Even if the Iran war ended now and the Strait of Hormuz reopened, the crisis has lasted long enough to bring a meaningful and damaging toll worldwide.

Why it matters: "What began as a disruption in a key energy corridor is now feeding through the entire global economy," the UN's trade and development arm said in an analysis.

Driving the news: Fresh outlooks are landing that take stock of the war's effect.

• The UN expects global economic growth to slow from 2.9% in 2025 to 2.6% this year, and that's without further escalation.
• It's not just about energy. Goods needed for fertilizers and much more transit the region — only right now, they don't.

Threat level: Developing nations are hardest hit, though Europe is also reliant on the strait, and the U.S. is tethered to global oil markets.

• With higher prices and messed-up supply chains, the UN sees the growth in global merchandise trade slowing from 4.7% last year to 1.5%-2.5% in 2026.

"As uncertainty rises, investors are shifting away from riskier assets, selling stocks, bonds and currencies in developing countries," its finds.

• Borrowing costs have already risen in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, developing Asian nations, the U.K. and elsewhere.

Zoom out: "In some regions, the effects are already acute. Southeast Asia faces fuel shortages and rationing that threaten industrial activity," Atlantic Council analysts said in a weekend post.

Zoom in: The International Energy Agency has started publishing a country-by-country look at emergency measures.

• A small snapshot: Bangladesh is rationing fuel, limiting air-conditioning levels (something multiple other nations are doing) and closing universities.
• India is capping industrial gas use; the Philippines declared a national energy emergency; Korea is asking car owners to avoid driving one day per week.
• Meanwhile, many nations are cutting fuel taxes and boosting subsidies, which can strain budgets.

What's next: The Labor Department will release U.S. inflation data for March on Friday — the first consumer price index that will capture some of the war's effect.

• The Energy Department drops revised oil and fuel price outlooks tomorrow.
• International Monetary Fund head Kristalina Georgieva will give a speech on Thursday on the global economic outlook, with the fund publishing detailed analyses the following week.

There's good news and bad news for consumers in a data-rich new Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report on power prices.

Why it matters: This chart ☝️ is a reminder that electricity can be a major household expense.

The big picture: Average, inflation-adjusted residential power costs rose 5.6% from 2019-2025 — faster than health care, gasoline, and groceries.

Yes, but: Power as a share of "Personal Consumption Expenditures" — a metric of household spending on goods and services — are near all-time lows.

The intrigue: There's no crystal ball on the future effects of huge data centers.

• "Load growth can increase or decrease retail prices: depends on ability to optimize existing assets, cost of new supply & delivery, tariff structures," it finds.

Zoom out: From 2019-2025, many states with big demand sources coming online had small or even negative retail price changes.

• Yet several states in PJM, where growth is strong, saw big spikes in 2025.

What's next: "Investor-owned utility revenue increase requests in 2025 were higher than experienced in decades, suggesting continued price increases in 2026."

The Interior Department plans to re-combine offshore energy safety and leasing functions that were split up after the huge 2010 BP oil spill.

Why it matters: Offshore areas provide 15% of U.S. oil production, and Trump officials are expanding leasing.

Driving the news: Interior said Friday it's merging the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

• The new entity is called the Marine Minerals Administration.

The big picture: It will "improve coordination and increase efficiencies" in leasing, permitting, inspections and environmental oversight, Interior said.

• Existing regulatory protections and safety standards will remain.

Flashback: Obama officials split the Minerals Management Service into BSEE, BOEM, and a revenues office — a move to end internally conflicting missions.

Friction point: Michael Bromwich, who revamped oversight under Obama, said consolidation "makes little sense."

• It brings a "return to mission confusion and diminished enforcement," he said via email.
• "It's consistent with a desire to erase reforms developed by the Obama administration and serves as a gratuitous favor for the oil and gas industry."

What's next: "Internal alignment activities" begin soon, per Interior.

• Interior's announcement flatly says it's happening, but Friday's budget plan seeks congressional blessing.

Sure, White House budget plans are typically DOA in Congress, but they reveal officials' thinking — in this case, DOE's electricity ambitions.

Why it matters: DOE's fiscal year 2027 proposal Friday says it's looking to preserve 9 gigawatts of "baseload" power and add another 9-13 GW.

• It puts coal, natural gas, nuclear and hydro under the "baseload" banner.
• 1 GW can supply 750,000-ish homes.

Driving the news: The plan has a new $3.5 billion "baseload power" budget line, funded by repurposing 2021 infrastructure law money.

Zoom out: Goals for existing infrastructure are keeping coal plants online; expanding output from nuclear and hydro plants; upgrading transmission lines, and more.

• The budget also seeks funding for recently created DOE offices of Fusion Energy, and Artificial Intelligence and Quantum — the latter via $1.2B in rerouted infrastructure law money.

What we're watching: The wider White House budget request looks to slash billions of dollars in climate and energy initiatives it labels the "Green New Scam."

• It targets NOAA, State, DOE, EPA and beyond.

An energy think tank and one of the leading nuclear-waste recycling companies are pressing Congress to rewrite decades-old nuclear laws to include recycling.

Why it matters: Two dozen states have told the Energy Department that they're potentially interested in hosting sites that would encompass the entire nuclear power development process, including recycling.

Driving the news: The Energy Innovation Reform Project — along with Christina Leggett, fuel cycle technology director at waste-recycling company Oklo — say in a new paper that the 1954 Atomic Energy Act and 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act should be updated "to bolster the commercial deployment of modern recycling technologies."

• Oklo last year announced a $1.68 billion recycling facility in Tennessee, contending that dangerously radioactive byproducts of nuclear power plants can be safely recycled into usable fuel.
• Recycling "is possible with advanced recycling technologies and should substantially reduce the amount of high-level waste requiring permanent disposal" while recovering isotopes for space, medical, and other uses, the paper says.

The other side: Some nuclear experts are deeply skeptical about potentially high costs and whether terrorists could acquire material that's set to be recycled.

What we're watching: Of the 24 states that contacted the Energy Department about hosting sites that would include recycling, "12 to 15" have "very serious proposals," Ted Garrish, DOE's assistant secretary for nuclear energy, told a Senate committee last month.

• The department envisions "nuclear lifecycle innovation campuses" covering such processes as uranium enrichment, fuel fabrication and recycling, with the possibility of having data centers and additional reactors nearby.
• Garrish said the department will "very quickly" start evaluating proposals to see which are viable.

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"During the pandemic, you shrunk the oil market in a relatively managed way. Now you're shrinking it by force in a very unmanaged way. And this is a lot more disruptive. And the market isn't necessarily pricing that."

He's getting to a big theme of the Iran crisis.

• Those headline-grabbing futures prices, high as they are, don't reflect the scale of physical chaos and shortages.