https://reneweconomy.com.au/households-still-going-big-on-so...
It's Iran turning the strait into a wedge between US and the rest of their previous partners. The US has enough oil for themselves, but the hurt is felt everywhere else. And the cause of that hurt points in one direction (the US)
It'd sure be awesome if regulations and regulators in Western countries weren't stupid. This whole game is just insane.
Let's just pawn it of on China, arbitrage the regulatory and human rights differential, and pretend the value is the same as if it's locally manufactured. Then we pocket the difference! Number go up!
Chinese solar exports double in a month to hit record high amid energy crisis - https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/chinese-solar-export... - April 23rd, 2026
Is there anything there about Chinese share?
I had the understanding they produce the vast vast majority as well, but that seems belied by exports doubling near instantaneously with demand? That made me wonder if there’s a lower cost floor producer(s) with, say, 10-20% of production that quickly got booked
It's a perfect storm for China, they're leading in EVs, battery production, renewables. While the US is busy undermining itself from all directions: as a military superpower, cultural, political, economical.
Europe is waking up slowly, but it is shackled by high internal energy prices, not enough labor, and low desire for innovation.
To me it seems it is a dictatorship with cult leadership again. Xi reminds me more of a modern version of Mao Zedong (without the focus on starving millions to death though). The main reason I see China having a dictator again is so that he can push ahead with his plans of invading Taiwan.
> Europe is waking up slowly
Where do you see that? I don't see it anywhere. They are sleeping.
Many Democracies have learnt that politics cannot be trusted in certain fields due to this reason many governments ensure interest rates are not controlled by politicians such as the Federal Reserve. Perhaps we should treat education as something that cannot be trusted by politicians and controlled by an impartial independent organization.
* 15% of British power generation is already de-linked from the gas power price. This is from 10 GW of operational renewable capacity currently covered by the price-setting Contracts for Difference scheme.
* A third (36%) of power generation in Britain will be priced independently of gas by 2030, according to forecasts of generation from the Contracts for Difference scheme. Up to 36 GW of competitively-priced new wind and solar is under development by 2032 through the scheme.
* Hours where gas was below 20% of Britain’s electricity mix averaged £60/MWh in 2025, compared to £130/MWh in hours where gas made up more than 50% of the mix.
* The gas share of power generation fell to a second record monthly low in a row in Britain in April 2026. The gas share in both March (27%) and April (19%) was the lowest per month in over a decade. In March, wind supplied a monthly record 42% of all power generation.
(As more wind, solar, batteries, and transmission are deployed in the UK, fossil gas power share will continue to decline until pushed out of the generation mix)
1. OPEC/OPEC+ meet every 3 months to adjust output based on expected demand to keep oil prices relatively stable. That is, they want to maintain a floor and a ceiling. Too low and they don't make enough money. Too high and it causes political instability and threatens oil-for-security guarantees that have existed since FDR agreed to such with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia in 1945;
2. Oil has different flavors based largley on how light or heavy the hydrocarbon blend is (called API Gravity) and the sulfur content. this is what Brent and West Texas Light Crude means. Generally, lighter crude is more valuable because it makes more valuable products like avgas and gasoline;
3. Oil is traded on both spot (physical) markets and future (paper) markets. A futures contract is a standardized contract for 1000 barrels of oil of a particular blend delivered or received (depending on which side you're on) on a given date. Generally, when we see oil prices in the news we are looking at futures prices. Historically short-dated futures prices and spot prices have been pretty similar. Spot prices are proprietary but this didn't matter. Now it does as that link has been broken [1]
3. When the world shut down in March 2020 due to the pandemic oil demand fell off a cliff and supplies backed up in production facilities. People weren't taking delivery and oil prices briefly went negative (technically, this was an "extreme contango" market);
4. Because of this, the Trump administration cajoled MBS to get OPEC to cut oil production [2][3][4]. This was a 2 year agreement that initially cut oil production by 9.7 million barrels per day ("Mbpd") going to to 6.3Mbpd ultimately. IMHO the administration panicked that US oil producers would go belly up. This represented ~10% of the world's crude oil supply;
5. In 2021 oil demand came roaring back. Prices went through the roof; and
6. Republicans blamed Biden. The Biden administration tried to get OPEC to increase production [5] and Biden never blamed OPEC or even Trump. Democrats took the "oil companies bad" approach.
This 2 year deal was completely unnecessary. OPEC would've cut production as necessary anyway. And it entirely matches the increase in oil and gas prices and inflation for this 2 year period and nobody ever mentions it.
Russia invading Ukraine in early 2022 was just the cherry on the cake.
Look at that chart. Where it's marked as "COVID-19" is March-April 2020. The deal begins in June 2020. It ended in June 2022, which is at the exact point of the big red bar to the right of the Russian invasion, after which oil prices dropped despite the fact that the war was still going on (and still is).
[1]: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/iran-war-has-sha...
[2]: https://www.reuters.com/article/economy/special-report-trump...
