Paul Charman

When a balloon went up on the battlefield during World War I, it was a signal to British artillerymen to begin firing.

For much of the 20th Century, this phrase was a figurative description for any situation that had suddenly become serious or escalated into a crisis.

Well, on the nights of June 12 and 13, when Israel bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities - the balloon finally went up.

Two countries which have been fighting a proxy battle for decades via groups including Hamas and Hezbollah, are now fighting a kinetic war.

I predict a new global oil shock on the scale of the one in 1973.

Triggered by the Yom Kippur War and subsequent oil embargo, that event significantly impacted oil prices for more than a decade.

Oil prices quadrupled nearly overnight and remained high for months. The crisis led to a period of increased oil prices and influenced global economics and politics for about 10 years.  

Again, in my view this is not just another war in the Middle East; to me it’s more of a warning jab from the Red Rider of The Apocalypse.

And oh, the difficulty of living in a country at the end of a very long supply line for refined oil products.

With the Marsden Point Oil Refinery decommissioned in 2022, we depend on importing refined petrol and diesel from Singapore and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

With Russian oil under an embargo and that coming from the Persian Gulf under a question mark, I expect supply to plummet and demand to surge.

The prospect of Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear sites was chief among my reasons for buying an electric van a few months ago.

When people told me all the drawbacks, I was quick to agree:

n Rather than being “clean and green” EV batteries create a whole lot of environmental problems when you assess the true impact of lithium mining.

n Public charging infrastructure in New Zealand – and especially in the Central North Island – is shoddy and frustrating to use.

n Endlessly downloading apps on your mobile phone and coping with broken-down or vandalised public chargers makes it 10 times harder to drive an EV vehicle on a lengthy road trip, compared to any ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicle.

n Some EV vehicles, like the one I own, have an awfully limited range, while their batteries have a limited life-span.  EV batteries are hugely expensive to replace, and the EV vehicles themselves have had terrible resale value, till now.

I admit these drawbacks but since the balloon went up, I’m so glad I own an EV.

With kinetic war underway between Israel and Iran, rather than the proxy wars the two countries have fought for decades, petrol and diesel may become scarce as 10-year-old whisky.

But even if we can’t import much in the way of refined petroleum products from Singapore, we’ll still have plenty of electricity generated by our hydro dams. War or no war, gravity will still be pushing all that lovely water through the penstocks, spinning the turbines and generating electricity to keep my EV running.

I expect to be driving every day, when you ICE owners will be walking or cycling and saving up your gas for a special occasion.

Why am I so sure that this war will escalate while other conflicts between Israel and Iran have fizzled out?

That’s simple, just look at a map of the Middle East. Note that Israel is a very narrow country, so one well-placed nuclear explosion would be likely to end them as a nation. The Israelis are not going to let this happen, which means they must now press on till every underground facility in Iran is destroyed.

Meanwhile, if this happens, Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow entrance to the Persian Gulf through which 20 percent of the world’s oil is exported.

Then consider that Israel could stop most of Iran’s oil exports by bombing its main port on Kharg Island.

Till now, Israel has left this port alone but as civilian casualties mount in Israel it may think again. In that case, Iran’s economy would be ruined. In which case Iran might decide to ruin the economies of its neighbours, who also export their oil through the Gulf Hormuz.

These include Saudi Arabia, which was attacked by Iran’s ally the Houthis in 2019, and Qatar, which hosts a vast American air base.

With open warfare under way and every country in the Middle East armed to the teeth, I feel we’re bound to feel the effects over the coming months.

Because as the old saying goes, “you don’t buy fireworks to leave them on the shelf”.

Rural charging network fraught

The charging network in rural New Zealand could be described as the bare minimum.

For the three months we have been in Ōpōtiki, the Horizon charging station, located beside the Information Centre in Bridge Street has had the same hand-written sign displayed.

It reads, “use app to start charging ... screen broken”. However, the sole charging station at Ōpōtiki has worked each time we’ve visited it.

That’s more than you can say for two charging stations we visited in Rotorua and the charging station at Whakamaru, supposedly managed by The Lines Company, which have been repeatedly faulty.

It’s worth adding the EV charging stations at The Hub, Whakatāne are the most user friendly we have encountered.

We had to download six power company apps to cross the North Island.

Though the challenges are high, many of us EV owners enjoy our vehicles, which are economical to run and cheap to maintain.