One potential missed element in this overview is the ties to Russia and China. How did Iran developed such extensive capabilities? Especially so quickly after the earlier attacks last year. This is very much a proxy war. What we are seeing is not unplanned or likely avoidable in the longer term.
It would seem likely that if Iran was to escalate its attack on its neighbors energy infrastructure, there will be a significant response against Iran's. We may be seeing the permanent closing of the Gulf.
Another element is the recent more aggressive attacks by the Ukraine on Russia. The US has likely unleashed that response. This may also escalate.
It's all very concerning, and let's not forget about the maritime attack on the Arctic Metagas, the Russian LNG tanker that was heading for the Suez canal, allegedly attacked by Ukranian drone.
But Iran apparently was providing Shaheed drones to Russia before licensing their production to Russia. As to missiles technology, we don't know the answer but your point is well taken.
We believe this is a second front in the proxy war between the U.S. and China/Russia. But we think the ultimate aim for China is not military confrontation, it's economic war.
Long time fan (we talked briefly in comments socially here about your visits to my birthplace of Saskatchewan, and my home for 49years of adjoining Alberta).
I only got to read this today.
Three things, all minor, that I can offer/ask as a well meaning reader-editor. (IDK that you can can edit?]
- The sentence (crtl-f) "If Iran could hit these facilities, it would be unwise they could hit refineries[...]" - to my reading of it, has a syntax mistake. I believe there is a word akin to "deny" or "ignore" you intended to place in there.
- More minor to my reading because I trust your calm, but to the new or quarrelsome reader might cause furrowed brows: in the half dozen short paragraphs leading to that sentence, the value goes from 20billion, to 26, to 50+ billion. I have my own theories from other backgrounders whereby this is correct, but don't want to put my words in your mouth. A phrase or two indicating addition- or logic of cumulation, would be ideal.
- This last is more likely my failure to catch onto something, but what in the pink vs blue consumption graphics, do the separate dark pink vs light pink connotate?
PS One more- in the sentence "pass through the Bab El-Mandeb Strait, a choke point narrower even than the Strait of Hormuz [,] between Yemen and the African coast at Djibouti." needs at least the bracketed comma to correct one's reading. Or, perhaps a use for dashes; parentheses being often regarded as too informal. (again please forgive- I'm 53 and having fun reinterpreting that I learned in Grade 8 from Mr Steven Mungall of Vermilion AB, my teacher in the 1980's hah)
It's a truly accomplished article, and one I am recommending to all - and quoting if not directly, in the sense of being newly educated here.
Thanks a lot for the corrections. I've incorporated all of them. Appreciate the heads up! (Unintentional, always room for improvement, evidence it's a human writing, not machines).
I'll admit to colorblindness (red/green, no less!). Next time I'll ask Perplexity's compute to use different colors. My best guess is that what you're seeing is the darker pink represents those continents where the consumption exceeds the production. So the "blue" is overwhelmed enough in these that is gets denoted as a darker pink than the blue that appears for the continents where production clearly exceeds consumption.
When I look at Asia/Pacific & Europe, I can clearly see the "production" bubble inside the "consumption" bubble and it appears darker pink more so than blue. Not sure if that helps.
But for fun, I went back to the specific task in Perplexity Compute and asked the specific question. Here was the answer it gave:
"Every continent gets both a teal bubble and a pink bubble, slightly offset from each other. The bubble radius scales with volume.
What you're seeing in Asia Pacific and Europe
For deficit continents like Asia Pacific and Europe, the pink consumption/import bubble is significantly larger than the teal production/export bubble. Where they overlap, the teal and pink blend together, creating a slightly different hue in the overlap zone. The portion of the pink bubble that extends beyond the teal bubble appears as a lighter, purer pink — while the center where both overlap appears as a darker, muddier tone.
So the visual effect you're picking up on is real and does correlate with deficit status, but it's an emergent result of two overlapping semi-transparent bubbles rather than an intentionally coded deficit indicator. For surplus continents (Middle East, Russia/CIS, Africa, Oceania), the teal bubble dominates, so the visual impression reverses — you see more teal extending beyond the pink."
(a truly amazing research assistant. IF you learn to ask the right questions....)
Thanks for the assistance!
p.s. refresh my memory.... what part of SK born, what part of AB living now?
