The hottest Energy Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Technology Topics

US Calls Iranian Retaliatory Strikes "Unprovoked", And Other Notes

Caitlinā€™s Newsletter ā€¢ 3073 implied HN points ā€¢ 02 Mar 26
šŸŒ World Politics Energy
  1. Military action by the US and Israel against Iran has escalated into open conflict, killing Iranian civiliansā€”including many schoolgirlsā€”and causing US military casualties after Iranā€™s retaliatory strikes.
  2. US officials calling Iranā€™s strikes ā€œunprovokedā€ looks hypocritical given the prior attacks, and the information war is full of misattribution and propaganda.
  3. Iran is refusing quick deals and says it must inflict costs to establish deterrence, while the wider conflict is worsening humanitarian crises like Gazaā€™s border closure and looming food shortages.

Should US homebuilders emulate Sweden?

Construction Physics ā€¢ 28185 implied HN points ā€¢ 01 Jan 26
šŸ’¼ Business Energy
  1. Sweden has widely adopted prefabricated housing, but the observable data donā€™t show clear productivity gains or lower costs for single-family homes compared with the US.
  2. New Swedish homes cost substantially more per square foot than US homes, and higher energy-efficiency and construction standards partly explain that premium, so prefab hasnā€™t obviously made them cheaper.
  3. Factory-built methods do offer benefits like better quality control, faster delivery, and predictable pricing, and they may be more promising for multifamily projects, but the cost and productivity advantages there remain uncertain.

America must embrace the Electric Age, or fall behind

Noahpinion ā€¢ 26823 implied HN points ā€¢ 09 Jan 26
šŸ•¹ Technology Energy
  1. The Electric Tech Stackā€”lithiumā€‘ion batteries, rareā€‘earth motors, power electronics, and solarā€”is making electricity replace combustion across cars, drones, robots, and many other products.
  2. China is scaling up mass production of these technologies while U.S. politics and weak infrastructure (like charging and battery plants) are holding America back.
  3. Mastering the electric stack is vital for economic and national security because batteries and power electronics underlie AI, data centers, drones, and defense; the U.S. must make it easier to build and scale highā€‘tech manufacturing.

Will Africa still be energy-poor in 2050?

Sustainability by numbers ā€¢ 349 implied HN points ā€¢ 17 Mar 26
šŸŒž Climate & Environment Energy
  1. Under mainstream energy scenarios, electricity use per person in Africa will still be very low by 2050, leaving many people unable to power basic appliances or cool their homes.
  2. The key reason is weak economic growth ā€” without stronger GDP and industrial development, electricity demand and access wonā€™t rise much.
  3. Cheaper solar and storage can help lower costs, but they wonā€™t close the gap by themselves; affordable power plus broad economic development are both needed to lift billions out of deep energy poverty.

Top Links 1036 Indiaā€™s trade deficit, CO2 Emissions of Chocolate, and US Bases in Italy.

Chartbook ā€¢ 515 implied HN points ā€¢ 09 Mar 26
šŸŒ International Energy
  1. Indiaā€™s trade deficit is largely shaped by oil imports, with the rest of goods adding to the shortfall.
  2. Chocolate production has a significant CO2 footprint, showing that everyday foods can carry meaningful environmental costs.
  3. The network of US military bases in Italy is a notable strategic and political factor, influencing both regional geopolitics and domestic debates.
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The Saturday Selection, Vol. 95

Why is this interesting? ā€¢ 361 implied HN points ā€¢ 07 Mar 26
šŸ“° News Energy
  1. Luckin Coffee is growing fast and is set to buy Blue Bottle, a bold move that ramps up its challenge to big coffee chains.
  2. Tanker Trackers is using satellites and drones to follow global oil shipments, making energy flows much more visible and traceable.
  3. Apple is shifting pricing and marketing ā€” neutral iPhone colors cost less, ads are getting louder, and a new MacBook starts at $499 ā€” pointing to a change in its product strategy.

