There’s a lot to do and we need a lot of people to do it. Most of all, at the least we need people active in the electoral process and candidates who are worth voting for when it comes to democracy and climate action.

We’ve run out of time for climate action and are now at the stage of now-or-never. We’ve not yet managed to reduce carbon emissions. We have slowed the rate of emissions, but more carbon is still being added into the atmosphere and temperatures keep climbing. I sure as hell hope that the recent studies suggesting the rate of temperature rise is faster than previously thought turns out to be wrong, although science has grown more sophisticated in its understanding of large Earth systems, and with more understanding comes, typically, more accuracy. With higher temperatures comes the greater likelihood of various tipping points happening sooner rather than later, and that’s another piece of bad news.

The good news is that we have economically viable technological developments in solar/wind/batteries and digital grid and demand management to meet not only the growing demand for electricity but replace some of the existing fossil fuel-based electricity generation and much of the gasoline-driven transport so dear to the American culture. If we keep from adding new gas-fired gas plants and retire existing coal plants and gas plants, we can cut back on greenhouse gas emissions that stem from the electricity generation we need.

We can win.

There’s a great EMBER report I covered in “The Electrotech Manifesto,” posted last June that does a great job spelling it all out. If you need a pick-me-up in the face of all the dirty tricks Big Oil has been pulling, check it out. 

Cutting back on carbon emissions instead of adding to emissions must be our goal for the next few years, never mind any decades time scales. We need to manifest this reduction of emissions as soon as possible. 2030 is right around the corner and even if we do manage to reduce emissions from the electricity generation sector, we’ll still be dealing with a world at least 1.5 Celsius hotter, in annual global average, and it looks likely that 2.0 Celsius is now the new minimum rise. I’ll take 2.0 Celsius by 2100 over 3.0, 4.0, or even higher Celsius increases, but whatever the actual number of Celsius warmer annual global average temperature, the lower the number, the better for one and all.

So, chop chop, people.

First, Restore Democracy

The first objective in the fight for faster clean energy transition, at least here in America, is to revive our democracy. While polls strongly suggest there will be a Republican rout in the midterms, the polls assume there will be midterms that aren’t abused by the Trump Administration to its advantage. And what is the basis for Trump’s advantage? Basically, to stay in power and out of jail.

Trump’s corruption is historic, and that’s keeping in mind that there have been periods in American history where corruption was strife. Still, when it comes to corruption and self-dealing, Trump truly deserves the gold medal in that event. A crucial aspect of this corruption is the favors bought by Big Oil that has President Big Oil Stooge leaning the economy heavily toward fossil fuels, despite clean power technology being more costly both in direct cost and, of course, in health and environmental impact.

For the 2026 midterms, the fight will be on two fronts. The first is to make sure the elections take place in fair and legal conditions. The second is to vote for the right candidates in record numbers.

Second, Stress the Positive

We have the means to transition our energy systems toward clean energy, including solar, wind, battery storage, geothermal, and nuclear. Solar and wind and batteries are cheapest and fastest to implement, while also freeing countries from having to continuously spend and spend on more fossil fuels to replace that which has been burned.

The reduction in carbon emissions from the clean energy transition can slow down carbon emissions and even start to reverse the high levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The net effect will be to keep climate change from worsening, and thus reduce the amount of money, time, and effort to build resilience for the warming climate and decrease the adaptation efforts that higher temperatures will demand. We must diminish the threat of economic and societal collapse posited by many should we experience 2 Celsius or higher global average temperature rises.

Sounds like a bargain, right?

How about cheaper and cleaner electricity fairly shared, and not just among Americans, but to address the Global South’s energy poverty? Here, in many countries, clean energy is countering the fossil fuel-based systems that contribute to overall poverty, including high mortality, hunger, famine, disease, and whatever other horsemen of the apocalypse you can think of. Oppressive living standards occur by keeping such countries’ own energy and economic development hostage to the costs of fossil fuel energy generation.

Third, Go Big on Clean Energy Build Out Nationally, State-wide, and Locally

The United States faces big energy infrastructure build out regardless of energy source. There’s the need for more electricity, not only for the panicked requirements of AI and data centers, and clean electricity is far more efficient an energy source than fossil fuels, whether in terms of generation itself, or for the heating and cooling of the built environment, or transportation. Electrical grids need better digital management for load balancing, efficient use of distributed energy resources such as virtual power plants, and controlling demand load capacity and distribution. Overall power capacity needs expansion and old distribution lines require repair and updating.

This may seem overwhelming, but keep in mind that America has undertaken this sort of infrastructure work before–think the Federal Rural Electrification program or Tennessee Valley Authority, or for that matter, the Interstate Highways buildout. Keep in mind that just one administration back, two major bills for big energy infrastructure passed, only to be illegally curtailed by the Trump Administration’s violations of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.

The clean energy transition may seem too expensive, but longer-term considerations prove out that the clean energy transition to be the less expensive path. Why are large clean energy infrastructure programs less expensive, especially if one doesn’t get caught up in the “next-quarter” thinking? First, solar/wind/and battery systems are cost comparable to fossil fuel-based generators, but the cost of operation for fossil fuel-based generation is never-ending with ongoing purchases of price-volatile fossil fuels. This contrasts to clean energy generation that has only its upfront cost but very low cost of operations that does not include any ongoing fuel purchases for thirty or forty years. There’s an old argument still being made that the levelized cost of energy (LCOE, or the overall costs over the life of the energy generation) is lower with natural gas than with renewables. Yes, once upon a time this was true, but only by cherry picking old data from back when solar, for example, was costly, do the numbers work out that way. In reality, costs for solar, wind, and battery storage have fallen so low that renewable energy’s LCOE is cheaper than fossil fuels and that that’s not even counting the negative externalities of health and climate cost inseparable from fossil fuels.  Another way to look at this issue is as energy return on investment (EROI), and if you want more on this, check out my post “My Report About EROI, Written by AI,” published last April.

