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nuclear energy
Fuel Prices Have Spiked More in ‘Energy Independent’ US Than in Nations That Have Moved Away From Oil and Gas
"The only real energy independence from the Middle East is renewables," said one policy expert.
May 05, 2026
Average gas prices in the United States are quickly climbing toward $5 per gallon this week as US President Donald Trump's war with Iran shows little sign of resolution.
Where average prices were about $2.98 the day before the war's launch, they had shot up to $4.48 as of Tuesday, according to AAA's gas price tracker, as Iran's restriction of ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz has squeezed global oil shipping and the shipping of other fuel sources like liquefied natural gas (LNG), causing global price hikes.
And while Trump has touted America’s supposed “energy independence” as an ace in the hole, achieved by ratcheting up fossil fuel production while canceling solar and wind power projects, data shows that the US has been hit harder by the price shocks than any other major economy in the world, with those that have embraced renewable energy being especially resilient.
Although the US leads the world in oil production by a large margin, data from JP Morgan Commodities research, analyzed Friday by MarketWatch, showed that between February 23 and April 27, the US experienced about a 42% increase in gas prices, the fifth-highest in the world.
"The spike in US gasoline prices over the past two months has outpaced everywhere except Southeast Asia, the region most dependent on oil from the Persian Gulf," explained Yahoo Finance geopolitics reporter Jake Conley.
Rebecca Babin, senior energy trader and managing director at CIBC Private Wealth, explained to MarketWatch last week that while increased fuel production gives the US a "buffer," oil is a global market and "it doesn’t operate in a vacuum." She said, "Global tightness and domestic bottlenecks still show up in gasoline prices."
Meanwhile, some of the countries that have best survived the price hikes include France and Spain, which derive large shares of their power from nuclear energy and renewables, respectively.
Craig Hanson and Jessica Isaacs, a pair of researchers at the World Resources Institute, explained last month that while a mix of factors is at play, countries less reliant on fossil fuels generally "find themselves in a better position to withstand the current crisis."
"Every country has homegrown access to at least two clean energy resources—the sun shines, and the wind blows just about everywhere at some point," they said. "The same cannot be said of oil and gas, where production is concentrated in a small number of countries and exposed to geopolitical disruption."
"Renewable resources like wind, solar, and geothermal have zero fuel costs, and the fuel cost of nuclear power is quite low. Again, the same cannot be said of fossil fuels, which have costs set by volatile global markets," they added. "These two advantages are why some of the world’s clean energy frontrunners are faring better than other countries amidst the Iranian energy crisis."
As Reuters reported in late April, the contrast between Europe's biggest gas guzzlers and green energy adopters is particularly stark.
While Albania has kept energy prices in check and even lowered them compared to last year by using its large system of hydroelectric dams, which supply much of its power, countries like Germany and Italy, which still rely heavily on gas, have seen electricity prices spike.
Hanson and Isaacs noted that while clean energy investments have helped soften the blow of global price shocks, the effects are not the same across the board. While price hikes for the electricity used to power factories, homes, and cars have been blunted by the availability of alternative energy sources, others, like heat—which are more reliant on natural gas—have still been affected.
Still, though, they said the crisis has shown that in addition to environmental sustainability, "clean energy systems’ greatest benefits today might actually be price stability and domestic energy resilience."
While Trump has continued his efforts to choke off any federal investment in renewable energy and double down on oil and gas production, other nations have taken the war’s price hikes as a sign to further accelerate their transition away from fossil fuels.
Germany and several other European Union members, for example, have announced expedited timelines to expand offshore wind and solar investments, explicitly citing the volatility in oil markets caused by the war.
Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the energy price shocks showed that "the only real energy independence from the Middle East is renewables."
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Everyday People Bear the Costs of Big Tech’s Hunger for Profits
We pay it in rising energy bills, our worsening climate, our lack of access to safe water, increased noise pollution, and risks to our health and safety.
Dec 16, 2025
Bill Gates recently made headlines by suggesting that climate change is no longer a priority, but the American public begs to differ.
In this last election, climate change was a defining issue in states like Virginia and Georgia, where voters grappled with rising energy costs. And no matter how much tech billionaires try to distract us, increasing power costs and our worsening climate are directly connected to corporations like Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon racing to dominate the AI landscape.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the price of energy has risen at more than twice the rate of inflation since 2020, and Big Tech’s push for more power-hungry data centers is only making it worse.
The data centers proliferating across the country drive up energy costs by powering energy-ravenous generative AI, cloud storage, digital networks, and other energy intensive programs—much of it fueled by coal and natural gas that exacerbate climate change.
We can demand that tech giants like Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Amazon uphold their commitments to use 100% renewable energy and not rely on fossil fuels and nuclear energy to power data centers.
