The recent U.S./Israel-Iran War, which began on February 28, 2026, triggered the closure of the Strait of Hormuz—the world’s most critical oil chokepoint—halting roughly 20% of global petroleum liquids supply and effectively stopping oil and LNG exports from the Persian Gulf.

This sudden disruption has caused sharp price spikes in fossil fuels and forced major producers to curtail output, underscoring their indispensable role in meeting global energy demand. In contrast, solar module prices have shown no meaningful response, revealing that solar energy has failed to act as a viable or scalable substitute during this genuine energy crisis. These events empirically demonstrate that fossil fuels remain absolutely essential, while solar modules have proven largely obsolete when they are needed most.

Here are some very important points to consider:

• The Strait of Hormuz is the world’s most critical oil chokepoint (Fig. 1). Roughly 20 million barrels per day—about 20% of global petroleum liquids consumption—normally pass through it.

• The Persian Gulf sits within the Persian Gulf Basin; a wedge-shaped foreland basin located between the Arabian Plate and the Eurasian Plate (Fig. 2). Its formation is tied directly to plate tectonics: as the Arabian Plate moved northward and collided with Eurasia, it created the Zagros Fold and Thrust Belt (Sembroni et al. 2024) to the northeast and caused the crust to bend downward, forming a deep basin.

• This basin later filled with 12–13 km of sediment, mostly carbonates and evaporites, deposited over hundreds of millions of years. These conditions also produced the region’s exceptional hydrocarbon richness (e.g., Ahvaz and Marun oil fields).
• The U.S./Israel-Iran War, which began on February 28, 2026, not only led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz but also halted the passage of oil and LNG effectively.
• From a global market perspective, losing this volume is equivalent to shutting down major oil-producing regions entirely. With no alternative export routes for most Gulf producers, countries like Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia were forced to cut production because storage filled up.
• The sudden removal of such a large share of global supply triggered immediate price spikes (Fig. 3).

• If the Solar Energy is truly the Savior of the Planet Earth from Climate Change, then the global community should welcome the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and related shortage of Oil and LNG. They should pivot towards Solar Energy. Surprisingly, there is no change in the Price-Index trend for solar modules due to the U.S./Israel-Iran war (Fig. 4).

• These empirical datasets clearly reveal that at the time of global energy crisis, fossil fuels are absolute, but solar modules are obsolete!

References

Sembroni, A., Reitano, R., Faccenna, C. et al. 2024. The geologic configuration of the Zagros Fold and Thrust Belt: an overview. Med. Geosc. Rev. 6, 61–86 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42990-024-00118-6

Originally published on CO₂ Coalition Substack on May 6, 2026.

G. Shanmugam, Ph.D. is a Member of the CO₂ Coalition and formerly employed as a Research Scientist by the Mobil Oil Company in Dallas, Texas (1978-2000).