Today, the thumb on the scale for fossil fuels is even worse, with 100-plus year old tax code advantages and $billions in direct subsidies still being handed to the fossil fuel corporations each and every year, including several $billion extra added in by Trump through the OBBBA. Big Oil has been gaming the system for its own business benefit, cost, inefficiencies, and damages from the business of fossil fuels be damned. We need to act at every level, from federal, to state, to local.

Fourth, Take a Breath

The energy transition may look better and be moving forward faster in many other parts of the world outside the U.S. China has been full steam ahead (old metaphors never die, they just become ironic), and while China’s large economy and huge population make carbon emissions reduction difficult, that country is on its way toward becoming the first “Electrotech” country. Usually, advantage goes to first place winners, but as an American considering this advantage, I’ll merely sigh.

There are good signs that many Global South countries are leapfrogging older energy systems and often this may mean that the expensive infrastructure outlays that the West’s traditional energy grid systems represent can be ignored for a more quickly built and less expensive micro-grids and local energy capacity based on renewables. One of the great fears has long been that the developing countries, as they approach parity in energy wealth to the developed countries, would contribute to huge further spikes in carbon emissions. What we’re seeing instead are countries putting in place clean energy systems early on. This trend has the potential for a significant win/win, where countries develop energy wealth parity while no further carbon emissions are added.

Fifth, Eat the Billionaires

Any neutral economic assessment of the past forty or fifty years shows a staggeringly huge shift in wealth to the top 10%, and even worse, the top fraction of one percent. By most analyses, our wealth inequality today exceeds the excess of the late nineteenth century Gilded Age, and any reader of history knows that the Gilded Age was an awful time of corruption, worker oppression, and wide-scale poverty. Today, America is captured by oligarchs. Billionaires avoid taxes in myriad ways. The accretion of power to the top one-percent is so significant as to be nearly incomprehensive. Dé·jà vu, all over again.

Shifts in distributed wealth have many examples in American history. Within our lifetimes—well, decreasingly few of us still living these days—the Depression era New Deal corrections provided economic support to desperate citizens. The post WWII American productivity growth created a growing middle class because productivity gains were shared more equitably. The top income tax bracket was 92 percent during Eisenhower’s administration, and while the top bracket fluctuated, the 1960 and 1970s saw top rates at 70 percent or higher. Only with the election of Ronald Reagan did the top rate crash down to 50 percent in 1982 and fell further to 28% in 1988. Further tax cuts in the George W. Bush administration happened and then the Trump tax cuts in his first term went into law, then were extended again in 2025 with OBBBA.

The current level of wealth inequality is absurd and absurdly dangerous: The top 1% (approx. $55 trillion in assets) holds roughly as much wealth as the entire bottom 90% of Americans. As of early 2026, the top three richest Americans are Elon Musk (approx. $839B), Larry Page ($257B), and Sergey Brin ($237B). Together, they represent a significant portion of the roughly 31.7% of U.S. wealth held by the top 1% of households.

Let’s tax the rich and get the wealth distribution back into fair territory. Let’s have a more fairly shared burden contribute to the crucial work on the energy transition ahead of us.

By the way, should billionaires even exist?

Sixth, Shift America’s Money to the Real Conflict

In 2026, the budget for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) was $839.2 billion in discretionary funding, but The FY2026 DOD budget request also contains approximately $113.3 billion in mandatory (non-discretionary) funding, including the following:

• Resources designated for the Navy’s shipbuilding plan and to revitalize the nation’s shipbuilding industrial base
• Over $5 billion is allocated specifically for the submarine industrial base
• Investments include $321.9 million for DPA purchases and $2.6 billion for Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment (IBAS) programs
• Strategic capital to the tune of $300 million directed toward the Office of Strategic Capital for loans and loan guarantees
• The Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) budget, which is part of the broader, non-discretionary personnel-related costs, accounting for 84% ($1,216.8 million) of the specific budget request
• While not mandatory funding, the enacted NDAA/appropriations provided significant budget additions in specific, targeted “non-discretionary” areas (items that Congress authorizes) such as $1.5 billion for the maritime industrial base and various, targeted, weapon systems enhancements

Well, what’s another $113 billion, right?

And then, of course, there are the additional costs associated with specific military adventures in 2026, including:

• Iran-related operations incurring roughly $10.35 billion in costs in just the first 10 days of the conflict, with the initial 100 hours of operations costing an estimated $3.3 billion, with costs rising rapidly due to munitions, flight hours, and damaged equipment. A two-month engagement is estimated to cost between $40 billion and $95 billion
• Venezuela adventure/Caribbean operations will incur costs above the initial FY2026 budget, including increased personnel benefits (e.g., family separation allowances) and higher operational tempo (e.g., more flying/steaming hours). These are estimated to cost an extra $3 million per day
• The FY2026 defense budget includes expanded missions for the DoD to support the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which includes deploying U.S. forces to border areas

Due to the high intensity of operations, the Pentagon has informed Congress they need an additional $50 billion beyond the original budget request. Additionally, the administration has anticipated at least $150 billion in further, separate, or reconciliation funding for defense activities.