In some cases, data centers consume enough electricity to power the equivalent of a small city. The wholesale price of electricity in areas housing data centers is up a whopping 267% from five years ago—and everyday customers are eating those costs.
Americans are also shouldering increasing costs of an extreme climate.
The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard noted that insurance prices rose 74% between 2008 and 2024—and between 2018 and 2023, nearly 2 million people had their policies canceled by insurers because of climate risks.
Meanwhile, home prices have gone up 40% in the past two decades—meaning the cost of home repair and recovery from climate disasters has also grown, all while wages remain stagnant.
Data centers aren’t just putting our wallets at risk. Power grids across the country are already strained from aging infrastructure and repeated battering during extreme weather events.
The additional pressure to feed energy-intensive data centers only heightens the risk of power blackouts in emergencies like wildfires, deep freezes, and hurricanes. And in some communities, people’s taps have literally run dry because data centers used all the local groundwater.
Worse still, Big Tech’s AI energy demand has triggered a resurgence in dirty energy with the construction of new gas-powered energy plants and delayed shutdowns of fossil fuel-powered plants. The tech industry is even pushing for a revitalization of nuclear energy, including the planned 2028 reopening of Three Mile Island—site of the worst nuclear power plant disaster in US history—to help power Microsoft’s data centers.
Everyday people bear the costs of Big Tech’s hunger for profits. We pay it in rising energy bills, our worsening climate, our lack of access to safe water, increased noise pollution, and risks to our health and safety.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Instead of raising our bills, draining our local resources, and destabilizing our climate, Big Tech could create more energy jobs, lessen our power bills, and sustain communities.
We can demand that tech giants like Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Amazon uphold their commitments to use 100% renewable energy and not rely on fossil fuels and nuclear energy to power data centers. We can insist that data centers only go where they’re wanted by ensuring communities are given full transparency and protection in how they’re affected by power usage, water access, and noise pollution.
The current administration is ignoring its obligations to the American public by refusing to rein in Big Tech. But tech billionaires still have a responsibility to the very public they depend on for their existence.
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'Nuclear Facilities Must Never Be Attacked': IAEA Chief Condemns Israel's Bombing of Iran
"Such attacks have serious implications for nuclear safety, security, and safeguards, as well as regional and international peace and security," said the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Jun 13, 2025
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency issued a grave warning about the potentially catastrophic environmental and human impacts of military attacks on nuclear facilities after Israel launched a massive assault on Iran's nuclear energy infrastructure, reportedly damaging the country's largest uranium enrichment site.
"This development is deeply concerning," said IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi. "I have repeatedly stated that nuclear facilities must never be attacked, regardless of the context or circumstances, as it could harm both people and the environment. Such attacks have serious implications for nuclear safety, security, and safeguards, as well as regional and international peace and security."
Grossi pointed to the IAEA's longstanding position that "armed attacks on nuclear facilities could result in radioactive releases with grave consequences within and beyond the boundaries of the State which has been attacked."
As of Friday afternoon local time, Iranian officials said radiation levels were not elevated at the Natanz enrichment site, according to Grossi. Iranian officials also said the country's Esfahan and Fordow nuclear sites were not affected by Israel's attacks.
"Despite the current military actions and heightened tensions," Grossi said Friday, "it is clear that the only sustainable path forward—for Iran, for Israel, the entire region, and the international community—is one grounded in dialogue and diplomacy to ensure peace, stability, and cooperation."
"Israel's bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities is a dangerous escalation from a nuclear-armed state that threatens to thwart negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program."
Israel's deadly attack on Iran came a day after the IAEA Board of Governors approved a U.S.-backed resolution accusing Iran of not complying with its commitments to international nuclear safeguards.
Iran responded furiously to the resolution's passage, saying it "has no choice but to respond to this politically motivated resolution" and announcing a "new enrichment facility in a secure location."
Contrary to the Israeli government's claim that Iran is racing toward a nuclear weapon, U.S. intelligence agencies have maintained that Iran is not building an atomic bomb—an assessment consistent with Iran's repeated public statements that its nuclear program is for civilian energy purposes only.
Following Israel's attack, Iran—which is not a member of the IAEA board—requested that the United Nations agency hold an emergency meeting to discuss the Israeli strikes. Reuters reported that board members Russia, China, and Venezuela supported the request for a meeting.
Melissa Parke, executive director of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, said in a statement Friday that "Israel's bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities is a dangerous escalation from a nuclear-armed state that threatens to thwart negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program."
"Israel and Iran must join the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons without delay," said Parke. "This would require Israel to dismantle its nuclear weapons program and Iran to maintain its current nuclear safeguards framework under IAEA oversight. It is only through broad-based negotiated solutions that we can truly end the threat from nuclear weapons by agreeing to their total elimination."
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