Item — HN Reader

We can. It’ll be hard, but sometimes you gotta buck up and do hard things instead of being lazy. We won’t do it unless we’re forced to, business as usual is simply too cozy for decision makers, politically, in capital markets, and at multinationals making decisions. Wealthy and powerful people want to remain wealthy and powerful, a tale as old as time.

2-3C means potentially >2-4 billion excess deaths over the next ~50 years from climate change. As long as global oil supply chains are low volatility and low risk, we continue on that path.

Ukraine has disabled 30-40% of Russia’s refinery capacity almost entirely with drones, for example.

TLDR it is not bad for the global oil supply chain to experience pain, it’s the primary factor in accelerating electrification and decarbonization.

https://actuaries.org.uk/media/ni4erlna/planetary-solvency.p... (page 32 risk impact matrix)

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Ukraines-...

1 comments

That's not really the argument they are making I believe. The issue is if you suddenly cut back oil countries pivot to bringing coal back because it's the fastest to scale up.

Some places may scale up natural gas but unless a regional already has a lot of LNG infrastructure in place, a sudden drop in oil means bringing back coal.

And coal is of course far worse than oil.

Gradual sustained economic pressure will push a move to cleaner alternatives but a sudden shock leaves countries with exactly one option: bring back coal so the lights and heat/AC stay on.

>The issue is if you suddenly cut back oil countries pivot to bringing coal back because it's the fastest to scale up.

That may have been true a couple of decades ago, but as of 2023[1] it was significantly cheaper to build new solar than to continue operating existing coal plants. And building new coal plants takes 5 years.

1. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/01/30/building-new-solar-pr...

The issue is that in a lot of places, it's not about building new coal plants. It's refurbishing and restarting old plants that have been shut down in the past decade or two.

Coal is already here but most places worked really hard to move to cleaner sources (oil being one of them) and wind down the existing coal infra.

This is part of the reason why people have been pushing nuclear SMRs (small modular reactors) given they can often be set up in existing coal plants and they just replace the coal part of the plant and reuse the existing turbines, etc since just like coal nuclear is basically a glorified steam boiler.

It’s not that useful if you don’t have enough storage.

And in more northern latitude you’ll still need to turn those plants back on since just won’t at all for at least a couple of months in winter.

Asia is cancelling LNG plans for renewables, and many markets have seen EV sales explode. Coal plants are more expensive than new renewables and batteries, existing generators may run longer, but aren’t going to be built in any material amount.

China, Europe, and the US can build ~25-30M EVs per year with existing manufacturing capacity, as of this comment. That is 1/4th of global annual light vehicle sales. We can deploy ~1TW of solar PV globally annually. The world reached 3TW of total solar PV generating capacity this year. China's energy from coal has declined below 50% this year. Energy storage production continues to ramp right behind renewables. These are straightforward systems problems, there are no blockers or technical limitations.

TLDR Strongly agree existing coal generators might generate more and longer than they otherwise would, but clean tech trajectory will only get pulled more vertical from further oil energy supply shocks.

China's EV Boom Is Quietly Undermining Oil's Biggest Chokepoint - https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Chinas-EV-Boom-Is... - August 4th, 2026

China’s LNG and coal demand slows as renewable energy surges - https://www.rinnovabili.net/policy-and-affairs/environmental... - August 3rd, 2026

Renewables To Squeeze Oil And Gas Imports In New Electric Age For Asia - https://www.forbes.com/sites/ianpalmer/2026/06/23/renewables... - June 23rd, 2026

From Australia to Vietnam, the Iran war is fuelling demand for EVs - https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/4/27/from-australia-t... - April 27th, 2026

EV demand is getting a boost from the Iran war — just as auto giants pivot back to combustion engines - https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/02/evs-autos-energy-oil-iran-wa... - April 2nd, 2026

Solar doesn’t really work in Europe during winter outside pf the southern countries so you still need alternative sources.

I feel as if you missed their point. Their point from my understanding is, coal might be more expensive than new renewables/batteries, but it's significantly quicker to get up and running so if you have a choice between quick coal and nothing, coal will be chosen.

> coal might be more expensive than new renewables/batteries, but it's significantly quicker to get up and running

How so? I can have a crew out installing panels tomorrow.

10-100+ MW of panels?

That might take a week. You're right much worse /s

I haven't looked into this deep enough, but my assumptions are that currently the supplychain for getting and installing these systems takes much longer than coal, which is a much more mature supply chain, and also not limited to China's production. If solar panels were as cheap, quick and available as coal, there'd be literally zero reason why people wouldn't use them over coal, but we know there are enough places that still use coal IE Germany.

I am not missing the point. You can deploy hundreds of megawatts of solar and batteries providing firm generation in 12-18 months. You cannot build a coal generator that quickly (usually takes 2-5 years). If you can turn on or up an existing coal generator, yes, faster. If you must build it from scratch, no, slower. Solar and batteries are not only the cheapest form of new generation, they are also the fastest to deploy.