Well, what’s another $150 billion, right?

So, yeah, well over $1trillion is going to the DOD. One core factor in the current war efforts is fossil fuels, whether to address the threats against oil markets or for “strategic” geo-political considerations. And then there are the costs stemming for the protection of maritime shipping and the negative production capacity among both U.S. allies and enemies.

Keep in mind that the Pentagon has never passed a clean financial audit since they began audits in 2018, failing its eighth consecutive annual audit in late 2025. Despite conducting yearly audits, the Department of Defense (DOD) remains the only federal agency unable to achieve an unmodified, or “clean,” audit opinion. That 1960 warning by Eisenhower about a military-industrial complex? It turns out, I Like Ike.

Keep in mind, too, the negative revenue consequences of OBBBA. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is estimated to reduce federal tax revenue by approximately $4.5 trillion to $5.5 trillion over the ten-year period from 2025–2034. These revenue losses primarily stem from extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) policies, implementing new business tax reforms, and raising the SALT deduction cap to $40,000.

You’ve heard this before, but the U.S. military budget in 2026 is $839.2 billion (but actually over $1 trillion). China (People’s Republic of) is in second place, at $303 billion, well less than a third of the U.S. military budget. Here are the next top eight military budgets, in $billions: Russia, $212.6; Germany, $127.4; India, $88.4; Saudi Arabia, $67.2; United Kingdom, $64; France, $57.4; Japan, $57.4; South Korea, $45.8.

So, yeah, what you’ve heard is right: the budget for the U.S. military is as much as the next nine nations’ military budgets combined. Half of these are allies.

The money for the clean energy transition is there, but it is being spent on the wrong things.

Let’s fund the Electrotech Revolution, save most people money, and save the planet’s hospitable climate. That’s the battle we need to join.

The post How to Win the Electrotech Revolution first appeared on David Guenette.

Still, I’m tempted to call baloney when it comes to balcony solar, but another part of me knows that any step forward with solar power is a good thing. But I still grumble that this under-powered piecemeal addition for adding solar is far less important than all the proposals being considered across—at last count—28 states and DC might suggest.

What’s being considered in legislatures across the land is allowing small plug-and-play photovoltaic (PV) kits that connect directly to a standard wall outlet, allowing users to reduce electricity bills without complex installation. Balcony solar panel systems typically have a maximum output capacity of 600W to 800W for standard plug-in microinverter kits, which is the legal limit in many European countries. While some systems allow for up to 1,200W or slightly higher, 800W is the common, safe, and regulatory-approved threshold for small apartment-focused solar energy. Basically, we talking a balcony solar kit generating an amount of power that falls short for most microwaves or hairdryers. Forget about refrigerators that may only need 150–300 watts to run, but can require 1,000–2,000-plus watts to start the compressor.

Keep in mind that balcony solar powers only the circuit it is plugged into, not the whole house. Under best conditions a balcony solar set-up might generate 300-1,200k kWh annually. Here in Massachusetts, the typical household annual electricity consumption is approximately 7,150-7,250 kWh, which means, best case, balcony solar might supply 16% of your annual usage, but of course there’s no such thing as best case, especially here in New England.

But whatever. In my book, any reduction in fossil fuel-derived electricity is a win, even if my enthusiasm for balcony solar is, like its output potential, weak.

What is clearly not a win at all is adding more regulations and local authority over rooftop and community-scale solar and battery projects.

Good Intentions Can Have Bad Consequences

In fact, I find myself grumbling about a lot of solar-related issues these days and balcony solar isn’t top of the list. Some people within one of my local climate groups sends around to the members information from Responsible Solar MA asking that members consider submitting testimony to the state Energy Facilities Siting Board to support changes in the regulations on siting of solar projects be adopted for “Safe Solar Siting.” Responsible Solar MA was asking for the public written testimony in support of many new restrictions on solar siting, and when I read the template testimony provided, I ended up editing it to oppose most provisions included.

Here’s what I wrote (slightly further edited for this post):

To the Energy Facilities Siting Board,

Please accept my comments relating to the energy siting regulations and guidelines that are in development. My guiding principle below is that liberal permission should be allowed in the siting of solar and solar/batteries facilities in the vast majority of cases, but perhaps with a few exceptions, such as setback and fencing and aesthetic border requirements as described in local zoning codes. 

The country and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are in a race to develop solar and tie clean energy into existing or newly needed transmission grids renewable energy sources. Indeed, the transition to renewable energy-based electricity production is among the highest priorities for the world at large, as progress in the reduction of greenhouse gases has to date underperformed, with consequential increases in climate change. As few restrictions to solar or battery or solar/battery facility siting as possible will be necessary to encourage and accelerate the renewable energy transition.

1) Do NOT exclude “small” energy projects and all ESS battery systems by only allowing such projects on the built or disturbed environment. This is an unnecessary restriction that will only serve to delay, complicate, and raise the costs of solar and battery facilities.