How AI Labs Are Solving the Power Crisis: The Onsite Gas Deep Dive

SemiAnalysis ā€¢ 20002 implied HN points ā€¢ 30 Dec 25
šŸ’¼ Business Energy
  1. The electric grid canā€™t keep up with exploding AI datacenter demand, so labs are increasingly bypassing it and building onsite gas power to get capacity online months faster and capture huge revenue.
  2. Datacenters pick from aeroderivative and industrial turbines, reciprocating engines, and fuel cells, each with clear tradeoffs in cost, lead time, ramp speed, efficiency, and space needs.
  3. Suppliers and supply chains are bottlenecked and high-reliability needs force overbuilding, so onsite power is often pricier per kWh and operators use hybridsā€”rented truck units, batteries, and Energy-as-a-Serviceā€”to balance speed, cost, and uptime.

Big Joe Jafurah

Doomberg ā€¢ 7264 implied HN points ā€¢ 31 Jan 26
šŸŒ International Energy
  1. The Middle East still burns a huge amount of oil for electricity ā€” roughly 1.8 million barrels per day ā€” showing local energy use has been wasteful and oil-heavy.
  2. Many countries in the region have underdeveloped natural gas sectors: even with Iran, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia included, overall gas output trails major producers and flaring has risen to nearly 5 billion cubic feet per day, wasting valuable fuel.
  3. That is changing fastā€”global LNG and gas infrastructure expansion is pushing the Middle East to develop and export its gas, and the regionā€™s gas landscape will look very different within the next five years with major global impacts.

How to Reopen the Strait of Hormuz

Common Sense with Bari Weiss ā€¢ 524 implied HN points ā€¢ 13 Mar 26
šŸŒ World Politics Energy
  1. Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz and declared that closure part of its official policy, blocking commercial traffic.
  2. The U.S. can reopen the strait by military force, but it would be risky, require a large, sustained naval effort, and likely take weeks before civilian shipping is safe.
  3. Historical operations show the U.S. has protected Gulf shipping and struck Iranian forces before, but the current campaign would be larger and more complex.

Roundup #75: Checking in on the Bad Guys

Noahpinion ā€¢ 16000 implied HN points ā€¢ 14 Jan 26
šŸŒ World Politics Energy
  1. Iranā€™s mass unrest is rooted largely in economic and resource failures ā€” severe water shortages, power cuts, runaway inflation, and sanctions have crushed living standards and helped spark protests.
  2. China is using export controls and other levers to block Indiaā€™s rise in strategic manufacturing (especially batteries), because Beijing sees Indian industrialization as a geopolitical threat.
  3. Russiaā€™s wartime economy is weaker than it looks on paper ā€” likely understated inflation, falling real incomes, lower oil revenues, and attacks on infrastructure are straining its long-term capacity.

The Shrinking Economic Weight of Energy

The Honest Broker Newsletter ā€¢ 1177 implied HN points ā€¢ 02 Mar 26
šŸŒž Climate & Environment Energy
  1. Since 1970 the physical energy intensity of major fossil fuels has fallen sharplyā€”about 70% for gasoline, 64% for natural gas, and 84% for coalā€”driven by 1970s price shocks, policy, technology, and a shift toward services.
  2. The 1970s were a turning point: economic growth began to decouple from rising fuel use so GDP could grow while physical fuel consumption fell, but the share of GDP spent on energy still swings with volatile global commodity prices.
  3. Coal now represents a vanishingly small share of the economy (around 0.1% of GDP) despite high political attention, while electricityā€™s intensity has declined less because the economy is electrifying and could rise again if EVs and AI data centers boost demand.

