Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran … War

Originally Posted by Carth

I guess it all shows that however loudly people cry and complain about fossil fuels and the environment, how many advances we make in 'greener' technology and power production, we are still almost solely reliant on trillions of barrels of the black stuff being pumped out of the ground every day . . and hoping it reaches where it's needed.

Or...


It shows that we need to lessen our dependency on it, as twice in the last five years the world has been vastly disrupted by idiots starting totally unnecessary wars, so if we were to move to a situation when the next idiot comes along to FAFO, we have other options (nuclear, renewable, more gas and oil reserves storage).


(and we need to decouple the price of gas from the final price of energy generation)

[Carth]

We seem to be well behind everyone else, especially in the area of storage.
The UK doesn't seem to plan ahead very well, probably the crystal ball needs a good polish

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Carth

We seem to be well behind everyone else, especially in the area of storage.
The UK doesn't seem to plan ahead very well, probably the crystal ball needs a good polish

We're number two in Europe after Germany for battery storage. I think it's gas storage we're weak on.
https://electricalreview.co.uk/2026/...ttery-storage/

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

We're number two in Europe after Germany for battery storage. I think it's gas storage we're weak on.
https://electricalreview.co.uk/2026/...ttery-storage/

That would follow on from the closure of the Centrica-owned Rough storage facility, which provided 70% of the UK gas storage capacity for more than 30 years before it shut in 2017, following a government decision not to subsidise the costly maintenance and upgrades needed to keep the site going.

[Carth]

just think of the profit Centrica could now be making if they'd kept it open

Interesting* article in this week’s Economist

https://archive.ph/Q7nm0

The Economist calculated how long normalisation would take if the war ended today. Even if Iran accedes to Donald Trump’s threat on March 21st to unblock the strait within 48 hours or face strikes on its power plants, a big “if”, global oil and gas markets would remain undersupplied for months, hurting the world economy.

For energy markets to right themselves once Hormuz reopens, three things need to happen. First, Gulf producers must restore output to pre-war levels. Second, ships must ferry that output to refiners abroad. And third, those refiners must process it into usable fuel. Each stage of this industrial relay takes time…

… Even if Donald Trump and Iran reached a deal to stop fighting tomorrow, it would thus be another four months before markets regained some semblance of normality. Producers elsewhere cannot crank up output fast enough to recover past losses. The result is to shave off some 3% of planned global oil production this year. Every month Ras Laffan stays shut, the world loses around 7m tonnes of lng—nearly 2% of projected annual supply. And full capacity will, owing to the latest strikes, be lower than before. The upshot is that production will fall 4% short of demand this year even if Qatar started pumping what it can today.

The implications are stark. Global crude stocks, on course to end March in the bottom third of their historical range, will also keep dwindling for weeks after Hormuz reopens. As countries with thin buffers run out, they could trigger bouts of panic-buying and price spikes. Bidding wars for lng are equally likely.

The last cargoes from Qatar to leave before Hormuz closed will reach Asia and Europe in days, says Ashley Sherman of Vortexa, a ship-tracker. After that, buyers must seek supplies elsewhere or go without, jeopardising the restocking of reserves for winter.

Oil and gas traders are still banking on a spring miracle. The world is praying for one. But even if Mr Trump and Iran’s ayatollahs grant this wish, the logistics of oil and gas will not be easily appeased. Energy markets will be living with the war’s fallout well into northern winter.

*as in "Ach du Scheiße!"

Originally Posted by Carth

just think of the profit Centrica could now be making if they'd kept it open

It is open, on a smaller scale, and by all accounts, even that isnt being fully utilized atm.

[RichardCoulter]

Israel has claimed that Iran has the capability to launch a missile on London. I hope this is them just trying to stir things up as, if they did, the fallout doesn't bear thinking about.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Israel has claimed that Iran has the capability to launch a missile on London. I hope this is them just trying to stir things up as, if they did, the fallout doesn't bear thinking about.

I wonder if Alastair "Dodgy Dossier" Campbell's report-writing skills are in demand at the moment?

https://wapo.st/40Jq2wn

Israelis said securing the strait for energy shipments could become the war’s main goal now that regime change and ending Iran’s ability to obtain a nuclear weapon seem out of reach.

A surge of additional U.S. forces to the Middle East and President Donald Trump’s threat to “obliterate” Iran’s energy infrastructure have set the stage for what U.S. and Israeli security officials increasingly see as the war’s possible endgame: a battle for control of the Strait of Hormuz and key energy installations.

Reopening the strait — a critical conduit for global energy supplies — has emerged as perhaps the paramount objective of a war that security officials now believe is unlikely to achieve goals that briefly seemed possible at the outset of the U.S.-Israeli military operation, including overthrowing Iran’s theocratic regime and putting a nuclear weapon permanently out of Tehran’s reach.

Instead, breaking Iran’s stranglehold on the strait could enable Trump to wind down the war while claiming victory, halt an expanding global energy crisis and deprive Iran of a potent deterrent against future strikes — which senior Israeli officials described as inevitable if Tehran resumes ballistic missile production or moves to develop a nuclear weapon.

In Israel, Trump’s online threats have raised expectations that a new phase of the war could soon get underway with the arrival of additional U.S. firepower.

A contingent of 4,500 U.S. sailors and Marines is heading to the Middle East, including an infantry battalion landing team backed by helicopters, F-35 fighter jets and armored landing vehicles. The Pentagon also sped up the deployment of a similar unit, the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, from San Diego, defense officials said last week.

“Those Marines aren’t coming for decoration,” said an Israeli official, one of several who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military and intelligence issues.

In summary, the current main aim of the war is to get back to the position we were in before the USA and Israel started the war four weeks ago…