Iran war sparks renewables boom as Europeans rush to buy solar, heat pumps, EVs(www.euronews.com)
56 pointsby vrganj7 hours ago5 comments
  • josefritzishere5 hours ago
    If only the US was doing this too.
  • WarmWash5 hours ago
    Trump might ironically end up being the guy that pushes society over the green energy tipping point.

    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."

    • pjc505 hours ago
      UK petrol prices (at time of comment) of ~£1.50/l are equivalent to $7.50/USgal.

      People around me are expecting to see diesel at £2/l soon.

    • ghm21995 hours ago
      It all depends on how long they remain that high. After reading [1] this i would not count on it.

      [1](https://archive.ph/NLJWJ)

    • tharmas5 hours ago
      The Greenest President Ever!

      The World works in mysterious ways.

    • ghm21994 hours ago
      If it were to be so I would exclaim "What a poor vessel have we found to do this work." Sigh..
    • sampton5 hours ago
      Similar to how Hitler ushered in a whole generation of liberal demacracy and human rights protection across the world.
      • pqtyw5 hours ago
        Well Trump doesn't exactly have the sufficient work ethic, mental acuity or sense of purpose to as much damage (and hopefully not more than a handful of years left on this earth in general to end up having to shot himself in a bunker).
  • juliusceasar6 hours ago
    USA and mainly Israel are the biggest threat for the way of living in Europe.

    Especially for the economy and safety.

    • vrganj5 hours ago
      So these two are definitely amongst the biggest, but let's not forget about the Russians literally murdering our neighbors.
      • pqtyw4 hours ago
        Well Russia doesn't have much going for it besides oil, nukes (and obviously Trump propping it up).
    • xyzelement5 hours ago
      Lol every single comment in your posting history is one sentence that includes the world Israel.
      • juliusceasar4 hours ago
        Truth hurts some people. They start attacking the person instead of the message.
        • ben_w35 minutes ago
          Israel's not even close to being the biggest threat for the way of living in Europe.

          This is because Israel's neighbours who they are attacking aren't in Europe, and also there's a lot of tourists in Europe that Israel would like to be visiting them, but the point isn't why, it's just that Israel are not themselves a threat to Europe.

          USA's probably number 2 threat after Russia. But neither Israel's nor the USA's belligerence regarding Iran seems to be so much as painting a target on European backs this time around. Which may be because Iran noticed the USA threatening Europe, IDK.

    • gryzzly5 hours ago
      This account has only left comments blaming Israel. Also not a single reply to any of the top-level comments.

      100% sure this is a bot, set up by some hater.

      • gryzzly5 hours ago
        also not a single hacker-news/technology related comment
      • spaghetdefects2 hours ago
        Their comment is on topic, your's is not, and also what you're doing is against site guidelines.
    • bpodgursky5 hours ago
      If your energy policy was "hope the Ayatollah doesn't have a bad hair day", you didn't have an energy policy.

      Europe could have left their nuclear power plants turned on. Or drilled in the north sea. Or built LNG import terminals. These were all policy choices that had nothing to do with the US or Israel.

      • ben_w15 minutes ago
        > Or drilled in the north sea

        We did. Most of the oil and gas there has now been removed and sold. Oil production peaked in 1999, gas in 2001.

        If the same place, the North Sea specifically, was filled with wind farms, it could supply about half of the EU's electricity.

        (If all the waters around the British Isles had wind farms, it becomes 140% of current EU total primary energy consumption or 660% of the electricity consumption, assuming I did the substitution efficiency multiplier right).

        Guess what's getting built?

      • vrganj5 hours ago
        The energy policy is "let's build out renewables". It's happening rn and it's better than any of the options you mention.
        • NitpickLawyer5 hours ago
          > better than any of the options you mention.

          Yeah, no. Merkel's deal to shut off the nuclear plants to make a coalition was 100% a blunder. Not only in hindsight, with the dependence on russian gas, but in general it was a blunder. Nuclear gives you steady energy in ways that renewables can't. We should absolutely do more renewables, but to shut off working nuclear was not good.

          • fpoling4 hours ago
            Nuclear is not that steady. Nuclear plants require a lot of water to cool things. And when a particular hot summer happens, rivers dry out and nuclear reactors have to scale down the power production or even be shutdown. And then they require quite significant maintenance periodically.

            Granted, in Europe a hot dry summer is when solar is at its peak. So it is much lesser problem than a cold winter with a lot of cloudy days with no wind when nuclear energy is ideal.

