Ryan C. Smith

They’re calling it the most reassuring message of all time

Pretty sure providing your enemy with free propaganda is not part of the job description of being the SecDef, but I also don't have Pete Kegsbreath's "warrior mentality".

Price of Crude Oil WTI (USD/Bbl) over a five-year period, spanning from 2021 to early 2026. The chart shows a significant price peak in 2022 reaching over $120, followed by a general downward trend with various fluctuations, eventually hitting a low near $55 in late 2025 before a sharp vertical spike to the current price of 90.900. This recent surge represents an increase of +23.880 (+35.63%), highlighted in green text above the blue line graph.

The real insanity isn’t how much oil prices have spiked, it’s that we’re still burning oil for energy.

That's one solution to lighting the Persian Gulf on fire.

It won't be enough, esp after the beating Russian capacity has taken in the past year c/o Ukrainian drones, but I can see why that's what the regime is trying this seemingly easy fix.
#EconSky #EnergySkt

this is not incidental!

to be a liberal/pluralist of any kind requires accepting that other people will see things differently than you do and that you have no sanctified monopoly on the One Truth.

this is what illiberals hate about liberalism. it’s the starting point for many.

To be sure, anyone with EVs, solar, or on grids with high quantities of renewables will suffer less of that. Renewables will limit the damage, but can't totally stop it unless you're in a fully electrified economy. Hopefully, those upsides encourage faster energy transition so we can all benefit.

I understand where this author is coming from but I think they're missing the larger point.

This oil shock won't just drive up the price at the pump & on the utility bill. It will create a larger price crisis where each increase multiplies the prices of everything else.
#EnergySky #EconSky

Charts you love to see in the morning.
#ClimateSky #GreenSky #EnergySky

Northern Ireland avoids £219 million in gas costs in 2025 due to renewable electricity A new report, Cutting Carbon, Cutting Bills, finds that Northern Ireland avoided £219 million for gas and carbon costs in 2025 due to renewable electricity.

Northern Ireland avoids £219 million in gas costs in 2025 due to renewable electricity
www.renewableenergymagazine.com/panorama/nor...

How Fossil Fuel Disruptions Lead to Booms in Solar and Batteries Past oil crises forced countries to cut fuel use and pay high prices, but now falling prices of clean tech offer another solution.

Past fossil-fuel price spikes left import-dependent countries with two options: pay up or cut fuel use. Now there is an alternative in solar and batteries.

I looked at recent examples in Europe, Pakistan, Cuba to glean what might happen with the war on Iran.

🎁🔗 www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

This is why it is best not to peg economic consequences to just the price of oil. The fallout from this war, thanks to how Central the Mideast is to energy, will be multifaceted and every aspect incredibly ugly.
#EnergySky #EconSky

If Canada isn’t in a recession, why does it feel like one for so many?

@mikepmoffatt.bsky.social and Sabrina Maddeaux unpack how rising GDP and record profits can coexist with food bank lines, housing crises and a shrinking middle class.

🎧Listen at: youtu.be/SVq_1ap4lCo?...

#EconSky #CdnPoli

This is why it will be much easier for Iran to interdict shipping than it will be for the US to protect it. All it takes to light up an oil or gas tanker is one lucky drone that costs about as much as a new Honda Civic.
#Iran #EconSky #EnergySky

There's wishful thinking and then there's whatever this patently nonsensensical drivel that is this chart.
#Iran

It's crazy how reliant the world's entire energy system is on one body of water, the Strait of Hormuz, just 20 nautical miles across at its narrowest, and situated in one of the most volatile regions on Earth. Here are the countries most dependent on oil&gas through the strait.

One thing is clear:

The Trump regime lost any semblance of control the moment the strike aircraft took off.

Any analysis of what follows should begin by dismissing any notion of the US having any real capacity for meaningful de-escalation. This war has ripped all the band-aids off.

We are watching the unraveling of the US geopolitical system in the Middle East at a pace and scale that I never though would be possible.

Mostly because full-scale war with Iran was, understandably, the blazing hot stove of the region that the US should never, ever touch.

The last 72 hours of news has been more than enough to be considered a historic crisis & all indicators suggest we're still in the warmup phase of this mess. The multiple embassy sieges, destruction of the Bahrain causeway, or the resumption of hostilities by Hezbollah would be major on their own.

Let's make sure it stays a "you and him" fight and isn't treated as a chance to rehabilitate the Walsh-Shapiro types. They don't get to walk away from what they helped birth.

Polling in the Iran war is disastrous for the Maga Party. And it's visibly splitting the right wing contentariat. Democrats need to hammer this over and over, pausing only to jab with "Epstein Class".

Absolute clown shoes.

US energy pundits who advocated for surging natural gas exports to Europe after Putin invated Ukraine bear some responsibility for this situation. There were alternatives, such as surging US manufacturing and export to the EU of heat pumps, solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries.

50501 Demands End to Another Forever War, Organizes Iran in Focus Mass Call TODAY at 7 PM ET FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 2, 2026 Contact: press@fiftyfifty.one Washington, D.C. - The 50501 movement condemns the United States and Israel's war of aggression against Iran and demands that Congress pass the Iran War Powers Resolution to block further unconstitutional strikes. As the 50501 movement stands in solidarity with the Iranian people against authoritarianism and imperialism, we are working with MoveOn and Win Without War to organize the Iran in Focus: Stop Trump's War mass call TODAY, March 2nd, at 7 PM ET.

Damn.

That's some real fighting words from the Gulf. Trump may have just cashed the last chips the US had with the Gulf petrostates.
#EnergySky #EconSky #Iran

Power in Fossil Fuel Supply-Side Policy: Closing Down and Opening Up Opportunities to Phase Out Fossil Fuel Production Abstract. Supply-side climate policy initiatives that restrict fossil fuel production are gathering momentum. A growing body of academic scholarship seeks to understand this new frontier in global cli...

Check out our new article "Power in Fossil Fuel Supply-Side Policy: Closing Down and Opening Up Opportunities to Phase Out Fossil Fuel Production" co-authored with @peternewell.bsky.social @freddiedaley.bsky.social and Daniela Soto Hernandez in @gepjournal.bsky.social direct.mit.edu/glep/article...

This was a foreseeable consequence of all-out war with Iran.

Said consequence is also why past policymakers have tried to avoid exactly what Trump is doing right now.

European gas price now up 48% since Friday!
And Dutch gas storages at a very low level (10% filled).
But: no incentive at all for commercial companies to start filling up again: prices throughout the year are higher than those for next winter. If we want the storages filled, governments need to act.

Told you it would be a long day of TTF-posting

Iran conflict: Oil jumps as Donald Trump vows to continue striking Iran US stock-index futures slip while gold rises in the wake of US-Israeli attack on Tehran

We're already beyond that point so it's safe to say there's room for hitting $100 or more.