Ahh. Light went on in my head. Yes, the production-teal covered over with consumption-pink looks magenta which I took to be a specially denoted type of consumption pink, having related by human logic, the two pink-tones.
*consumption pink, there's a "Doc Holliday's favourite colour" joke in there somewhere...
IDK why in the context that wasn't obvious to me.
Sorry to take your time up explaining that to me/us. That one is on me.
I feel at this moment that most every other reader likely got it. Don't sweat other readers blanking on that as I did. They probably will be fine.
-
I'm not colourblind, but my dad was (no milkman jokes, it's a legit hereditary pattern), and I credit the colourblind for perception that can at times be uncannily better. He and his brother could 'pass' Ishihara color tests by shaking their head while viewing, fwiw... IDK if everyone can? Google is not too clear on that. Dad was (technically illegally) a journeyman electrician for many years. There was, according to my Aunt, a very expensive oops for an employer that may have been caused by that fact. And to my eternal regret, I stupidly as a high school kid, told another kid he was colourblind, and that older kid was ~ a year later, in a position to cause him problem with that info. Sorry, Dad.
-
It's interesting- I don't know how the AI programing "sees"- & it is not well at times.
I'm sure early on a algorithm was developed that quantified similar colours being grouped by the human eye, but it failed to account for my (lack of?) overall logic.
On a lighter note, I tasked Grok (my favourite generalist AI) with re-drawing a bracket, and had to wipe the tears away- from laughter, at what it produced.
Worth a click... The longer you look the funnier it is. This is a classic of the genre of "early AI"
When the robots come for us, I'm doomed for mocking them with my laughter. OTOH, When I ask it to do something I usually say please. I don't know why. I wish it were as simple as "out of habit". It isn't. It just feels right. Something along the lines of says more about me than "it", if I don't.
“What happens if tens of millions in the desert don’t have access to electricity, clean water, and sanitation for weeks or months?”
Well, that’s a real problem, but … Given what we now know about the distance and precision capabilities of the Iranian rockets, WHAT IF the mullahs strap five pounds of enriched uranium to ten different 100 pound high explosive warheads and launch those ten rockets into civilian infrastructure and population centers?
That’s the “dirty bomb” real question I’ve seen few people consider. Even intercepting them in the air has significant (sorry for the sick pun) fallout.
Remember, these are the people who convince themselves to strap ten pounds of C4 to themselves and walk into a coffee shop. I have to believe the dirty bomb possibly is one of the main reasons for this war.
As for energy shortages in Europe and the UK, my hope is that this episode instills a backbone into the common folk and have them reject the asinine policies and people who instituted them. It has been too many years that the continent has depended on others for basic necessities.
For now our bigger worry is the power plants, desal plants and the hydrocarbon energy infrastructure that pulls the stuff out of the ground, refines it, or turns the magic gas into the magic liquid.
That would do zip. You could happily hold a kg of highly enriched uranium in your hands. Weapons grade uranium (U-235) has a low specific activity of 80 kBq/kg. Compare with typical radioisotopes used in industry, medical or agricultural applications. Cs-137 is 3.2TBq/kg, 40 million X higher. And Co-60 is 41 TBq/kg, 512 million X greater.
You use enriched uranium to fuel nuclear reactors or to make bombs. Nuclear reactors can be used to make radioisotopes, that could be used in a dirty bomb. But there are lots of those around, look up the Goiania radiation incident in Brazil.
A reasonable assumption is during the planning of this war with/in Iran US military strategists modeled many of the current events and it’s highly likely many of the scenarios laid out in this post. In some cases there can be contingencies, and as you very accurately describe, in some cases it’s gone forever or long periods of time before being placed back in service. Every time I hear an expert claiming victory I can’t help myself to think back to George Bush claiming “mission accomplished” on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Then 10 years later it was still being pursued. This was a bone chilling post and the scenarios seem very likely in many cases. I definitely don’t have the knowledge to know if engaging in this war was or will be the right decision. But, I am clearly seeing the potential humanitarian crisis after this excellent work. The world is being reshaped at warp speed, prayers for a peaceful ending to this crisis in warp speed as well.
The economic damages look to spread from East to West. Asia then Europe then us. Already showing up in EU nat gas, diesel, jet fuel in both.
But Africa, SE Asia and poorer countries in Latin America will suffer worst, fuel and food inflation. Unfortunately, when demand destruction occurs in fuel, it hits these places hard.