2) Do NOT exclude the following areas from large and small energy generation and transmission projects:

• • Article 97 protected open space [Note: the proposed additions do already recognized that some Article 97 land could hold exceptions such as solar canopies over a DCR beach parking lot]  
  • Wetland resource areas (310 CMR 10.04) and with setbacks of 1,000 feet to identified wetlands resources. However, a shorter distance setback, perhaps up to 40 feet, might be considered with the addition of construction barrier placements near such set back lines.
  • Properties included in the State Register (950 CMR 71.03), except as authorized by regulatory bodies
  • BioMap 2 Critical Natural Landscape, Core Habitat, Important Habitat, or Priority Habitat
  • Flood plains and flood prone areas 
  • Land that provides public drinking water, especially with adequate set-backs and construction barriers, given that solar facilities are not significant sources of water table toxicity contamination, although battery facilities may be restricted because of the (low) potential for toxicity dissemination.
  • On prime farmland (as defined by the state), where private land owners should be the decision source as to whether solar or solar/battery facilities are placed within the bounds of the private land

Flood plains and flood-prone areas actually make excellent siting choices for solar and/or solar and battery facilities, if sufficiently robustly platformed and at a height safely above flood plain high-water flood potential.

As for land that provides public drinking water, solar facility siting should be allowed, especially with adequate set-backs and construction barriers, given that solar facilities are not significant sources of water table toxicity contamination. Restrictions on land that provides public drinking water should not be considered, because of the (low) potential for toxicity dissemination.

3) Do NOT exclude ground-mounted solar projects on newly deforested land, defined as cleared less than 5 years ago. This is an unnecessary restriction that will only serve to delay, complicate, and raise the costs of solar and battery facilities.

 4) Marginal farmland should have NO restrictions on solar siting.  Any private land use for solar or battery or solar/battery facilities should yield decisions only by the property owner, with adequate setbacks and fencing and aesthetic borders, as defined by state and local zoning regulations.

 5) Language should NOT be included that ensures no negative impacts on:

• • Biodiversity including plants and animals listed under the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act
  • Protected open space
  • Native American cultural areas as determined by Massachusetts’ Indigenous people

The facts are clear that the consequences of climate change pose the greatest threat to biodiversity. The irony of arresting or slowing the reduction of greenhouse gases through overly-restrictive renewable energy production siting is clear.

6) Please keep decision making on solar power generation facilities within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts authority, so that NIMBY pushback to solar facility siting may be discouraged. Consider allowing the discretion and authority provided to the towns to enforce adequate setbacks and fencing and aesthetic borders, as defined by state and local zoning regulations and in keeping with public safety concerns, especially for battery facility siting (e.g., adequate access for emergency responders). Therefore, language should NOT be included that ensures the following:

• • Locally generated enforceable safety standards for battery storage
  • Town-specific capacity and siting goals, with local control of siting
  • Authority for municipalities to reject any proposal for minimization and/or mitigation that are deemed a threat to the towns’ health safety and welfare, and natural and cultural resource protections, as determined by local boards and commissions

Please note that threats to the towns’ health safety and welfare and natural and cultural resource protections should be directed by state-level policies, rather than be left to local boards and commissions, and largely because local NIMBY reactions can too easily be driven by a minority of voters within any locality who may not represent majority views. The state-level policies should be adequate for defining  threats to the towns’ health, safety, and welfare, and natural and cultural resource protections.

I don’t think Responsible Solar MA, the local effort to improve solar siting rules, has nefarious intent, nor do I believe this is some sort of astroturf conspiracy but rather a sincere contribution to the public process. But I think that too many of us who have long been active in the environmental movement are stuck on old goals such as protecting specific species or to keep land pristine. While I’m all in favor of good stewardship, the dangers from rising global average temperatures put the vast majority of environments and their fauna and flora at risk, and our best opportunity to reduce such acute danger and damage is to reduce carbon emissions. Solar power has the present and ready capacity to take a big chuck out of carbon from fossil fuel-driven electricity generation and internal combustion-based transportation and gas- or oil-based heating and cooling of buildings.

The Best Approach: Reduce Barriers to New Solar and Solar/Battery Facilities

The best solution is fewer rules and regulations about siting and permitting solar, wind, and battery projects. We already have too many rules and regulations and too many Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ), or town-based permitting and inspection, that slows such projects down or keeps them from getting built, even while significantly contributing to the cost of such projects that go forward. The fact is that clean energy project permitting is too arcane and slow and complicated by AHJ inspection requirements., and slow and difficult permitting and inspection processes add costs. Common estimates are that over one-third of the cost of rooftop solar is tied to permitting and inspection and the time delays these processes cause. I did an analysis last year about the source of high costs for rooftop solar/batteries systems, if you want more detail. The report is titled “The American Solar Cost Paradox: Analyzing the Soft Cost Drivers and Policy Barriers to Affordable Residential PV in the U.S.”

I’d much rather have the climate movement pay more attention to permitting reform that has fewer restrictions and an fast and automated permitting process such as SolarAPP+. I wrote a post titled “What is the State of States’ Efforts to Make Home Solar and BESS Easier and Cheaper? Red Tape, Not Technology, Is the Biggest Threat,” if you want to find actual efforts underway to improve solar/battery project costs.

What’s the Real Threat to Clean Energy?

Big Oil recognizes the threat of the transition to clean energy, which is why, in addition to their lying and greenwashing, they’ve been buying up more and more of our government, and getting results. Trump has severely repressed clean energy projects, up to and including cancelling the East Coast wind farms, although recent court cases may have solved this to some degree (although, of course, then there’s an appeal possible). Removing the IIJA and IRA incentives for solar, wind, and EVs and other clean energy projects, have dealt a major blow to the energy transition in the U.S. And Big Oil is on the rampage to get 100+ new gas generator built and expand their natural gas market for another thirty or forty years, citing the need to meet growing electricity for AI and data centers, even while actively and unfairly suppressing clean energy alternatives needs, fighting for climate court case pre-emptive dismissals, and continuing to manipulate the public’s perception aboutclean energy and the danger of climate change.