Borrowed Time

Doomberg ā€¢ 8235 implied HN points ā€¢ 23 Jan 26
šŸŒ World Politics Energy
  1. EU leaders face weak accountability: Kaja Kallas was promoted to the EU's top diplomat role despite revelations that her husband's company continued doing business with Russia, highlighting hypocrisy and limited political consequences.
  2. The EU's foreign policy machinery is overlapping and ineffective, with roles and authority spread across institutions in ways that create confusion and make coordinated strategy difficult. Putting relatively inexperienced people into those powerful but ill-defined posts makes the problem worse.
  3. The EU has alienated many major powers and is drifting without a clear geopolitical strategy while facing economic and energy weaknesses. Those fragilities could spark a severe crisis or political shake-up if there is an energy shock, a defeat in Ukraine, or dramatic geopolitical moves elsewhere.

How Accurate Are Learning Curves?

Construction Physics ā€¢ 19208 implied HN points ā€¢ 24 Dec 25
šŸ•¹ Technology Energy
  1. Learning rates often change over time and many cost-versus-production curves show breakpoints instead of a single straight line on a logā€“log plot.
  2. Early learning rates are weak predictors of later learning rates, so using a single historical rate to forecast future costs is unreliable.
  3. Allowing learning rates to change probabilistically (piecewise models) can improve forecasts for some technologies, but the gains are modest and depend on the product, so combining probabilistic outside-view methods with technologyā€‘specific insideā€‘view analysis is most useful.

Assisted Thinking

Doomberg ā€¢ 8288 implied HN points ā€¢ 20 Jan 26
šŸŒž Climate & Environment Energy
  1. China relies heavily on coal, with coal making up roughly 58% of its primary energy and the country burning over half of the worldā€™s coal.
  2. Western media often praises Chinaā€™s climate leadership, but that praise can be misleading because Chinaā€™s emissions and coal use remain very large and have grown.
  3. Headlines saying renewables have overtaken coal or that China is leading a clean-energy revolution can depend on specific accounting choices and short-term data, so those claims need careful scrutiny against broader energy statistics.

āš›ļø A nuclear step forwardā€”maybe

Faster, Please! ā€¢ 1553 implied HN points ā€¢ 05 Mar 26
šŸŒž Climate & Environment Energy
  1. A new kind of nuclear reactor has been approved, offering a path to reliable, carbon-free power, but small modular reactors remain expensive and their economics will only improve if costs fall with repeated, mass-produced builds.
  2. Electricity demand is rising fast because of AI data centers, electric vehicles, and electrified heating, so the grid needs much more generation and transmission soon; in the near term solar and batteries will add capacity while natural gas provides reliability.
  3. Data centers function like infrastructure rather than big job creators ā€” they use few permanent staff, bring substantial tax revenue, and impose little strain on local services; they can also spur local power investments (including on-site small modular reactors), though opposition often mixes environmental concerns with distrust of big tech.

Reading List 01/17/2026

Construction Physics ā€¢ 9186 implied HN points ā€¢ 17 Jan 26
šŸ•¹ Technology Energy
  1. The Department of Energy appears to be moving away from the ALARA radiation-safety principle, which could lower nuclear project costs but also change long-standing safety practices.
  2. Big tech is betting on nuclear power to fuel AI centers, with Meta backing new reactors and buying output from existing plants to secure gigawatts of electricity by the early 2030s.
  3. OLED displays give brighter colors and faster refresh rates but use uneven subpixel layouts that can cause colored fringing on text and static graphics, due to blue-pixel lifespan limits, human vision quirks, and manufacturing constraints.

My native intelligence considers AI data centers

The Crucial Years ā€¢ 2700 implied HN points ā€¢ 21 Feb 26
šŸŒž Climate & Environment Energy
  1. The fast rush to build AI data centers could massively raise electricity use and lead to lots of onsite gas plants, heavy water use, and local pollution unless projects are powered by new clean energy.
  2. Thereā€™s real uncertainty about how much useful, profitable demand AI will actually create, so many proposed data centers may be speculative and the industry could be in a bubble.
  3. Communities and advocates are calling for pauses and stronger rules because of climate and local harms, and thereā€™s a growing need for transparency and clean-energy requirements if these projects move forward.

