Strait of Hormuz Crisis Proves Renewables Are Security
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- The Strait of Hormuz has been closed for over a month, blocking passage of at least one-fifth of global oil and gas in a disruption the source says is larger than the 1973 and 1979 oil crises combined.
- China's clean energy buildout and crude reserves have given it a strategic buffer from Asia-wide price shocks, and Spain's large solar industry has kept its energy prices more stable than its European neighbors.
- A Forbes report quoted in the piece called the situation an exposure of "the fragility of the global fossil fuel system: too much economic power concentrated in too few places, all of which must travel through the same maritime—and militarized—chokepoints."
- Norrsken Foundation General Partner David Frykman argued that "Wind and solar cannot be embargoed, blockaded, or shut off by a foreign power," framing renewables as a geopolitical shield against chokepoint risk.
- Wind and solar power were already cheaper than fossil fuels even before the United States and Israel began bombing Iran, meaning the crisis is accelerating a transition that was already economically inevitable.
- The article warns that fallout has been "mostly contained to Asia so far" but that soaring prices will be "crippling for import-dependent countries, and particularly for poor countries in the Global South," with inflation and recession "just around the corner."
Why it matters: Import-dependent and Global South countries face the worst of the price pain, while renewables-heavy nations gain a strategic buffer. The source explicitly reframes clean energy not as a climate story but as a security one — countries with diversified domestic generation can sidestep the chokepoint risks that fossil fuel supply chains inherently carry.
