20 percent of the world’s oil and gas passes through the Strait of Hormuz,
which Iran controls. In 2024, that was about 20 million barrels per day.
Following the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader,
Iran closed off the Strait, preventing the passage of freight ships that
carry oil to much of the world, including the United States. As of April
23, 2026, the price of each oil barrel has spiked to $126. The U.S. Energy
Information Administration has described this hike as “the largest supply
disruption in global oil market history.” These oil shocks do not just
impact the average American wishing to fill up their car tank, but they also
tank the economy of industries so heavily dependent on fossil fuels.
Infrastructure investments such as grid software, battery storage,
distributed energy, and industrial electrification, on the other hand,
are gaining the upper hand because they use less oil. The Catastrophic Double
'E' (environmental and economic) War on Iran,
exposed this transition in an indisputably expensive way.
Now that the war in Iran has spiked up oil prices globally,
renewable energy is becoming more essential than ever so that individual
nations can establish resilience, particularly during vulnerable times.
In fact, Tenzin Seldon, founder of Pulse Fund, states that being a country
still dependent on fossil fuels is a national security liability. Sebastian
Kind, who led Argentina’s energy transition from 2016, claims that “only
those countries that have already scaled up domestic renewable energy will
be immune to geopolitical disruption.” Some of the “economic burden” of
dependence on fossil fuels includes increased shipping and fertilizer
costs, which increase food prices. In the UAE, where 90% of the food
is imported, the price of food has tripled in Dubai from pre-war levels.
Similar cost spikes occurred in the Gulf during the Russia-Ukraine war.
With 25 to 50 percent of wars since 1973 being related to oil, it is of
utmost importance for countries to rethink their energy plans.
However, Jan Lee claims that transitioning to clean energy may be
easier said than done. Countries that already have strong green energy
initiatives will further their renewable energy independence; countries
that are still heavily dependent on liquefied natural gas (LNG) may turn
to alternative fossil fuels. Ultimately, though, continuing to rely on the
immediate policy responses of releasing reserves, expanding production, and
subsidizing fuel prices to stabilize the short term is only “treatments, not
cures” to the long-term instability caused by geopolitical conflicts. Yet,
the consensus among energy experts is that countries that have energy independence,
that have systems that do not get “shut down by war,” are the ones that are most
resilient and sovereign.