mining_Prod...

"The following countries are known to operate enrichment facilities: Argentina, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Japan, the Netherlands, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_uranium#Global_enrich...

Uranium enrichment is military and therefor politically very sensitive process.