Climate activists need to focus on bigger solutions, even if balcony solar is okie-dokie. We need to reform the permitting processes, the mis-match in interconnection queue schedules , and otherwise return our country to a more equal market environment, where the faster speed and lower cost of clean energy production can kick Big Oil’s can.

Oh yeah, this work also includes getting democracy healthy in the U.S., but no one ever said saving the world was going to be easy.

The post Let’s Get Serious About Solar first appeared on David Guenette.

This is the first paragraph of one of my posts from earlier in the year, “AI is Giving Me Gas: The Collision of Tech Hype and the Carbon Budget.” It may be bad form to start a Substack post citing another Substack post, but clearly these two posts are related. The sub-title of the above referenced post” “We are scraping the bottom of the 1.5°C carbon budget. Big Oil’s response? Build 252 gigawatts of new gas power to feed the AI boom.”

I also wrote about this back in September of last year, in a post titled “New Gas Generator Plants and the Plan to Flood the (Electricity Demand Growth) Zone.” In this post there’s a link to an AI analysis I did in a report called “The Future of U.S. Natural Gas Power Generation: Projections, Accuracy, and the Confluence of Limiting Factors to 2030.”

The electricity demand growth tied to AI and data centers has Big Oil salivating, with plans—dreams?—of 100-plus new gas-fired generation plants in place by 2030. Not that the supply chain and turbine manufacturing capacity can deliver, but the explosion in small diesel or natural gas generators nonetheless seems a happy enough ending, boding well for Big Oil sales.

This doesn’t bode well for the rest of us, unfortunately. In the news of late is Elon Musk’s xAI company, which has used a large fleet of mobile, trailer-mounted gas turbines (rather than diesel generators) to power its “Colossus” AI data center in Memphis, Tennessee. These turbines are deployed as a temporary, “quick and dirty” solution to bypass power grid constraints while constructing the facility, which houses Nvidia H100 GPUs for training the Grok AI model.

To get the data center operational in just 122 days, xAI used mobile turbines (approximately 35 to 62, depending on the report and timeline). Each turbine is capable of providing 2.5 MW of power, with reports indicating a total capacity exceeding 35 MW to over 100 MW. There’s been pushback from local residents and environmental group. It turns out that neither noise pollution or emissions of nitrogen oxides and formaldehyde are being welcomed, and in January 2026, the EPA ruled that xAI violated the law by operating dozens of these, at times, unpermitted, gas generators. I’m guessing any fines actually levied against xAI will be just part of the cost of doing business. The broader AI data center industry is facing a shortage of power, with many companies increasingly using on-site, fossil-fuel-based generators to bridge the gap.

By the way, if you want to dive deeper into the issue of power strategies and developments for AI data centers, check out Distilled, on Substack. Distilled is written by Michael Thomas and he’s undertaken as series of articles on the issue of AI data centers and approaches being pursued for power, including data centers building their own power plants.

Wet Dreams and Sloppy Seconds

The accuracy of future demand predictions itself is highly questionable, considering the wide-ranging numbers and, among other issues, the double, triple, or greater duplicate counting of generation sources among data center hyperscalers. These eager corporations reach out to more than one potential generation source to cover their bets. Accurate forecasting seems hindered by some combination of wishful thinking and double counting. Here’s an AI summary of this issue:

The “duplication issue” (often called “phantom load” or “speculative queuing”) refers to the practice where data center developers submit multiple applications for electrical grid interconnection for the same single project. 

Because securing power is now the primary bottleneck for AI and hyperscale facilities, developers “spam” the queue to hedge their bets. They might file requests for the same 500 MW project in three different states (or three different sites within the same utility territory) to see which one gets approved first. Once one is approved, the others are withdrawn, but in the meantime, they clog the study queue and artificially inflate demand forecasts. 

Grid operators warn that these “phantom” requests make it impossible to accurately plan for new power plants, as the requested demand on paper is often 5x to 10x higher than what will actually be built. 

Estimate Ranges of Duplication

Industry data suggests that the vast majority of current interconnection requests are duplicate or speculative. 

• • Overall “Phantom” Rate: Experts estimate that 80% to 90% of the data center capacity currently in US interconnection queues will never be built.
  • Realization Rate: Utilities often project that only 10% to 20% of the requested data center load in their pipelines will actually materialize.
  • Speculative Ratios (Firm vs. Requested):
    • AEP (American Electric Power):Reported 24 GW of firm commitments but has requests for 190 GW of additional load—a ratio of nearly 8:1 (speculative to firm).
    • Oncor (Texas Utility):Reported a queue of 186 GW of data center requests. For context, the utility’s entire current peak demand for all customers is only ~50 GW, suggesting the queue is inflated by nearly 400% of the grid’s total existing capacity.
    • PSE&G (New Jersey):Reported a 9.4 GW large load pipeline but expects only 10–20% of those inquiries to result in actual projects.
    • ERCOT (Texas Grid):Has received requests for over 220 GW of new load by 2030 (mostly data centers), which is more than double the state’s all-time peak demand record. 