            Still from a perspective of 20 years ago with unknown prospects about renewables natural gas power stations were considered much more reliable and flexible power source compared with nuclear and way more cleaner than coal. Of cause, as long as one gets gas.

          • this_user4 hours ago
            It is simply false that it was Merkel who decided to shut down nuclear power plants. The decision had been made over a decade earlier. She just accelerated the plan in the end after a previous unsuccessful attempt at rolling back part of it. It also wasn't even really her decision, it was the will of the people that sharply turned against nuclear after Fukushima, she just implemented it.
          • vrganj5 hours ago
            I don't disagree, though I see nuclear as an (overly expensive) bridge technology until storage becomes more built-out.
        • pqtyw4 hours ago
          Well besides being 20 years too late. Germany's energy policy was basically do nothing to build renewables, close all nuclear plants and blindly trust Russia for decades...

          Besides being a great friend of Putin one of Germany's previous chancellors was literally an openly paid Russian agent who didn't even try hiding it until 2022 (and who knows what "arrangements" he had before he left office...)

    • guywithahat5 hours ago
      It's incredible how social media addiction warps peoples minds. The US is not only the EU's largest trade partner but they're considerably freer and richer than the EU, showing a path forward for the continent. The US is not a "threat for their way of living" lol, especially when Europe is currently fighting a war in Ukraine and struggling to handle mass middle-east immigration
      • vrganj5 hours ago
        Guess where the midlle-east mass migration comes from? Surely not from the US bombing the everliving shit out of folks living there and leaving us to deal with the fallout?

        The only thing the US shows Europe is a cautionary tale of social decay and the consequences of letting Capital run their society.

        • 5 hours ago
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        • neutronicus5 hours ago
          I mean, y'all gotta own the mess in the middle east too. That's far from a US solo production.
          • vrganj5 hours ago
            The latest mess is all on the Americans. But yes, the French were also not without blame.
            • orwin4 hours ago
              When? The French are to blame for Algeria an most of Africa, but Lebanon is the ex-french colony that suffered the less from French rule, and used to be a perfect example of multiculturalism before a nearby rogue state started putting their greasy hands everywhere.

              Unless you talk about Lybia, but that's not ME (and yes, 80% of the French)

      • wiseowise5 hours ago
        > they're considerably freer and richer than the EU

        Freer to bend over for ICE thugs, or is there some other definition of freedom that you’ve meant?

        > especially when Europe is currently fighting a war in Ukraine

        Ukraine is fighting war in Ukraine with financial support of Europe. Big difference.

        > and struggling to handle mass middle-east immigration

        Caused by US bombing.

      • beloch5 hours ago
        A country can be your largest trading partner and single biggest threat to sovereignty at the same time. Just ask Canadians.

        I also take issue with the claim that Americans are freer or richer. The Iranian adventure, even were it to end immediately, has taken socialized medicine off the table for another generation of Americans, leaving typical Americans a lot poorer than salaries suggest. A ground invasion could easily bankrupt the U.S.. Meanwhile, Trump is trying to operate as a pre-Magna Carta king and the courts charged with stopping him are rapidly crumbling under pressure. This is a serious backslide into authoritarianism.

        • tharmas4 hours ago
          The irony about tRump is he sometimes says the quiet part out loud. He is a pathological liar yet at the same time he speaks truth. He revealed the USA's ruling Elite's desire to make Canada a vassal state. Arguably, the Canadian Elite did it when Brian Mulroney, (he was originally against it himself but the Business lobby told him otherwise: he dutifully complied with his donors), pushed and signed the free trade agreement: "I'm rolling the dice!". He was persuaded to put the decision to an election first. He won the majority of seats, but not the popular vote. He signed it anyway. Now, Canada finds itself in the position that his opposition warned about: that putting your eggs in one basket was taking a big risk that US wasn't going to be ruled by a Fascist Dictator.

          But thanks to the Fascist Dictator Canadians have once again woken up to the folly of tying yourself so closely to a giant who goes rogue. The Republican Party should be deeply ashamed of themselves for kowtowing to tRump. Mind you, there is plenty of things the Republican Party should be ashamed about - they helped create the situation that would make the election of tRump possible - with their poverty inducing policies. The Republican Party is as loathsome as the Nazi Party.

          And then there is the feckless Democrats. Absolutely useless.