Citations:

Economics of coal versus renewables in Southeast Asia’s energy crisis - https://zerocarbon-analytics.org/energy/coal-vs-renewables-a... - April 8th, 2026

Key points:

* Since the war in Iran began in February 2026, a surge in oil and gas prices has triggered gas-to-coal switching in Southeast Asia, pushing Asia’s coal benchmark nearly 20% above the pre-war price levels and highlighting the links between the coal, gas and oil markets.

* Gas-to-coal switching also pushed coal prices up after the 2022 gas crisis, when Asia’s coal benchmark surged to a record USD 443 per tonne in September 2023.

* Renewables sit apart from the price volatility of coal, oil and gas, as they do not require ongoing fuel inputs. In 2024, solar was already cheaper than coal in 7 of the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), according to LCOE data.

* The current gas crisis is already causing a decline in LNG demand across ASEAN countries. New ZCA analysis shows that were ASEAN to replace its planned 45 GW gas expansion with coal, costs would rise; in contrast, we found the Association could save USD 4 billion if gas expansion plans were instead replaced with solar and storage solutions by 2030.

* Even in countries with large coal reserves and coal subsidies, including China, renewables are already meeting a significant share of new electricity demand.

Coal Power Is Replaced by Renewables, Batteries, and Modern Electronics - https://www.renewable-ei.org/en/activities/column/REupdate/2... - September 18th, 2025

You can deploy solar and batteries rapidly, Australia is doing it.

Australia has the highest number of solar panels per capita in the world. Batteries are following suit with government subsidies. Yet, Australia has some of the highest energy prices in the world, its not a fool proof solution.

My comment wasn't even really about coal, it was about oil (and fuel). I'm talking about transport (even public transport) but planes & massive tankers are the big consumers. The original point is simply we cannot just stop ships.

When ships stopped due to the routes being blocked, we pushed ever closer to a recession and people starved and died because they were denied critical produces, equipment, food and medicines all over the world. Not to mention cost of living. This is what I mean by we "cannot afford" to not use oil.

We cannot afford for the routes to be shut, we cannot ban boats, cars, planes without major economic downturn.

Australia is pretty unique since it’s extremely suitable for solar. Countries in more northern latitudes, especially in Europe (where you need alternative sources in winter regardless of how much solar you (realistically) build) are in a slightly different situation.

Also aren’t wholesale prices in Australia very cheap or often negative? If that’s the case then the issue very high prices isn’t really on the production side but due to taxes/distribution

Additional citations:

Exxon Mobil Should Skip a Vanishing LNG Market - https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-06-17/exxon-... - June 17th, 2026

Why $70 Should Be the Most Worrying Number for LNG - https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-05-11/why-70... - May 11th, 2026

> That’s the theory, at least. The problem is that those rising middle powers do have alternatives to meet their energy needs, thanks to the growth of renewables. Asia’s LNG-to-power market was already being aggressively undercut on price by solar, batteries and wind. The war in Iran has demonstrated that clean energy is more reliable, too. If Woodside’s main projects ever get built, they’ll find themselves trying to sell into a glutted market, which has lost all appetite for their product.

> Consider the numbers. A new gas-fired power plant in Asia needs to sell electricity for more than $100 per megawatt-hour to break even. Even existing plants, whose construction costs have long since been paid off, need $70/MWh or more if they’re fueled with LNG. Photovoltaic solar power, or PV, can be had for half the new-build price, at around $50/MWh or less. You can even add a battery and wind turbines and have round-the-clock clean electricity for less than what established gas plants are paying just for their fuel and maintenance.

> Have a look at recent announcements from utilities and generators, and you can watch bullish forecasts for Asia’s gas demand being shredded in real time. Just nine days after the start of the Iran war, a company that spent nearly a decade building a 650 megawatt LNG generator in the Philippines announced it was considering abandoning it. The gas turbines are now being sold to the US, where they’ll serve a data-center site in Indiana — not an ideal market for oceangoing LNG ships. A few weeks after that, Vietnamese conglomerate Vingroup cancelled plans to build a 4.8 gigawatt LNG power plant which would have been one of the world’s biggest, vowing to replace it with solar, batteries and wind instead. Pakistan has been backing away from LNG for several years, driven by a boom in small-scale solar and surging prices for chilled gas after the 2022 Ukraine war. LNG deals in Bangladesh and South Africa have similarly been cancelled or delayed in recent months. India’s gas generation, meanwhile, has been in decline for nearly two decades.

> These days, gas can’t even make the argument that it’s a quick route to power. All those data centers being built in the US are outbidding Asian utilities in a tight market for gas turbines, meaning the only way to acquire generators is to wait longer, or pay yet more for them. Gas is “much riskier in execution compared to PV and wind,” Abdulhameed Al Muhaidib, Chief Financial Officer of Saudi Arabian power engineer ACWA Power Co., told investors last year.