Why This Is a Problem

1. 1. Planning Paralysis: Utilities cannot distinguish real projects from “zombie” projects. If they build transmission lines for all 190 GW (in AEP’s case), they would bankrupt ratepayers. If they wait to see which are real, they risk being too slow for the 24 GW that is real.
   2. Queue Backlogs: The “phantom” requests force grid engineers to perform complex impact studies for projects that don’t exist, delaying the connection of viable power plants and real factories by years.
   3. Artificial Scarcity: The illusion of zero capacity drives up power prices and panic-buying of land, further fueling the cycle of speculative multiple-filing. 

Why is this a Problem?

You might also ask, from the perspective of Big Oil, “Why is this an opportunity?”

Big Oil loves the high estimates of power demand and the expanded market for their products, and not just more volume, but more over the next several decades, just when we need to reduce carbon emissions, not raise them. Big Oil is in a frenzy to keep their business going for decades more, despite the counter need for this industry to decline.

There’s temptation, too, for the utilities who contract or build new generation capacity. While solar/wind/batteries can meet new energy needs (and be quicker and cheaper), power utilities remain drawn to action that follows business-as-usual thinking, and for many utilities, especially without governmental and regulatory guidance, that means more power plants.

The opportunity is now for Big Oil to future-proof the industry.

Does the Trump Administration strike you as leaning on governance and regulation to push for clean energy?

I don’t think so, but then maybe I’m as wrong as all those wild estimates about power requests to feed the AI industry.

The post Fossil Fuel Demand Growth Uber Alles first appeared on David Guenette.

What I am talking about is the clear identification of the fossil fuel industry—I like the moniker “Big Oil”—as the enemy. Enemy to whom? How about those billions and billions of us alive today and those in the future who directly suffer because of the actions of Big Oil in denying, delaying, and actively opposing the benefits of energy sources and policies that reduce carbon emissions.

The main arguments for clean energy to be the only energy source going forward for electrical generation and transportation are:

1. Clean energy is the cheapest energy resource to build and implement compared to fossil fuel-based energy, making clean energy the affordability winner;
2. Clean energy is the fastest to build and implement compared to fossil fuel-based energy, making clean energy the best choice for meeting growing energy demands;
3. Clean energy significantly reduces health problems tied to fossil fuel use across the world in many ways, including declining asthma and premature deaths;
4. Clean energy reduces geopolitical conflicts based on energy resources, since solar and wind do not rely on scarce consumable commodities but derives energy from the sun and wind available to all.

Fossil Fuels Had Their Day

Every time I mention that Big Oil is bad there will be people ready to jump down my throat with some version or another of “Fossil fuel built our modern economy” or “If we stopped using fossil fuel today, millions would die from starvation.”

This kind of reaction is still all-too common, and my answer is, “Yeah, so stipulated.” An immediate full stop in our use of fossil fuels would be disaster for the world. But replacing fossil fuels with clean energy electricity as soon as possible will go a long way in dropping carbon emissions.

Solar, wind, and batteries are now so low in manufacturing and build out costs that fossil fuels can’t compete. Building out solar, wind, and batteries is the way to go if you want lower electricity bills. Clean energy now makes reducing our economy’s carbon footprint the best choice just on economic basis, never mind the health benefits and slowing climate change. Even if you are part of the small minority that doesn’t care about climate change or reducing environmental pollution, I’ll bet you’re interested in lower electricity bills.

You know who’s not interested in lowering your electricity bill? Big Oil. Big Oil’s business model is to keep selling you oil, gas, and coal for you—well, when it comes to electricity, your utility—to keep burning their products, replacing every volume used with new volume, and on and on until the generation plant gets decommissioned. How long do fossil fuel generator plants last?

Here’s a quick Google AI Overview:

Fossil fuel power plants typically operate for 30 to 50 years, with coal-fired units averaging around 45 years in the U.S. and some lasting over 60 years with maintenance. Natural gas combined-cycle plants generally have a 25 to 30-year design life, though they may operate longer. 

• • Coal-Fired Plants:Often designed for 50 years, many in the U.S. are approaching or exceeding 45 years of age.
  • Natural Gas Plants:Combined-cycle units typically last 25–30 years, while simpler, smaller generators might require major overhauls within 10–20 years.
  • Retirement Trends:While many plants last 30-50 years, environmental regulations and economic factors are leading to earlier shutdowns, with 28% of U.S. coal capacity planning to retire by 2035.
  • Replacement vs. Life Extension:Despite aging, some plants are granted extended lifespans to ensure grid reliability, particularly in areas with high energy demand, such as data centers. 

For every new fossil fuel generator plant built, you and your utility are signing up for buying more natural gas or oil or coal for 25 years or more.

Want to know why Big Oil is fighting so hard to keep solar/wind/batteries from getting built? Big Oil, of course, wants to continue in the business they know and have invested in, which is selling you energy that you burn up and need to buy more of year after year after year. Do U.S. fossil fuel generator plants get to pass on increased costs of fuel?

Here’s another Google AI Overview:

Yes, in the United States, fossil fuel generator plants—specifically investor-owned utilities—are generally allowed to pass on increased fuel costs to customers, often with little to no risk to their own profits. This is accomplished through regulatory mechanisms known as Fuel Adjustment Clauses (FACs) or similar cost-recovery trackers, which are overseen by state-level Public Service Commissions. 