The Resource Wars Have Begun

Anima Mundi ā€¢ 1009 implied HN points ā€¢ 28 Feb 26
šŸŒ World Politics Energy
  1. Control of raw materials ā€” oil, rare earths, cobalt, uranium, gold ā€” is the central driver of many current wars and diplomatic moves. Conflicts from Iran to Venezuela to the DRC are being shaped more by resource access than by ideology.
  2. Three competing strategies are colliding: the US uses transactional military leverage for resource access, China builds long-term infrastructure and standards to secure supplies, and Russia funds war through extraction while shadow actors profit. That collision is creating a multipolar scramble with no clear global rules or effective institutions.
  3. The resource scramble risks cascading global crises ā€” energy chokepoints, nuclear proliferation, supplyā€‘chain collapses if Taiwan is attacked, and worsening humanitarian and democratic breakdowns. These cascades threaten markets, food and energy security, and accelerate the weakening of dollar dominance.

On Dwarkesh Patel's 2026 Podcast With Elon Musk and Other Recent Elon Musk Things

Don't Worry About the Vase ā€¢ 3404 implied HN points ā€¢ 17 Feb 26
šŸ•¹ Technology Energy
  1. Elon appears confused about alignment and is willing to build AI that could far exceed human intelligence. He frames expanding intelligence as acceptable or even desirable even if humans become a tiny fraction of total intelligence.
  2. Heā€™s betting big on engineering fixes: data centers and chip fabs in space, mass-produced robots, and digital humans as the path to massive compute and revenue. Those plans depend on huge energy, new chip capacity, and rapid scaling via rockets.
  3. xAIā€™s safety stance looks weak, with high safety-team turnover and leadership downplaying dedicated safety roles while encouraging fast pushes to production. That combination raises real concerns about inadequate oversight and testing.

Does Peak Population Mean Peak Energy?

The Honest Broker Newsletter ā€¢ 1629 implied HN points ā€¢ 23 Feb 26
šŸŒž Climate & Environment Energy
  1. A smaller global population does not automatically mean lower energy use. Rapid development in large, low-income countries means total energy demand can keep rising even if population peaks.
  2. Even with fewer people overall, the number of wealthy people will likely keep growing, driving up demand for energy-intensive services like air conditioning and air travel. So per-person energy use and some forms of total energy demand can still increase.
  3. Lower population projections imply lower future CO2 emissions and mean many climate scenarios are outdated; updating population and growth assumptions points to less warming by 2100, though climate risks still remain.

She Was Nearly Recruited Into Epsteinā€™s Worldā€”by Her Closest Friend. Plus. . .

Common Sense with Bari Weiss ā€¢ 403 implied HN points ā€¢ 12 Mar 26
šŸ“° News Energy
  1. A Ukrainian actress narrowly escaped being recruited into Jeffrey Epsteinā€™s network by a close friend, showing how peer pressure and enablers helped his operation spread across countries.
  2. The war with Iran is reshaping geopolitics and markets ā€” from an unprecedented joint oil release and disrupted shipping to high military costs and targeting mistakes ā€” while some see the crisis creating space for new diplomatic deals like an Abraham Accords 2.0.
  3. Conservative politics are fracturing in unexpected ways: MAGA may be less split on Iran than media claim, Texas conservatives sometimes oppose formal school prayer, and the GOP faces internal tensions over issues like antiā€‘Muslim sentiment and politically driven vaccine decisions.

āš” War reminds us of civilizationā€™s true currency

Faster, Please! ā€¢ 913 implied HN points ā€¢ 09 Mar 26
šŸŒ World Politics Energy
  1. Energy is civilization's universal currency. Almost everything we do needs energy transformed into useful work, and our prosperity depends on mastering that transformation.
  2. Geopolitical conflicts and shocks quickly show how vulnerable modern life is to fuel disruptions, for example by pushing up gasoline prices.
  3. The global food system relies heavily on fossil-fuel-driven processes like using natural gas for the Haber-Bosch fertilizer synthesis, so energy disruptions can raise fertilizer and food costs worldwide.