That's a minor issue, except in potential economic loss for the nation attacked. Modern commercial nuclear power plants can't Chernobyl. The worst you could do with a missile attack is knock out the coolant system for the reactor. That would scram the reactor and the core would gradually heat up over a few days as happened in Fukushima, leading to it becoming molten and possibly sinking into the bottom concrete of the reactor. Some volatile isotopes, mainly of Cesium and Iodine would be released, which would not harm anyone outside the plant boundaries. All they could get from that is an opportunity for Fear Porn.
Even that is easy enough to avoid by keeping diesel pumps on hand with a secure fresh water & fuel supply and easy access to the reactor coolant pipes. As they do at all Japanese reactors after Fukushima.
I won't say naive. It's just possible you didn't know.
Aside from the "research" (ahem) facilities in Israel and Iran, there is one major nuclear power plant complex in the western UAE near its border with Qatar.
It's four reactors were built between 2012 and 2024, each taking 9 years, each using the APR-1400 design. 5.6 Gw, four units, all sitting 139 miles SSE as the crow flies from Qatar's Ras Laffan. And about equidistant across the Persian Gulf as Ras Laffan.
Shiny new, high dollar, large scale commercial nuclear power plants sitting a chip shot away from other infrastructure taking drones and missiles in countries on the western side of the Gulf.
The plant is known as the Barakah nuclear power plant, in the UAE.
I doubt you could do much with their drones or missiles. It would take special bunker buster or shaped charges to punch through the pressure dome, and then you would have to somehow manage to get more missiles through the same hole to hit the much smaller pressure vessel inside. Also hard to penetrate.
Very interesting commentary. I wonder how much of the resistance of NATO nations to participate is directly related to the precariousness of their energy situation and their hope that lack of involvement will lead to less disruptions.
Good question. We'd guess that resistance is largely for the reason you articulate. That plus the EU's predisposition against war in the wake of WWII (recent inversion of that post WWI cultural mood, and in particular among the more "progressive" parties in the EU, notwithstanding. Most of that is bluster anyhow. Warhawking more an idea than a reality when you consume 38 exajoules of hydrocarbon energy but only product 5 or so within your borders. )
Call me suspicious and cynical, but in the UK, France and Germany, among others, civil peace is only maintained so long as Islamic countries are not attacked.
Related, given the left leaning parties there- purportedly elected democratically (!), have done so (only) through alliance with Islamic groups, it can be noted the representatives, & their backers' political futures are also at stake.
Never underestimate the willingness of the current crop of representatives in such places to sacrifice their citizens futures to hold onto their positions, and thus to bias the largesse of the state to specific factions (see 'backers'...).
I like everything in this analysis except for the assertion that COVID was created in a lab.
The analysis of the Middle East, and the reference to the Messmer Plan, and the use of Perplexity in limited but critical spots are dead-on!! The Messmer Plan reference is the kill shot for a proper, practical and implementable understanding of recent history !!
With the passage of time, and knowledge of genetic engineering, the odds of natural selection creating this highly complex virus is less than a lightning strike hitting a plastic garbage can on a sunny day.
Re: Covid-19(84), like everything else we write, disagreement is not only welcomed but encouraged.
The odds of the specific sequence at a Furin cleavage site insertion evolving naturally combined with the human transmissibility and mortality early in its evolutionary life and the fact that no host intermediate host species (to my knowledge) has ever been positively identified (unlike prior global epidemics/pandemics) inform our view on the matter. Lancet and other studies be damned.
This is what happens when you postpone dealing with a difficult problem for too long. We strike now because there is basically no choice: Iran made it clear that it intended to build MULTIPLE nuclear weapons. This is every kind of horrible you may imagine. Does anyone doubt for a second that Iran will absolutely use its nukes if it gets them?
No peace is possible as long as hardline theocrats rule Iran. It is a measure of their true character that they choose to damage the entire world in retaliation.
The difficult problem which has been continually postponed is the root cause of the radical Iranian Regime. The CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953 and installed the Shah and gave him the training and support to brutally suppress the people until he was ousted by radicals. Without eliminating the CIA or applying any accountability the same problems will continue to plague the world. JFK had it right, the CIA needs to be shattered into a thousand pieces and scattered into the wind.
Also, how is Israel a democracy when public protests by the people are broken up and censorship is used to keep reality from spreading. Was force vaccinating the population also part of their democracy??