Here is how this process works and its implications:

• • How Fuel Costs Are Passed On:Utilities are permitted to adjust electricity rates outside of formal, lengthy rate cases to reflect fluctuations in the cost of fuel (coal, natural gas) used to generate electricity. If fuel prices rise, the cost is passed to consumers as a surcharge on their monthly bills.
  • “Dollar-for-Dollar” Recovery:In many regions, particularly the Southeast, 100% of these fuel costs are passed on to customers. This means that if a power plant pays more for natural gas, the utility does not absorb that expense; rather, customers pay it.
  • Regulatory Oversight:While these adjustments are often automatic, they are reviewed by state commissions for accuracy. Regulators may disallow charges if they find improper fuel procurement practices.
  • Impact on Utilities vs. Customers:Because these mechanisms exist, utility investors are often insulated from fuel price volatility. Critics argue this reduces the incentive for utilities to seek lower fuel costs or invest in more stable, renewable energy sources.
  • Incomplete Pass-Through:While many utilities pass on costs completely, studies suggest that across the industry, marginal cost pass-through is not always 100%, with consumers bearing between 25% and 75% of the cost increases in some scenarios.
  • Timing Differences:Fuel adjustment charges are often calculated monthly based on costs from previous months, which can lead to a lag in how quickly price increases or decreases are reflected in customer bills. 

Are power utilities motivated to seek the lowest energy cost? Public power utilities are notoriously conservative, not liking change. After all, one of their mandates is reliability of electricity. Of course, solar/wind/batteries are reliable suppliers of electricity and the application of digital management of grid balance and support of distributed energy resources such as demand flexibility make more of the overall capacity of the grid available meet peak demand loads.

According to “U.S. Spending Bill to Grant $40 Billion in Fossil Fuel Subsidies,” originally published in Wired in late 2025, fossil fuels still get billions of dollars in U. S. subsidies each year:

The Trump administration has already added nearly $40 billion in new federal subsidies for oil, gas, and coal in 2025, a report released Tuesday finds, sending an additional $4 billion out the door each year for fossil fuels over the next decade. That new amount, created with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act this summer, adds to $30.8 billion a year in preexisting subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. The report finds that the amount of public money the U.S. will now spend on domestic fossil fuels stands at least $34.8 billion a year.

Keep in mind that the U.S. had already been subsidizing fossil fuels for a century or more. President Biden’s 2021 budget had called for ending tax breaks for oil companies, but these phaseouts were struck down in the Senate and now, with President Trump, new subsidies have been added, including for coal, a favorite fixation of the Trump Administration.

Why Big Oil is the Enemy

Quite simply, Big Oil puts profits over the common good and ignoring the common good in this case leads to disease, death, and the collapse of the climate environment of the last ten millennia that has fostered human development.

Big Oil isn’t doing this out of ignorance, but rather in willful disregard for the physics behind global warming. In short, those leading the corporations that make up Big Oil seem happy enough to forfeit our future and that of our children and their children, down the many generations. Here’s the right analogy: “Big Knives” has employees test the sharpness of their products by stabbing people and children in the street and since Big Knives get paid only when selling knives that are so tested, there are one hell of a lot of bleeding people in every neighborhood, although more so in poorer neighborhoods.

As absurd as the analogy sounds, the correlations are direct. Big Oil produces a product (the knife) that poisons the air we all breathe (people getting stabbed). The question becomes how we shift to clean energy in a way that supports the essential and pervasive energy benefits to people.

Keep in mind that Big Oil plays dirty. Big Oil—along with other big money interests—has purchased much of the federal government, from the Executive branch to many in Congress. What has Big Oil gotten? Here’s a very partial list:

• A DOJ attempting to repress court cases and many states’ legislation against Big Oil corporations, including, most recently, “polluters pay” bills that Trump calls “extortion.”
• The EPA’s recent removal of the endangerment finding that has been a central regulatory enforcement mechanism against greenhouse gases.
• The Executive branch’s overriding of massive Biden-era funding programs (such as IIJA and IRA) for clean energy.
• Outright market interference, such as Trump’s anti-offshore wind projects shutdowns.

Since Big Oil has clearly demonstrated it wishes to continue business as usual—the current efforts to build dozens and hundreds of new gas electricity generators are just the latest example—we see that these corporations stand in opposition to what needs to happen.

Al Gore is right when he says, “They [Big Oil] are much better at capturing politicians than they are at capturing emissions… They are the enemies of progress.”

Bill McKibben is right, when he says, “We have a literal enemy in this fight… The fossil-fuel industry has played the most disgraceful role of any set of corporations in the history of the world. They are Public Enemy Number One to the survival of our civilization.”

George Monbiot, the journalist and activist, puts it this way, “We are not just fighting climate change; we are fighting the people who profit from it. The fossil fuel industry is the enemy of nature and the enemy of humanity.”

Kevin O’Brien, author and ethicist, In his 2024 book Meeting the Enemy, writes, “To make progress on climate change, we must recognize that the fossil-fueled industrial complex is a strategic enemy… treating them as such is a requirement for justice.”

António Guterres, UN Secretary-General, said, “We are at war with nature, and the fossil fuel industry is the fuel for that fire. We must end this war on our planet… We are seeing a historic battle between those who want to protect life and those who want to protect profits.”

Bernie Sanders, U.S. Senator, said, “We are in a battle for the survival of the planet. We are taking on the greed of the fossil fuel industry, and it is a war we cannot afford to lose.”

