It is a bittersweet victory. Petroleum demand is going to be forever destroyed -if you were on the fence about scaling renewables, all doubt has been eliminated. Energy dependence is a strategic nightmare, with a proven solution available for the taking. Solar, batteries, EVs, whatever you can install, as quickly as possible. There are already regional stories where solar-friendly Spain is seeing lower price changes than Italy because the renewables are lessening the impact of the closure.
However, if you were financially struggling before this happened, you are in for a world of hurt. Food, fuel, fertilizers, and dozens of downstream refined products are going to see large price increases for months to years.
If a temporary disruption, we’d go back to business as usual as soon as the supply constraint abated. The scale and time duration oil flows will be disrupted has led to a “burn the ships” transition, because it is simply the more economically rationale path now. More rapid global energy transition means the forward carbon emissions curve gets bent down.
I wonder how much has been offset by all the bombings and oil dependent countries having to fall back to coal until they can switch to solar or another oil supplier (if they can afford to do either at all).
Sure, and the Trump admin is trying to do just that.
But the economics of renewables itself (let alone the environmental impact), are compelling: utility solar is cheaper than anything else (without storage), and while battery costs take it significantly higher, those prices are plummeting and by 2030 will likely be cheap enough so that pure solar + battery beats everything else.
However, if you were financially struggling before this happened, you are in for a world of hurt. Food, fuel, fertilizers, and dozens of downstream refined products are going to see large price increases for months to years.