[3]: https://www.reuters.com/commentary/reuters-open-interest/tru...
[4]: https://www.reuters.com/article/business/opec-agrees-largest...
[5]: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-call-opec-its-a...
This was only way to get them to use renewables and re-think that maybe electric vehicles are not just 'woke' but also can help 'national security'.
Create Crises, to swing economy to electric and renewables faster than EV subsidies ever could.
He can't even stay consistent in 1D.
What a mess.
Renewables don't have the same level of external dependence on a constant flow of instantaneously used fuel. So while I do agree with you, it is an energy issue regardless of your politics.
I mean that might be true for you, but its been on the radar over here for a number of years. (it was also a key risk with Iran identified by a number of key intelligence think tanks. especially around the time of the anti-nuclear treaty negotiations)
But to your point, youre right its not an energy issue, its an energy and materials issue. There are lots of pre-cursor chemicals and products that come out of that region that the modern world needs to function.
The more pressing issue is the fertiliser price spike: https://ycharts.com/indicators/fertilizers_index_world_bank which has yet to fully mateirlaise.
You'll note that spike corolate with lots of civil unrest
However, if you were financially struggling before this happened, you are in for a world of hurt. Food, fuel, fertilizers, and dozens of downstream refined products are going to see large price increases for months to years.
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Irans-Oil...
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Persian-Gulf-Oil-...
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/28/oil-inventory-exxon-strait-h...
E.g. the US specialises in software; China in PV and batteries; EU in industrial equipment; the Middle East, oil; Australia IIRC is minerals; each trades what they're optimised for in exchange for what the others are optimised for, and are better off for it.
This works only so long as nobody is dominating a strategic sector, something that everyone needs but they are such a major player they get to set the prices. Monopolistic behaviour, but from a nation that cannot be sued for it rather than a corporation which can be ordered broken up.
Unfortunately, OPEC was already a thing even before Hormuz, the MAGA tariffs are confused and seem to be trying to make the US into an autarky but also keeping trade open so it can be taxed, and China seems to want to be dependent on nobody else while also keeping everyone else dependent on them, which currently leaves the EU and similar currently holding this particular hot potato and goodness only knows in which direction and on what schedule we'll yeet it elsewhere.
My comment points out that, yes, China is wildly benefiting from this. They have 80%+ of the global solar PV market. They also have a deflationary macro environment encouraging persistent exports, along with 1/3rd of global manufacturing capacity.
TLDR China has enough manufacturing capacity slack to support scaling exports at this scale immediately.
(tangentially, they have the capacity to build 20M EVs per year, roughly 1/4th of annual global demand for light vehicles: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48379805)
China’s Solar PV Export Explorer - https://ember-energy.org/data/chinas-solar-pv-export-explore... (“The latest solar PV export data from the world’s largest exporter, China, by country or region of destination. Data updated on a monthly basis.”)
> The IEA has stated that China’s solar photovoltaic exports account for 80% of the global market. While there is a wide variety of products that make up the solar supply chain, panels, cells and wafers make up the majority of exports by trade value, and can be expressed in GW terms. Ember tracks these products to give a clearer picture of the global solar supply chain.
https://www.iea.org/reports/solar-pv-global-supply-chains/ex...
> China has invested over USD 50 billion in new PV supply capacity – ten times more than Europe − and created more than 300 000 manufacturing jobs across the solar PV value chain since 2011. Today, China’s share in all the manufacturing stages of solar panels (such as polysilicon, ingots, wafers, cells and modules) exceeds 80%. This is more than double China’s share of global PV demand. In addition, the country is home to the world’s 10 top suppliers of solar PV manufacturing equipment. China has been instrumental in bringing down costs worldwide for solar PV, with multiple benefits for clean energy transitions. At the same time, the level of geographical concentration in global supply chains also creates potential challenges that governments need to address.
None of this touches on standing charges, I don't know how that works in the USA, in Australia for an average household it runs at AUD 1.00/day to AUD 1.50/day (USD 0.70/day to USD 1.00/day). For an average household the standing charge is going to add 15 to 20% to the tariff.
U.S. PPI is in the double digits as is MoM CPI. And while Republicans are seeing losses in polling, the IRGC is consolidating power. Both Iran and America are bleeding. But it seems clear that it’s in the IRGC’s interest to draw this one out for goodies. That’s why Tehran escalating while Trump desperately tries and fails to run home.
Their planning is so good it's turned this into the largest strategic embarrassment in the last... 80 years?
Just look at the post brexit UK or Meloni's Italy...
No amounts of deportations meaningfully affect the demographics. They can at most slow down the new immigration. For all his bluster, Trump deported barely more people than the long-term average in 2025.
But more importantly, the "far right" in Europe is far less crazy than in the US, and they support re-establishing local industry.
> police speech
Europe has never had absolutely free speech like the US. It's by design.
They don't have it in the US either, they just love to flex it while not understanding how it's implemented in practice