Iran war sparks renewables boom as Europeans rush to buy solar, heat pumps, EVs
euronews.com
euronews.com
People in the US still don't like feeling like hostages, and this episode is a stark reminder of that.
The last geopolitical oil shocks of the 1970s resulted in huge efficiency increases in transportation and energy - this will likely do the same, but with current technologies.
https://electrek.co/2026/03/25/eia-new-solar-wind-storage-ca...
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-energy-manufactur...
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/balcony-solar-tak...
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/were-harvesting-t...
> Solar power makes up 51% of the planned 2026 capacity additions, followed by battery storage at 28% and wind at 14%.
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/china-energy-transi...
https://www.cfr.org/articles/china-is-planning-decades-ahead...
https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/07/10/1119941/china-en...
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/china-renewable-photo-essay
https://english.www.gov.cn/archive/statistics/202601/30/cont...
The economics of it are just too good. Adding grid connectivity seems to be the bottleneck right now.
Fuck that.
Many counties have made it so that solar only makes sense if you are wildcatting it out in some remote place where the planning and zoning fascists won't find you out. In such case you can install it for an order of magnitude cheaper and then it actually makes sense.
Meanwhile I can build a 200 foot tall oil derrick on my land with NO PERMIT WHATSOEVER because of course the oil companies had the political influence to exempt oil related infrastructure from requirements.
As always, this is an OSI layer 8 people problem; if you can and want to, get involved.
(joking, but wow that really does highlight how absolutely dysfunctional US regulation is, no wonder everyone over there hates their government)
EVs were all the rage a few years ago, but they were expensive and gas prices collapsed. However if we get another $5-$6/gal gut punch, a lot of people will probably say "You know what? I'm done with this shit."
People around me are expecting to see diesel at £2/l soon.
To the point of the comment you're replying to, US cars are infamously inefficient compared to European cars, and also there's that old quote about how "In the US 100 years is a long time, while in Europe 100 miles is a long way", so the US can still get a price shock even with cheaper fuel than the UK/EU.
The World works in mysterious ways.
Importantly, we should expect to go faster as EV sales reach a point where combustion sales have declined to a level where they can no longer support combustion vehicle manufacturers as a going concern. Peak global combustion auto sales occurred in 2017.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47459145 (citations)
> “Electric cars” include battery-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles
https://cleantechnica.com/2026/02/03/global-ev-sales-leaders...
https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2025
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-car-sales-battery-p...
"What unplanned EV road trips in cold weather (5°F/-15°C) are actually like these days" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebGLFVzvdfM
It's standard to charge from 10->80% or even less like 20->60% when doing road trips. People that don't own EVs assume that it's always 0->100%. However, even in a gas vehicle you'd never start at 0% (I'd fill up at 25%->100%).
The result is that you spend significantly less time charging than you expect. For me, it's usually 10 to 15 minutes per stop. Sometimes it's as long as 20. But that's generally after about 2 to 3 hours of driving.
It's actually funny because I've owned my EV since 2018 and my parents STILL try to insist that I can't do road trips in it. Even though I visit them pretty frequently and do 6 hour trips pretty regularly.
The other thing that is commonly missed is that you spend almost no time charging most of the time. It's only road trips where you spend any time waiting for a charge. That's because you are (likely) charging your car at home. The video referenced even shows that it's possible to do that with just a 120V outlet available.
About 2 hours. And as luck would have it, I also did that trip with an ICE. My non-driving time added about an hour.
> Compare it with gas station's 20 minutes overall including a short toilet break.
Which you still need to do at least a couple of times driving 700 miles. Also, that's 10 hours of driving, you need more than just a single 20 minute break for that much driving.
> For rapid charging you also need an expensive EV,
If you are making 700 mile trips, you'll need an EV with decent range anyways. All of those support fast charging.
Actually, all EVs I'm aware of support fast charging. The slowest I know of is the leaf, but even that supports 50kW charging.
Look, if you are in the business of doing a weekly 700 mile drive in the snow pulling a loaded trailer, don't get an EV. You have my blessing. Most people aren't doing anything like that. My 700 mile round trip happens twice a year, roughly, and the added 1 hour over an ICE is no big deal. Distances more than that, and I'm probably flying.
That's a bad faith reading of my comment. Do better.
So for 2 days of doing such activity you'll spent 20 hours in a car?