Reading List 1/10/2026

Construction Physics ā€¢ 9395 implied HN points ā€¢ 10 Jan 26
šŸ•¹ Technology Energy
  1. California now requires landlords to provide a working stove and refrigerator, ending the common practice of renters buying and moving appliances themselves.
  2. Parents are turning to robotaxis like Waymo to shuttle kids when buses and ride-hail services are unreliable, which raises enforcement questions because minors are technically barred from riding alone in some places.
  3. To meet massive data-center power needs, companies are proposing unconventional sources such as repurposed naval reactors, jet engines, and gas turbines instead of waiting for new grid power.

Top Links 1032 Hormuz to Asia. Cuba goes solar. Gramsci on sex and production & Brecht on shooting people like me.

Chartbook ā€¢ 457 implied HN points ā€¢ 05 Mar 26
šŸŒ World Politics Energy
  1. U.S. LNG exports have created a new decade in global gas trade, reshaping energy flows and geopolitical links from the Gulf (Hormuz) to Asian markets.
  2. Cuba is embracing solar power, marking a notable shift toward renewable energy and greater island energy resilience.
  3. There is renewed engagement with thinkers like Gramsci and Brecht, using their ideas about sex, production, and violence to rethink political and cultural conflicts.

The battery breakthrough we've been waiting for? (Odds and Ends #90)

Odds and Ends of History ā€¢ 670 implied HN points ā€¢ 12 Mar 26
šŸ•¹ Technology Energy
  1. A featured podcast episode covers opening NHS data for scientific research and explains how the Net Zero transition makes electricity pricing much more complicated.
  2. Coverage mixes politics and tech, with pieces on what the collapse of communism teaches the abundance movement, analysis of Labourā€™s 'hero voters', and tech stories like a possible EV charging/battery breakthrough plus a sharp takedown of a bad AI argument.
  3. Thereā€™s a short take on Britainā€™s Eurovision entry and its chances, and longer essay content is behind a subscription (a 7ā€‘day free trial is offered), though the planned essay has been delayed by illness.

Weekend Update #176: Ukraine Is Showing Its Value, Particularly For Europe

Phillipsā€™s Newsletter ā€¢ 368 implied HN points ā€¢ 15 Mar 26
šŸŒ World Politics Energy
  1. Ukraine has become a fast-growing military tech hub, producing cost-effective anti-drone systems, mid-range strike drones, and other innovations that can quickly help allies and should be central to Europeā€™s defense future.
  2. Recent U.S. movesā€”downplaying Russiaā€™s role in arming Iran and easing oil sanctionsā€”have effectively boosted Russian revenue and helped Moscow project power that endangers U.S. and allied forces.
  3. Hungaryā€™s seizure of Ukrainian gold and its ties to Putin show that some European states are actively undermining Ukraine and European unity, underscoring the need for Europe to back Ukraine and fix its political structures.

Reading List 12/20/25

Construction Physics ā€¢ 12735 implied HN points ā€¢ 20 Dec 25
šŸ•¹ Technology Energy
  1. A fusion startup is merging with a media company to combine fusion technology with access to capital and pursue utility-scale fusion power plants.
  2. Teslaā€™s robotaxi fleet is crashing much more often than typical human drivers, raising serious safety concerns and standing in contrast to safer autonomous services like Waymo.
  3. iRobot has filed for bankruptcy and will be taken over by its main Chinese supplier, showing that even consumer-robot leaders can fail amid competition and failed acquisition efforts.

Emerging Glut

Doomberg ā€¢ 6294 implied HN points ā€¢ 14 Jan 26
šŸ’¼ Business Energy
  1. U.S. propane production has surged with the shale boom, rising roughly fivefold since 2010 to nearly 2.5 million barrels per day.
  2. Storage, pipeline, and transport capacity are being stretched, so the coming flood of propane will strain infrastructure and create risks for energy producers.
  3. Propane is widely used for home heating and farm grain drying, but demand is limited, so the growing surplus could depress markets and most people outside the industry donā€™t realize it yet.