By persecuting any group, through sanctions, propaganda and war crime-assassinations, you enable the extremists. Simple sociology, psychology, and/or the reading of history will show that.
Notably Khamanei was on record dozens of time expressing that a nuclear bomb was un-Islamic- specifically both/either the acquiring in addition to the using. Whether one entirely believes him "100%" can be thought as dubious- and the real politik *was* that there were those clearly intending to acquire such weapons. But to have a leader saying, for the education of his followers, "No", is a value that should have been capitalized on. Notice it is a 'value' now lost.
I believe DJT's focus on the command of the IRGC was an attempt to work that angle. Ie align the Iranian military solely behind/under the religious-politician state (whatever their excess level of devoutness), rather than act as independently adjacent or even in charge, as was apparent.
(Over-simplistically, in hopes of ending more akin to Iran being structurally a Sunni counterweight of Saudi Arabia...not a perfect choice but doable over a decade, in hindsight)
Had the 2020 election... "gone differently" *and* DJT's loyalty to Israel become less manifest, there were some offramps missed.
In Cold War terms much of what Khamanei wrote was more pacifist than anything said by leaders of the USA or USSR.
I suspect these statements of my view won't dent Mr Snell's dogmatic POV, but there they are.
One person's freedom fighter against generations of unrelenting abuse, is another's unhinged rebel.
Simpler put, America is an absolutely wondrous idea. In application, it is the 2nd worst country-citizen extant.
It is not clear to us that this war has or will eliminate that potential in the long run. And we take no pleasure in saying that, but we haven’t seen sufficient evidence to have an alternate view.
The facts are there. The question is will both sides go scorched earth on energy (and civilian power and water) infrastructure. And does Iran still have the ability to hit those sites with ballistic missiles.
Unfortunately for Usrael Iran has demonstrated escalation dominance. Don’t forget, Iran has been continuously attacked and is only responding to such attacks. Perhaps live and let live needs to relearned. I hear people claiming Israel wants to turn Iran into another Gaza or Lebanon or Syria so as to implement a greater Israel policy from the river to the sea.
Yes. Exactly. Iran has been repeatedly surprise attacked under the guise of phony peace talks. This is existential for them and they are proving themselves to have the moral high ground against evil and unscrupulous nuclear armed enemies who have no reservations about committing war crimes.
It’s difficult to even begin to mentally process the energy market impacts after reading about the mere notion of attacks by anyone on civilian water and electricity infrastructure. It would be a humanitarian crisis of unimaginable proportions.
On another note, why are they Iranian mullahs fighting Israel so hard? Purely ideological reasons, or do they want the location on the Mediterranean Sea, or is there something in the ground there?
A lot of energy and other resources, not to mention lives, have been spent on this.
And is the population of Iran so cowed by the Revolutionary Guard that they dare not emit a peep again, or are they complicit to some degree?
China is building a couple of new coal plants every week, a trend that will last for at least the next ten years. The solar installations are for show, to convince the West that China is keen on green energy, and hey, you guys really should go all in on that. They are pragmatists and would never be so foolish as to base their advanced 24/7 economy on intermittent energy.
One step further: they’re (solar, wind) a 21st century version of the opium wars, only industrial.
China, circa 2005: “You guys are gonna try to power modern industrial economies with THAT? And you think you’ll build it cheaper domestically? Hold my beer, watch this. I’ll undercut you on all the hardware you’ll buy to weaken yourselves.
One potential missed element in this overview is the ties to Russia and China. How did Iran developed such extensive capabilities? Especially so quickly after the earlier attacks last year. This is very much a proxy war. What we are seeing is not unplanned or likely avoidable in the longer term.
It would seem likely that if Iran was to escalate its attack on its neighbors energy infrastructure, there will be a significant response against Iran's. We may be seeing the permanent closing of the Gulf.
Another element is the recent more aggressive attacks by the Ukraine on Russia. The US has likely unleashed that response. This may also escalate.
It's all very concerning, and let's not forget about the maritime attack on the Arctic Metagas, the Russian LNG tanker that was heading for the Suez canal, allegedly attacked by Ukranian drone.
But Iran apparently was providing Shaheed drones to Russia before licensing their production to Russia. As to missiles technology, we don't know the answer but your point is well taken.
We believe this is a second front in the proxy war between the U.S. and China/Russia. But we think the ultimate aim for China is not military confrontation, it's economic war.
