The new energy arrives as electricity. The old energy still arrives by ship.

Growth runs on energy. Every economy that grew rich did it on energy that was cheap and close at hand, and lost ground when that energy turned dear. Factories, fertiliser, steel, cooling and transport all scale with the price of the next unit of power or fuel, which is why energy policy is growth policy.

Cheap energy is now limited less by what lies in the ground than by what can be shipped, connected and built. The obvious threats are wars and chokepoints. The less obvious ones are grids, minerals, machines and new demand.

Look at all energy and almost nothing moves: fossil fuels' share slipped from % to % in ten years. Look at electricity and the picture flips. Solar and wind went from % of the world's power to %, and in they added TWh, rise in generation.

The catch is that most energy is not yet electricity. Cars, trucks, ships, furnaces and stoves still burn fuel, and that is where oil and gas keep their hold.

India's energy use grew times as fast as the world's over the decade, and the average Indian still uses about % of the world average energy per person. Most of that catch-up was met by coal. Then, in , coal power TWh while solar, wind, hydro and other clean sources added TWh.

Five oil shocks in twenty years, and the 2026 Gulf disruption is the latest: Brent averaged $ in . Gas is worse. Europe paid $ per MMBtu in , times the $ American buyers paid for the same fuel.

Electricity made at home from sun and wind has no shipping lane to close. In India, an electric car runs on household power at a fraction of petrol's cost for each kWh that reaches the wheels.

The world is set to spend about as much on power grids () as on finding and pumping oil and gas () in , the IEA estimates. Clean energy draws against for fossil fuels. Venture money tells a sharper story: energy start-ups raised in , a third straight fall, while fusion alone raised in the year to July 2026, a record.

The old risk was a tanker. The new ones are a factory, a mine and a permit. One country makes more than nine in ten of the parts in key solar manufacturing steps and refines most rare earths. Grids take years to build where panels take months. And the world added a record GW of renewables in , yet needs about GW a year to triple capacity by 2030.

, mixed and too early to call.