The energy transition is real. Its timeline is contested. Its implication for the Strait of Hormuz over the coming decades is one of the more genuinely uncertain strategic questions in global energy analysis — not because the direction is unclear, but because the pace will determine whether the transition reduces Hormuz’s leverage before or after the next major crisis that tests it.

The optimistic scenario runs as follows. Electric vehicle adoption reduces oil demand in transportation, which is the largest end-use sector for petroleum. Renewables displace natural gas in power generation. Industrial electrification reduces demand in heavy industry. Global oil demand peaks sometime in the 2020s or early 2030s and declines steadily thereafter. As the total volume of oil that must transit Hormuz falls, so does the economic damage that any given closure would impose, and so does the strategic leverage that Iran extracts from its position on the northern jaw of the strait.