Long time fan (we talked briefly in comments socially here about your visits to my birthplace of Saskatchewan, and my home for 49years of adjoining Alberta).
I only got to read this today.
Three things, all minor, that I can offer/ask as a well meaning reader-editor. (IDK that you can can edit?]
- The sentence (crtl-f) "If Iran could hit these facilities, it would be unwise they could hit refineries[...]" - to my reading of it, has a syntax mistake. I believe there is a word akin to "deny" or "ignore" you intended to place in there.
- More minor to my reading because I trust your calm, but to the new or quarrelsome reader might cause furrowed brows: in the half dozen short paragraphs leading to that sentence, the value goes from 20billion, to 26, to 50+ billion. I have my own theories from other backgrounders whereby this is correct, but don't want to put my words in your mouth. A phrase or two indicating addition- or logic of cumulation, would be ideal.
- This last is more likely my failure to catch onto something, but what in the pink vs blue consumption graphics, do the separate dark pink vs light pink connotate?
PS One more- in the sentence "pass through the Bab El-Mandeb Strait, a choke point narrower even than the Strait of Hormuz [,] between Yemen and the African coast at Djibouti." needs at least the bracketed comma to correct one's reading. Or, perhaps a use for dashes; parentheses being often regarded as too informal. (again please forgive- I'm 53 and having fun reinterpreting that I learned in Grade 8 from Mr Steven Mungall of Vermilion AB, my teacher in the 1980's hah)
It's a truly accomplished article, and one I am recommending to all - and quoting if not directly, in the sense of being newly educated here.
Hey, sorry for delay. Life....
Thanks a lot for the corrections. I've incorporated all of them. Appreciate the heads up! (Unintentional, always room for improvement, evidence it's a human writing, not machines).
I'll admit to colorblindness (red/green, no less!). Next time I'll ask Perplexity's compute to use different colors. My best guess is that what you're seeing is the darker pink represents those continents where the consumption exceeds the production. So the "blue" is overwhelmed enough in these that is gets denoted as a darker pink than the blue that appears for the continents where production clearly exceeds consumption.
When I look at Asia/Pacific & Europe, I can clearly see the "production" bubble inside the "consumption" bubble and it appears darker pink more so than blue. Not sure if that helps.
But for fun, I went back to the specific task in Perplexity Compute and asked the specific question. Here was the answer it gave:
"Every continent gets both a teal bubble and a pink bubble, slightly offset from each other. The bubble radius scales with volume.
What you're seeing in Asia Pacific and Europe
For deficit continents like Asia Pacific and Europe, the pink consumption/import bubble is significantly larger than the teal production/export bubble. Where they overlap, the teal and pink blend together, creating a slightly different hue in the overlap zone. The portion of the pink bubble that extends beyond the teal bubble appears as a lighter, purer pink — while the center where both overlap appears as a darker, muddier tone.
So the visual effect you're picking up on is real and does correlate with deficit status, but it's an emergent result of two overlapping semi-transparent bubbles rather than an intentionally coded deficit indicator. For surplus continents (Middle East, Russia/CIS, Africa, Oceania), the teal bubble dominates, so the visual impression reverses — you see more teal extending beyond the pink."
(a truly amazing research assistant. IF you learn to ask the right questions....)
Thanks for the assistance!
p.s. refresh my memory.... what part of SK born, what part of AB living now?
Ahh. Light went on in my head. Yes, the production-teal covered over with consumption-pink looks magenta which I took to be a specially denoted type of consumption pink, having related by human logic, the two pink-tones.
*consumption pink, there's a "Doc Holliday's favourite colour" joke in there somewhere...
IDK why in the context that wasn't obvious to me.
Sorry to take your time up explaining that to me/us. That one is on me.
I feel at this moment that most every other reader likely got it. Don't sweat other readers blanking on that as I did. They probably will be fine.
-
I'm not colourblind, but my dad was (no milkman jokes, it's a legit hereditary pattern), and I credit the colourblind for perception that can at times be uncannily better. He and his brother could 'pass' Ishihara color tests by shaking their head while viewing, fwiw... IDK if everyone can? Google is not too clear on that. Dad was (technically illegally) a journeyman electrician for many years. There was, according to my Aunt, a very expensive oops for an employer that may have been caused by that fact. And to my eternal regret, I stupidly as a high school kid, told another kid he was colourblind, and that older kid was ~ a year later, in a position to cause him problem with that info. Sorry, Dad.
