Iran “excursion” is the cluster that keeps on fucking.
Hard to imagine what a malevolent AI could have devised that would be more maximally destructive to exactly those constituencies the administration promised to serve. Historians will marvel.
Driven by increased electrification demand, especially around the expansion of data centers, the gas turbine market faces a significant market imbalance that will see prices surge through 2027, according to a new report from Wood Mackenzie.
Gas turbine prices are projected to rise to $600/kW by the end of 2027, a 195% increase since 2019,..
Restricted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is also likely to impact the price and availability of components needed for gas turbine manufacturing, Bobby Noble, senior program manager of gas turbine research and development at the Electric Power Research Institute, told Utility Dive in an interview. “So it will be interesting to see in the next couple months how quickly some of those increased potential costs will start playing into the estimates that are being given.”
“While there may be manufacturing facilities here in the U.S. or in Europe or in Asia that can locally produce gas turbines and other components — the raw materials, the ceramic coating material and other things — there’s only going to be so much supply available right now before we need to look at where those components or materials can be sourced from, and see if there’s an adverse effect due to the current global situation,” Noble said.
“Of course, anything that has to be shipped, those costs will likely rise,” he added.
In conjunction with rising prices, average wait times for gas turbine delivery have recently increased by several years. A large turbine ordered now would likely take about five years to deliver; a small turbine would take between 18 and 36 months, according to Noble.
Even as the order backlog grows, developers continue to pursue large gas projects.
They’re racing to strand assets that will have an even higher up-front cost. Wonderful.
Russia-to-China pipelines coming into play.
Iran War fallout: Russia and China quietly take over natural gas markets in Asia, with Qatar gone
https://kdwalmsley.substack.com/p/iran-war-fallout-russia-and-china
(I don’t know how much the nightly Ukrainian drone attacks on the Russian oil supply affect the flows to China.)
Ukraine has enough reach to hit the Russian terminals and facilities on the Black, Baltic and Caspian seas, and can strike increasingly deeply into the western part of Russia, but I think most of the fields producing for the pipeline to China are multiple time zones farther east, out of range. And it’s likely that China would continue squeezing on what they’re willing to pay no matter how interested Russians would be in selling elsewhere for more.
Ukraine has helpfully given us a new data point for the reach of their weapons – over 1000 miles from their border, hitting Yekaterinburg and another city on the Asia side of the Urals. Still a long way from being able to hit everywhere in an enemy whose nation is > 5,000 miles across, but they’re improving.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/04/25/sverdlovsk-chelyabinsk-regions-report-first-ukrainian-drone-attacks-a92602
I’m following the Jake Broe YouTube videos now. I’m gobsmacked by those “bingo boards” that track which Russian refineries and docks and warships have been struck.
(Not sure I would have been as engaged with the coverage before Ukraine got the upper hand.)