      • 5 hours ago
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      • ginko5 hours ago
        Who do you think caused that mass immigration?
        • energy1235 hours ago
          Most recently Russia and Iran's Hezbollah in Syria, and Yemen's civil war involving Iran's Houthis and Egypt/Saudi Arabia. The US was involved in the Syrian civil war but not responsible for most of the civilian destruction. People outside the region have this childish understanding of the ME where Iraq is the only thing that happened (conveniently also forgetting the much more brutal Iran-Iraq war).
          • guywithahat4 hours ago
            And to further your point mass immigration into Europe isn't just recent; it's been happening for decades. For a while the Islamic state was encouraging attacks in Europe, and hundreds of people were killed by jihadists running cars through Christmas parades and similar events which peaked ~2016 and 2017. I think the largest was an attack in Nice, France on Bastille day killing 86 and injuring hundreds (https://grokipedia.com/page/2016_Nice_truck_attack) and another famous one I can think of was the christmas market attack in Berlin, killing 12 and injuring 56 (https://grokipedia.com/page/2016_Berlin_truck_attack). These were the result of economic immigration, unrelated to anything specific the US had done.
            • vrganj4 hours ago
              Where did the Islamic State come from?

              The power vacuum after the US messed up Iraq and Syria. Every single wave of mass migration towards Europe is the direct result of the US choosing to bomb the Middle East. That's also part of why this time around, everybody's quite this annoyed at America.

              Also please, use serious sources.

      • pjc505 hours ago
        > It's incredible how social media addiction warps peoples minds

        The most prominent victim of this appears to be the US president himself.

      • Insanity5 hours ago
        Have you missed the events of the past year under Trump? With literal claims of taking over EU territory?

        I know that Trump is the equivalent of a hallucinating LLM, but you can’t just ignore his words whenever convenient.

      • ragall5 hours ago
        > considerably freer and richer than the EU

        Cope harder. The US doesn't offer a single example of being better than the EU.

        • GJim5 hours ago
          It's always better to back up ones arguments with facts.

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

          The USA really hasn't been doing well lately.

          • ragall4 hours ago
            That's just a small part of it. EU has a better quality of life, better food, better housing, better public infrastructure.
        • oceanplexian5 hours ago
          At least the US still has energy infrastructure, while the EU is forced to financially support Dictators in Tehran and Moscow to keep their economy from collapsing.
          • ben_w2 minutes ago
            Oil is (close to) fungible, which means the higher prices in US fuel pumps are just as much financially supporting dictators in Tehran and Moscow as EU fuel pumps.

            Ironically, the "close to" part is just enough to prevent the USA from isolating itself from the world market by refining and using what it currently exports.

          • vrganj5 hours ago
            This article is literally about Europe rapidly building out its sovereign energy infrastructure?
  • storus4 hours ago
    EVs are still a bit underwhelming wrt range - ideally either 450miles/700km or 5 minute 20->80% recharge at an acceptable price (35k EUR) should be the norm. For cities it doesn't matter but for longer vacation trips it's a must, nobody wants to waste 3 hours on a 1100km trip recharging. Chinese EVs might be able to deliver it at this price point (BYD) but EU adds additional (up to) 45% in extra fees to penalize Chinese EV makers and to prevent collapse of EU car makers.
    • Gud4 hours ago
      Honest question, how often do you drive 1100km?
      • storus4 hours ago
        On average once a month? Going skiing/biking in the mountains for the weekend or to some sea/lake with a boat.
        • 878654Toman hour ago
          Once a month you embark on a 10 hour drive to spend a weekend skiing/boating and then returning with another 10 hour drive?

          So for 2 days of doing such activity you'll spent 20 hours in a car?

        • Gud2 hours ago
          That’s a very unusual usage pattern.
          • storus2 hours ago
            I assume that's the comment you wanted to make all the time.
    • toomuchtodo4 hours ago
      1 in 4 vehicles sold globally last year were EVs, and they are >50% of the monthly sales in China, the largest market in the world. EVs are mostly solved, even though they will continue to rapidly improve, both range and charging infrastructure. Norway is at ~100% monthly EV sales, other countries will get there eventually.

      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)

  • longislandguido5 hours ago
    Yeah Europeans are going to stick to their little diesel city cars.

    Many Europeans cannot afford iPhones as they are an overpriced costly luxury there, yet I'm supposed to believe they're all going out tomorrow to buy solar panels. Right.

    Heat pumps? They're famous for hating air conditioning and mostly heat their homes with hydronic, but whatever.