-
It's interesting- I don't know how the AI programing "sees"- & it is not well at times.
I'm sure early on a algorithm was developed that quantified similar colours being grouped by the human eye, but it failed to account for my (lack of?) overall logic.
On a lighter note, I tasked Grok (my favourite generalist AI) with re-drawing a bracket, and had to wipe the tears away- from laughter, at what it produced.
Worth a click... The longer you look the funnier it is. This is a classic of the genre of "early AI"
https://imgur.com/a/nsHVPIU
When the robots come for us, I'm doomed for mocking them with my laughter. OTOH, When I ask it to do something I usually say please. I don't know why. I wish it were as simple as "out of habit". It isn't. It just feels right. Something along the lines of says more about me than "it", if I don't.
https://imgur.com/f7n2W4r
“What happens if tens of millions in the desert don’t have access to electricity, clean water, and sanitation for weeks or months?”
Well, that’s a real problem, but … Given what we now know about the distance and precision capabilities of the Iranian rockets, WHAT IF the mullahs strap five pounds of enriched uranium to ten different 100 pound high explosive warheads and launch those ten rockets into civilian infrastructure and population centers?
That’s the “dirty bomb” real question I’ve seen few people consider. Even intercepting them in the air has significant (sorry for the sick pun) fallout.
Remember, these are the people who convince themselves to strap ten pounds of C4 to themselves and walk into a coffee shop. I have to believe the dirty bomb possibly is one of the main reasons for this war.
As for energy shortages in Europe and the UK, my hope is that this episode instills a backbone into the common folk and have them reject the asinine policies and people who instituted them. It has been too many years that the continent has depended on others for basic necessities.
For now our bigger worry is the power plants, desal plants and the hydrocarbon energy infrastructure that pulls the stuff out of the ground, refines it, or turns the magic gas into the magic liquid.
That would do zip. You could happily hold a kg of highly enriched uranium in your hands. Weapons grade uranium (U-235) has a low specific activity of 80 kBq/kg. Compare with typical radioisotopes used in industry, medical or agricultural applications. Cs-137 is 3.2TBq/kg, 40 million X higher. And Co-60 is 41 TBq/kg, 512 million X greater.
You use enriched uranium to fuel nuclear reactors or to make bombs. Nuclear reactors can be used to make radioisotopes, that could be used in a dirty bomb. But there are lots of those around, look up the Goiania radiation incident in Brazil.
Great color. Thanks!
A reasonable assumption is during the planning of this war with/in Iran US military strategists modeled many of the current events and it’s highly likely many of the scenarios laid out in this post. In some cases there can be contingencies, and as you very accurately describe, in some cases it’s gone forever or long periods of time before being placed back in service. Every time I hear an expert claiming victory I can’t help myself to think back to George Bush claiming “mission accomplished” on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Then 10 years later it was still being pursued. This was a bone chilling post and the scenarios seem very likely in many cases. I definitely don’t have the knowledge to know if engaging in this war was or will be the right decision. But, I am clearly seeing the potential humanitarian crisis after this excellent work. The world is being reshaped at warp speed, prayers for a peaceful ending to this crisis in warp speed as well.
Thanks, Dave.
The economic damages look to spread from East to West. Asia then Europe then us. Already showing up in EU nat gas, diesel, jet fuel in both.
But Africa, SE Asia and poorer countries in Latin America will suffer worst, fuel and food inflation. Unfortunately, when demand destruction occurs in fuel, it hits these places hard.
Maybe I'm being naive, but I'm so happy there aren't a whole bunch of nuclear power plants in the picture. Just sayin'.
That's a minor issue, except in potential economic loss for the nation attacked. Modern commercial nuclear power plants can't Chernobyl. The worst you could do with a missile attack is knock out the coolant system for the reactor. That would scram the reactor and the core would gradually heat up over a few days as happened in Fukushima, leading to it becoming molten and possibly sinking into the bottom concrete of the reactor. Some volatile isotopes, mainly of Cesium and Iodine would be released, which would not harm anyone outside the plant boundaries. All they could get from that is an opportunity for Fear Porn.
Even that is easy enough to avoid by keeping diesel pumps on hand with a secure fresh water & fuel supply and easy access to the reactor coolant pipes. As they do at all Japanese reactors after Fukushima.
