OUR DAILY THREAD: Donald and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad War
Iran into a solar farm
THE SET-UP: Trump’s war is going not well. The “obliterated” nuclear program is not obliterated. Neither are Iran’s missiles and drones. He says we’ve met a new regime, but it’s the same as the old regime. And he can’t control Kharg Island, the Strait of Hormuz or Bibi Netanyahu.
To add insult to his self-inflicted injuries, his “little excursion,” a.k.a. “little stopover,” a.k.a. “little journey,” a.k.a. “military operation,” a.k.a. “perfect, amazing thing” has supercharged the one thing he thought he’d put to bed before he stepped all over his promise to never do what he did: renewable energy.
To be fair, it sure looked and felt like he’d pulled the plug on wind, solar and electric vehicles. Projects were being scuttled, previously allocated funds were being stopped or redirected, and new roadblocks were being erected by the industry shills who populated the Departments of Energy and the Interior.
And climate change? Forgettabout it. Literally.
Don’s quixotic war on windmills and the “Green New Scam” pushed the issue of anthropogenic climate change completely out of the public eye and out of the national discussion.
Trump put an exclamation point at the end of green energy’s death sentence when his Saudi benefactor came to town last November. That visit coincided with the COP30 global climate conference in Brazil … a conference Trump boycotted. The timing was pointed and the juxtaposition was clear … Trump embraced a country synonymous with oil while giving a rapidly heating world the cold shoulder.
Then came the war on Iran.
Predictably, the price of oil spiked once the war began, but it appears Trump genuinely didn’t understand the global nature of the oil market or Iran’s unique ability to control access in and out of a body water that bears its name.
He does now.
The price of oil is still being set by globally, much to the chagrin of Congressional Republicans who have to run against the high price of gasoline. And Iran’s Persian Gulf gatekeeping already set in motion a rolling shock that will reverberate well beyond the perpetually pending deal to end the war.
That’s why the world is moving on. Trump’s “deal or no deal” reality game show machine may be good for insiders trading on Wall Street or Polymarket, but, according to a new report in the New York Times, it’s driving the world into the outstretched arms of an industry he’d crippled and a country he fears:
In the Philippines, which in 2024 relied on Persian Gulf countries for about a quarter of its imported oil and natural gas, the closure of Hormuz appeared to be accelerating the transition toward renewable energy.
The value of solar equipment that China exported to the Philippines hit a record of almost $300 million in March — more than double the previous monthly record — before a Chinese tax rebate expired on April 1, Ember data show.
The Times found a similar dynamic playing-out in oil-rich Indonesia, where solar is seen as a much-needed shield against future disruptions:
“God willing, we will eliminate our dependence on imported fuel and save valuable foreign exchange reserves,” the country’s president, Prabowo Subianto, said in May.
But nowhere has it had more impact than on the technologically advanced electric vehicles China is shipping around the world, save the United States:
Soaring electric car sales in much of the world have been among the clearest signs that the war may hasten a shift away from oil. China, the world’s leading manufacturer of such models, exported a record $9.1 billion worth of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in April, up more than 50 percent year over year, according to Ember. Exports to countries hit hard by the loss of Persian Gulf oil supplies, including Japan, Pakistan and India, were especially strong.
In Europe, sales of battery-powered cars climbed 38 percent in April from a year earlier, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.
And if that’s not enough to convince us that Trump is King Midas in reverse, take a look at what’s happening with domestic solar power, per OilPrice.com:
Newly released data from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) shows that at the close of last year, solar energy additions were the single largest form of new energy capacity installations for the 28th straight month, starting in September of 2023. In fact, in spite of a broad rollback of Biden-era clean energy incentives since Trump resumed office in January of last year, renewables represented a whopping 88 percent of energy additions in 2025, with utility-scale solar alone counting for 72.6 percent of U.S. electricity additions.
This massive growth trend has caused solar power’s share of the United States energy mix to surpass that of wind power, nuclear power, and hydropower. And while many if not most of these renewable projects were greenlit and funded before Trump took office and rolled back tax cuts and subsidies for solar and wind projects, experts say not to expect a major cooldown any time soon.
As for those “rolled back tax cuts,” Bloomberg Law reported today that Trump’s losing there, too:
A federal judge threw out an IRS notice that imposed stricter guidelines on how wind and solar projects could qualify for energy tax credits, less than two months before the deadline.
US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the US District Court for the District of Columbia vacatedIRS Notice 2025-42 in a Saturday order because it was “arbitrary and capricious,” and violated the Administrative Procedures Act.
The decision is the latest court win for the wind and solar industries, which the Trump administration has attacked in favor of oil and gas.
His one consolation prize is coal.
Although no one expects coal to make a miraculous comeback, he’s lavished the fading industry with government largess … the latest of which was a specious use of the Defense Production Act to pour $700 million dollars into “grants to more than a dozen existing coal plants across the US, including facilities capable of exporting coal.”
It will also subsidize plants in “West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Indiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, Arizona, Oklahoma, North Dakota and Wisconsin.” And The Guardian also noted:
In the past year, the Trump administration has doled out hundreds of millions of dollars to the coal industry, signed orders forcing ratepayers to pay extra for ageing plants to stay open, and dismantled environmental rules that limit toxins from coal leaching into Americans’ shared air and water.
Although the Iran War is having a slightly similar effect on coal, it’s quite a stretch to believe it will compete with continual technological advances in renewable capture, storage and distribution. Let’s face it … humans can transform sunlight and wind into energy. And not only is the technology moving apace, it’s also widening a gap between China and the United States … and between the United States and the future.
Wildlife thrives in solar farm built on restored peatland
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2529590-wildlife-thrives-in-solar-farm-built-on-restored-peatland/
Solar farm could turn polluted land to boon for East St. Louis residents’ electric bills
https://www.stlpr.org/health-science-environment/2026-06-08/solar-farm-polluted-land-east-st-louis-electric-bills
Toyo Solar plans $357 million expansion at Houston-area manufacturing facility
https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2026/06/08/toyo-expansion-humble-solar-cells.html
$23 million solar manufacturing facility to create 150 new jobs in Mount Jackson
https://www.whsv.com/2026/06/08/23-million-solar-manufacturing-facility-create-150-new-jobs-mount-jackson/
Egypt readies initiative to incentivise solar panel installations in factories and homes
https://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2026/06/08/egypt-readies-initiative-to-incentivise-solar-panel-installations-in-factories-and-homes/
Australian homes lead the world in solar. But businesses are falling behind
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/09/australia-rooftop-solar-panels-households-business
Solar Energy Saves Europeans $135 Million A Day
https://cleantechnica.com/2026/06/08/solar-energy-saves-europeans-135-million-a-day/