This Is How an Energy Crisis Starts. Plus. . .

Common Sense with Bari Weiss ā€¢ 454 implied HN points ā€¢ 09 Mar 26
šŸŒ World Politics Energy
  1. The war is raising the risk of a global energy crisis as strikes and threats to the Strait of Hormuz and Iranā€™s Kharg Island are disrupting oil exports and sending prices sharply higher.
  2. Iranā€™s Kurds remain the regimeā€™s most determined internal opponents and will be central to any future change, but they are unlikely to mount a large-scale invasion into Iran despite outside expectations.
  3. The conflict is reshaping geopolitics and security: it weakens Gulf hub cities and could shift finance to places like Singapore or Cape Town, while also stoking terrorism scares and contentious domestic political reactions.

Intelligent Design

Doomberg ā€¢ 6418 implied HN points ā€¢ 10 Jan 26
šŸ’¼ Business Energy
  1. Ohio's shale gas boom has given the state abundant, low-cost natural gas and cheap electricity, helping revive its industrial prospects.
  2. About 60% of Ohio's power comes from natural gas while coal and nuclear supply most of the rest and wind and solar contribute under 8%, with prices shaped by the PJM regional grid.
  3. State leaders put in place a regulatory framework that encourages large data center construction while protecting consumers, making Ohio a likely model for other energy-rich states.

Lost in Space

Doomberg ā€¢ 7051 implied HN points ā€¢ 06 Jan 26
šŸ•¹ Technology Energy
  1. Companies are proposing orbital data centers that would use uninterrupted solar power, fleets of satellites with solar arrays, optical links, and AI accelerator chips to handle energy-hungry model training off Earth.
  2. The idea neatly fits the current AI investment craze and could attract big investor and banking interest, but such futuristic pitches can be speculative and sometimes resemble hype more than practical business plans.
  3. Practical constraints ā€” notably a major cost/feasibility factor only briefly acknowledged ā€” likely make space-based data centers uneconomic or impractical compared with terrestrial server farms for the foreseeable future, based on basic calculations.

Crude Analysis

Doomberg ā€¢ 7620 implied HN points ā€¢ 30 Dec 25
šŸ’¼ Business Energy
  1. Traditional ways of judging oil markets are outdated. The shale revolution and new infrastructure have changed how supply, storage, and pricing work.
  2. Salt dome storage and big fractionation centers like Mont Belvieu have made NGLs a massive, flexible part of the energy system. They can store hundreds of millions of barrels and separate products for domestic use or export.
  3. You can't treat crude as an island ā€” analysts who ignore NGL processing, storage, exports, and hub pricing miss key market drivers. Markets should be analyzed with all those interconnected elements in view.

Notes on winter

The Crucial Years ā€¢ 2720 implied HN points ā€¢ 08 Feb 26
šŸŒž Climate & Environment Energy
  1. Winter offers special pleasures ā€” the slick freedom of skating and skiing, the hush of fresh snow, and a playful elegance you donā€™t get in other seasons.
  2. Climate change is eroding winter: Arctic sea ice loss, fewer freezing days, and declining snowpacks are shortening the season and threatening winter landscapes and sports.
  3. People and institutions are pushing back ā€” athletes, activists, businesses and technologists are advocating for climate action and building alternatives like EVs, new batteries, and more solar to help protect winters and public health.

The Fire We Forgot

Anima Mundi ā€¢ 185 implied HN points ā€¢ 08 Mar 26
šŸ•¹ Technology Energy
  1. Molten salt reactors with a thorium fuel cycle are a fundamentally different and inherently safer design: they use liquid fuel at near-atmospheric pressure, have passive shutdown features, and produce waste with radiological timescales measured in centuries rather than millennia.
  2. Historical choices and institutional prioritiesā€”especially ties between civilian programs and weapons productionā€”pushed the world toward uranium light-water reactors, creating long-lived waste and locking in regulatory and industrial systems that suppressed the thorium molten salt alternative.
  3. China is actively developing thorium molten salt reactors and the full materials supply chain, which could give it strategic energy advantages while many Western programs lag behind; this shift has major geopolitical implications and needs far more public and policy attention.