Great color.
We're overwrought with fear over the issue.
I won't say naive. It's just possible you didn't know.
Aside from the "research" (ahem) facilities in Israel and Iran, there is one major nuclear power plant complex in the western UAE near its border with Qatar.
It's four reactors were built between 2012 and 2024, each taking 9 years, each using the APR-1400 design. 5.6 Gw, four units, all sitting 139 miles SSE as the crow flies from Qatar's Ras Laffan. And about equidistant across the Persian Gulf as Ras Laffan.
Shiny new, high dollar, large scale commercial nuclear power plants sitting a chip shot away from other infrastructure taking drones and missiles in countries on the western side of the Gulf.
The plant is known as the Barakah nuclear power plant, in the UAE.
I doubt you could do much with their drones or missiles. It would take special bunker buster or shaped charges to punch through the pressure dome, and then you would have to somehow manage to get more missiles through the same hole to hit the much smaller pressure vessel inside. Also hard to penetrate.
All great points. I just wanted to make sure she knew there were some a sand wedge away.
Very interesting commentary. I wonder how much of the resistance of NATO nations to participate is directly related to the precariousness of their energy situation and their hope that lack of involvement will lead to less disruptions.
Good question. We'd guess that resistance is largely for the reason you articulate. That plus the EU's predisposition against war in the wake of WWII (recent inversion of that post WWI cultural mood, and in particular among the more "progressive" parties in the EU, notwithstanding. Most of that is bluster anyhow. Warhawking more an idea than a reality when you consume 38 exajoules of hydrocarbon energy but only product 5 or so within your borders. )
Call me suspicious and cynical, but in the UK, France and Germany, among others, civil peace is only maintained so long as Islamic countries are not attacked.
Related, given the left leaning parties there- purportedly elected democratically (!), have done so (only) through alliance with Islamic groups, it can be noted the representatives, & their backers' political futures are also at stake.
Never underestimate the willingness of the current crop of representatives in such places to sacrifice their citizens futures to hold onto their positions, and thus to bias the largesse of the state to specific factions (see 'backers'...).
I like everything in this analysis except for the assertion that COVID was created in a lab.
The analysis of the Middle East, and the reference to the Messmer Plan, and the use of Perplexity in limited but critical spots are dead-on!! The Messmer Plan reference is the kill shot for a proper, practical and implementable understanding of recent history !!
I believe it’s no longer an “assertion”.
With the passage of time, and knowledge of genetic engineering, the odds of natural selection creating this highly complex virus is less than a lightning strike hitting a plastic garbage can on a sunny day.
Thanks.
Re: Covid-19(84), like everything else we write, disagreement is not only welcomed but encouraged.
The odds of the specific sequence at a Furin cleavage site insertion evolving naturally combined with the human transmissibility and mortality early in its evolutionary life and the fact that no host intermediate host species (to my knowledge) has ever been positively identified (unlike prior global epidemics/pandemics) inform our view on the matter. Lancet and other studies be damned.
Precise targeting of civilian infrastructure (like power and water treatment plants) will be the norm for future wars.
If we ever get into a fight over Taiwan, expect to see precision strikes on Hawaiian and west coast infrastructure.
(ugh…)
Terrific post by the way. Energy is everything, yet most folks know very little about it. However that might be changing soon, depending on events.
Thanks. Doomberg puts it simply:
“energy is life.”
Excellent commentary.
Thanks! We live in interesting times…
This is what happens when you postpone dealing with a difficult problem for too long. We strike now because there is basically no choice: Iran made it clear that it intended to build MULTIPLE nuclear weapons. This is every kind of horrible you may imagine. Does anyone doubt for a second that Iran will absolutely use its nukes if it gets them?
No peace is possible as long as hardline theocrats rule Iran. It is a measure of their true character that they choose to damage the entire world in retaliation.
“Iran made it clear that it intended to build MULTIPLE nuclear weapons.”
I call BS. This is absolutely untrue.
The difficult problem which has been continually postponed is the root cause of the radical Iranian Regime. The CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953 and installed the Shah and gave him the training and support to brutally suppress the people until he was ousted by radicals. Without eliminating the CIA or applying any accountability the same problems will continue to plague the world. JFK had it right, the CIA needs to be shattered into a thousand pieces and scattered into the wind.
