2026-03-19
21 分钟Have Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu done the renewables industry a massive favour?
War in the Middle East looks to be speeding the end of the fossil fuel era.
The attacks on Iran by the United States
and Israel have led to the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
That's the waterway by which a fifth of global oil and a fifth of seaborne gas pass through.
And drone and missile strikes in the region have forced...
gas and oil production right down and the closure of some ports.
All this has put the cost of oil right up.
And if prices stay as high as they are now for the rest of the year,
countries that import fossil fuels, so most countries, will have to spend an additional $400 billion.
But if countries fully deployed all their renewable energy projects,
including ones for electric vehicles and heat pumps, then the cost could be reduced by 70%.
And that's what we're getting into on this episode of The World, the Universe and Astronomy Scientist.
I'm Dr. Rowan Hooper.
So to get into this, we're joined by climate reporter Alec Loon.
Alec, at first glance, it's hard to compute that the war could speed the transition
to clean energy when the US government is actively trying to slow it down.
But there is a precedent with the Ukraine war, isn't there?
That's right.
We've already seen this happen once before when Russia invaded Ukraine and then weaponized natural gas going to Europe.