Can Israel & the U.S. Sustain Iran's Military Power? (w/ Alastair Crooke) | The Chris Hedges Report

The Chris Hedges Report ā€¢ 339 implied HN points ā€¢ 07 Mar 26
šŸŒ World Politics Energy
  1. Iran has strong, resilient military capabilities. It has large missile stocks, uses older missiles and drones to exhaust interceptors, and has damaged expensive radar and surveillance systems while keeping hypersonic and siloed launch options for a long war.
  2. The U.S. and Israel miscalculated and overreached. Their strikes and the assassination of Iranian leaders have provoked broad regional backlash and revealed shortages in intercept capacity and contingency planning.
  3. The conflict is reshaping the region and global markets. Gulf security and the Strait of Hormuz are at risk, energy and investment flows are shifting away from Gulf hubs, and political instability is rising in Bahrain, Iraq, Israel and for Palestinians.

Reading List 12/13/2025

Construction Physics ā€¢ 9395 implied HN points ā€¢ 13 Dec 25
šŸ•¹ Technology Energy
  1. Boom Supersonic is pivoting to build jet-derived gas turbines for AI datacenters with big claimed orders and ambitious production targets, but its history of missed deadlines and split focus raises skepticism about delivery.
  2. Historical learning curves are often poor predictors of future cost declines and many technologies show stepwise rather than steady improvements, so forecasts for things like solar, wind, and batteries are uncertain and require careful analysis.
  3. AI-generated hoaxes can cause real-world disruption, as a fake bridge-collapse image halted trains and prompted inspections, highlighting how cheaply misleading content can be produced and why people should avoid creating or sharing it.

Who Will Rule Iran? Plus. . .

Common Sense with Bari Weiss ā€¢ 449 implied HN points ā€¢ 05 Mar 26
šŸŒ World Politics Energy
  1. A weakened Iranian regime is likely to cling to power unless an organized force removes it, and Kurdish fighters are emerging as a pivotal force that could either topple the government or plunge the country into civil war.
  2. Widespread internet outages and the sidelining of U.S. broadcasting tools have left Iranian dissidents fragmented and made it much harder for outside actors to rally or inform domestic opposition.
  3. The conflict is already reshaping the region and global politics: U.S. strikes have degraded Iranian forces, NATO has acted to intercept missiles, and the war is producing wide political, security, and economic ripple effects.

Does China have a huge electricity advantage over the United States?

Sustainability by numbers ā€¢ 502 implied HN points ā€¢ 05 Mar 26
šŸŒž Climate & Environment Energy
  1. China uses most of its electricity for industry, while the US uses most of its electricity in homes and commercial services.
  2. Chinaā€™s total electricity generation has grown rapidly and is much larger in absolute terms than the US, though the US still leads on overall per-person electricity use.
  3. Because China concentrates so much power in industry, its industrial electricity per person is similar to or slightly higher than the US, which points to real industrial capacity that simple per-capita comparisons can hide.

Just possibly it's the oil?

The Crucial Years ā€¢ 6407 implied HN points ā€¢ 03 Jan 26
šŸŒž Climate & Environment Energy
  1. Oilā€™s concentration and value drive conflict and geopolitical control, so reducing dependence on oil would cut a major motive for attacks and imperialism.
  2. Legal and political checks are currently weak against overreach, so solely relying on institutions to prevent aggression is risky.
  3. Decentralized clean energyā€”like rooftop solar, wind, and EVs with bidirectional chargingā€”can shift power away from fossil-fuel holders and help make peace and energy security more achievable.