Also, how is Israel a democracy when public protests by the people are broken up and censorship is used to keep reality from spreading. Was force vaccinating the population also part of their democracy??
This.
By persecuting any group, through sanctions, propaganda and war crime-assassinations, you enable the extremists. Simple sociology, psychology, and/or the reading of history will show that.
Notably Khamanei was on record dozens of time expressing that a nuclear bomb was un-Islamic- specifically both/either the acquiring in addition to the using. Whether one entirely believes him "100%" can be thought as dubious- and the real politik *was* that there were those clearly intending to acquire such weapons. But to have a leader saying, for the education of his followers, "No", is a value that should have been capitalized on. Notice it is a 'value' now lost.
I believe DJT's focus on the command of the IRGC was an attempt to work that angle. Ie align the Iranian military solely behind/under the religious-politician state (whatever their excess level of devoutness), rather than act as independently adjacent or even in charge, as was apparent.
(Over-simplistically, in hopes of ending more akin to Iran being structurally a Sunni counterweight of Saudi Arabia...not a perfect choice but doable over a decade, in hindsight)
Had the 2020 election... "gone differently" *and* DJT's loyalty to Israel become less manifest, there were some offramps missed.
In Cold War terms much of what Khamanei wrote was more pacifist than anything said by leaders of the USA or USSR.
I suspect these statements of my view won't dent Mr Snell's dogmatic POV, but there they are.
One person's freedom fighter against generations of unrelenting abuse, is another's unhinged rebel.
Simpler put, America is an absolutely wondrous idea. In application, it is the 2nd worst country-citizen extant.
I'm a blue eyed Canadian, fwiw.
Thanks for the well thought through and accurate response, I completely agree.
It is not clear to us that this war has or will eliminate that potential in the long run. And we take no pleasure in saying that, but we haven’t seen sufficient evidence to have an alternate view.
A chilling commentary. If only half true we are already in an unimaginable world.
The facts are there. The question is will both sides go scorched earth on energy (and civilian power and water) infrastructure. And does Iran still have the ability to hit those sites with ballistic missiles.
Unfortunately for Usrael Iran has demonstrated escalation dominance. Don’t forget, Iran has been continuously attacked and is only responding to such attacks. Perhaps live and let live needs to relearned. I hear people claiming Israel wants to turn Iran into another Gaza or Lebanon or Syria so as to implement a greater Israel policy from the river to the sea.
Yes. Exactly. Iran has been repeatedly surprise attacked under the guise of phony peace talks. This is existential for them and they are proving themselves to have the moral high ground against evil and unscrupulous nuclear armed enemies who have no reservations about committing war crimes.
“Don’t forget, Iran has been continuously attacked and is only responding to such attacks”
🙄
It’s difficult to even begin to mentally process the energy market impacts after reading about the mere notion of attacks by anyone on civilian water and electricity infrastructure. It would be a humanitarian crisis of unimaginable proportions.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that…
Yes & yes
Not sure…
Renewables aren't the answer.
Please have a look at Pielke's substack:
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/renewables-are-not-renewable
They are highly dependent on fossil fuel.
On another note, why are they Iranian mullahs fighting Israel so hard? Purely ideological reasons, or do they want the location on the Mediterranean Sea, or is there something in the ground there?
A lot of energy and other resources, not to mention lives, have been spent on this.
And is the population of Iran so cowed by the Revolutionary Guard that they dare not emit a peep again, or are they complicit to some degree?
Complicit
Ha! You won’t find anywhere in 100+ posts where we’d fight you or Roger on that!
Not sure that Iran will be able to continue to threaten their neighbors with ICBMs for much longer.
May be the case.
🙄
Solar power plants are extraordinarily vulnerable to terrorist or war attack.
China is building a couple of new coal plants every week, a trend that will last for at least the next ten years. The solar installations are for show, to convince the West that China is keen on green energy, and hey, you guys really should go all in on that. They are pragmatists and would never be so foolish as to base their advanced 24/7 economy on intermittent energy.
One step further: they’re (solar, wind) a 21st century version of the opium wars, only industrial.
China, circa 2005: “You guys are gonna try to power modern industrial economies with THAT? And you think you’ll build it cheaper domestically? Hold my beer, watch this. I’ll undercut you on all the hardware you’ll buy to weaken yourselves.
Whose ideas was this! Who do we thank!?!”
Physics.