For years, the main criticism of renewable energy was one word: intermittency. The wind stops blowing. The sun is setting.
Fossil fuels, the argument went, are reliable in a way that climate-dependent energy sources cannot be. That debate shaped energy policy debates on both sides of the Atlantic for decades.
Three months after the start of the war in Iran, it was aimed at the top.
What the Nordic energy leaders said in Helsinki and why it is aimed at the Americans
On the sidelines of the Eurelectric Power Summit in Helsinki, Finland, CEOs of two of Europe’s largest energy companies told CNBC that the long-term closure of the Strait of Hormuz has revealed something the energy industry has been reluctant to say out loud: fossil fuels have their own intermittency problem, and it’s called geopolitics.
Markus Rauramo, CEO of the Finnish energy company Fortum and President of Eurelectric, was specific when asked about the comparison. “It’s a different kind of relaxation, but absolutely,” he told CNBC.
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“So, of course, this is our message: that the solution to dependence on CO2-content foreign fuels is to actually have clean domestic electricity. That is the way forward, but it is very reasonable,” he added.
Birgitte Ringstad Vartdal, CEO of Norwegian energy company Statkraft, made a similar point, highlighting advances in battery technology as something that has significantly changed the credibility of renewable energy.
The message from both administrations was the same: the crisis in Hormuz is not a cause for panic. It is a reason to hurry.
Why the Hormuz blockade is reshaping the short-term oil and energy debate
The Strait of Hormuz carries about 20% of the world’s oil and natural gas liquids under normal conditions. When it closes, that material doesn’t just go clean again.
Other shipping routes are longer, more expensive, and delayed. Prices are rising, markets are tightening, and consumers are feeling the impact with energy bills and transportation costs, regardless of where they live.
That is the temporary argument used for fossil fuels. Kingsmill Bond, an energy strategist at UK-based think tank Ember, puts it bluntly to CNBC in Helsinki.
“The big talk, and I’m surprised we haven’t heard people talk about this, is that fossil fuels are now in the middle and they’re uncertain, which was the argument against renewables,” he said. “Renewables, because of batteries, are essentially unchanged, as the sun rises every morning.”
The argument is not that renewables are perfect. Rauramo admitted that switching to electricity remains a major challenge for households and industries that rely on existing fuel infrastructure.
The argument is that the comparison has changed. Fossil fuel supply chains can be disrupted by a single national event the way a rooftop solar panel in Ohio can.
For American policymakers and investors watching the situation, the Nordic message should be taken seriously even if the US power position is structurally strong.Rue/Getty Images
What the oil and LNG market disruption means for Americans in particular
The United States is the world’s largest producer of oil and gas, protecting domestic consumers from the direct supply risks faced by European consumers.
But global oil markets are interconnected, and supply shocks in the Gulf still translate into higher prices for gasoline, jet fuel, and heating oil even for Americans who have never bought a barrel of Middle Eastern dirt.
The size of the LNG is also important. As Europe reduces its dependence on Russian gas from 2022, it has turned to increased exports of US liquefied natural gas.
That means that American LNG production is now deeply embedded in Europe’s energy security calculations. A disruption in European gas markets could impact US export volumes, prices, and infrastructure use, CNBC reports.
The broad point from Nordic executives is that energy security is not just about more production. It’s about reducing exposure to the kind of concentrated areas that can be blocked by conflict, politics, or danger. A country that generates most of its electricity domestically from wind, solar, and nuclear is structurally less exposed to that risk than one that depends on imported fuel that travels along a single 39-kilometer-wide pipeline.
Key context in the Hormuz closure, renewables, and energy security debate:
Markus Rauramo holds two roles at the same time: CEO of Fortum, one of the most low-carbon energy companies in Europe operating in all Nordic and Baltic markets, and President of Eurelectric, the organization representing the European electricity industry; His comments at the Energy Summit therefore carry more institutional weight than individual companies, CNBC noted.
The European Commission said the EU’s gas reserves could still reach 80% by the end of the summer despite the Hormuz disruption, which will help protect winter supplies, but warned that conditions could become even more severe if the situation does not improve, according to IBTimes.
Jet fuel is identified as one of the products most exposed to current disruptions; unlike crude oil, jet fuel cannot be easily replaced or stockpiled at the same rate, making airlines and transportation networks vulnerable to a prolonged shutdown of Hormuz, IBTimes confirmed.
Ember’s Kingsmill Bond noted that batteries have fundamentally changed the reliability case for renewables; The combination of solar, wind, and storage can now provide baseload consistency that was not commercially viable five years ago, according to CNBC.
Statkraft’s CEO Birgitte Ringstad Vartdal is the head of the world’s largest renewable energy producer, giving her opinion a special weight in the battery storage debate and the grid reliability debate; Statkraft operates electric, wind, and solar assets in 21 countries, CNBC confirmed
What oil means and the Nordic energy warning for investors and policy makers
The message of the Eurelectric Power Summit is ultimately geopolitical dressed up in the language of power. When Fortum’s CEO says the solution to fuel shortages is clean domestic electricity, he’s blaming allocations, not just climate policy. Every dollar invested in domestic renewables is a dollar that reduces exposure to supply chains that could be disrupted by non-governmental events in Europe or America.
For investors, the Hormuz disruption is already being reflected in oil prices, LNG markets, and energy balance performance. The long-term signal from Helsinki is that the crisis is accelerating policy discussions in Europe about domestic energy investments that are already moving in that direction. That can translate into faster approvals, more grid investment, and stronger mandates for storage deployment, all good for the renewable energy supply chain.
For American policymakers and investors watching the situation, the Nordic message should be taken seriously even if the US power position is structurally strong. The global oil market knows no bounds, and the argument that domestic energy resilience needs to be distanced from fossil fuel chokepoints is one that applies in Ohio as much as it did in Oslo.
Related: Chevron CEO sends tough message on oil, economy
This story was originally published by TheStreet on Jun 7, 2026, where it appeared first in the Economy section. Add TheStreet as a favorite source by clicking here.