Jay Inslee, former Governor of Washington, during his presidential campaign, stated, “This is a world war… it is a war of survival against the carbon-industrial complex that has held our democracy hostage for decades.”

Why We Will Win

Despite the decades of Big Oil’s explicit effort to deny climate change and fossil fuel’s contribution to it and the political favors and market advantages bought with a small part of profits, Big Oil has the losing hand. The industry continues to expand its investments when fiduciary responsibilities dictate that a managed drawn down of production is called for to avoid creating stranded assets and further legal liability. Fossil fuels are, simply put, an increasingly bad investment that is now offering “last idiot in” conditions.

Costs

Generating electricity from fossil fuels is more expensive. While the capital investment for solar farms and wind farms together with battery storage may have somewhat higher initial capital costs (i.e., to build), based on 2025 industry data, natural gas peaker plants are generally more expensive than solar plus battery storage systems when comparing the total cost of electricity generation (LCOE) over their lifetimes. While natural gas remains a cheaper option for instantaneous dispatchable power in some specific scenarios, newly build, unsubsidized solar-plus-storage often beats the cost of new-build natural gas, particularly when accounting for the volatility of fuel prices and lower maintenance costs.

Here’s a Google AI Overview:

Cost Breakdown (2025 Estimates)

Key Comparison Drivers

• • Fuel Costs:Solar and storage have zero fuel expenses, providing stable, long-term costs. Natural gas plants are subject to market volatility and rising, unpredictable fuel prices.
  • Capital Costs:Solar + storage has higher upfront capital costs (installing panels and batteries), but lower operating expenses (O&M) compared to the ongoing, high fuel and maintenance costs of gas plants.
  • Battery Advancements:Battery costs have fallen by roughly 89% between 2010 and 2023, making them highly competitive.
  • Subsidies:Even without tax credits, solar and wind are frequently more cost-effective than new-build gas plants. With subsidies, the cost advantage for renewables is even more significant. 

While gas plants are still used for reliable 24/7 baseload power, solar + storage is increasingly seen as a more economical choice for new capacity in many regions, especially as technology improves to handle grid intermittency. 

Legal Position

There are many bases for legal action against Big Oil, including causing harm (pollution and global warming), corruption (dark money and “lobbying” for market advantage), more expensive electricity (the issue of affordability), and many social justice offenses (local pollution and reduced quality of living conditions). There are, as of early 2026, 3,000 climate court cases worldwide, although active litigation targeting Big Oil is a subset.

Here’s what Google AI Overview has to report:

Global Active Cases

• • Total Against Fossil Fuel Corporations: Approximately 86 major lawsuits have been filed specifically against “Carbon Majors” (the world’s largest oil, gas, and coal producers) since 2005.
  • Active Status: As of recent reports (late 2024/2025), over 40 of these cases remain active and pending in courts.
  • Top Defendants: The most frequently targeted companies are ExxonMobil (43 cases), Shell (42 cases), BP, Chevron, and TotalEnergies. 

U.S. Active Cases

• • Concentration: The United States is the primary battleground, hosting approximately 50 of the 86 global cases filed against fossil fuel companies.
  • State & Local “Deception” Suits: There are over 32 active lawsuits brought specifically by state attorneys general (e.g., California, Massachusetts, Minnesota) and local governments (e.g., Honolulu, Boulder) seeking damages for alleged climate deception.
  • 2026 Developments: This number continues to grow. In January 2026, Michigan filed a new federal antitrust lawsuit against major oil companies and the American Petroleum Institute (API), accusing them of operating as a “cartel”. 

Summary of Case Types

The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law categorizes these active cases into three main buckets:

1. 1. Climate Damages (38%): Seeking compensation for infrastructure damage and health costs (e.g., the “Climate Superfund” cases).
   2. Misleading Advertising (16%): Alleging “greenwashing” or false claims about net-zero commitments.
   3. Emissions Reduction (12%): Attempting to force companies to align their business models with the Paris Agreement (e.g., the landmark Milieudefensie v. Shell case in the Netherlands). 

Context: While there are over 3,000 climate-related cases globally (1,900+ in the U.S.), the vast majority target governments over policy failures or permitting decisions, rather than private corporations.

There’s one case getting a lot of attention, since the legal argument is fundamental: conspiracy. In January 2026, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against four major oil companies—BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell—and the American Petroleum Institute (API). This case is groundbreaking because it shifts the legal strategy from “consumer deception” to “anticompetitive conspiracy.”

Here’s what Google AI Overview says about this case:

Core Allegations of the “Cartel” Strategy

The lawsuit explicitly labels these corporations a “cartel” that engaged in a decades-long conspiracy to maintain fossil fuel dominance by sabotaging renewable alternatives. Key claims include: 

• • Suppressing Innovation: The defendants allegedly “acted in concert” to dismantle their own early solar and renewable energy divisions to prevent those technologies from maturing and competing with oil.
  • Hobbling EVs: The suit claims the companies coordinated to block the installation of electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructureat their brand-name gas stations to prolong consumer reliance on gasoline.
  • Market Manipulation: By using their collective power to withhold cleaner, cheaper energy options, the state argues the companies artificially inflated energy costs for Michigan households and businesses.
  • Coordinated Disinformation: The Michigan Department of Attorney Generalalleges the industry used trade associations (like API) to exchange sensitive information and coordinate the suppression of climate science as early as the 1950s. 

Legal Framework and Objectives

• • Statutes Cited: The case brings claims under the federal Sherman Antitrust Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, and the Michigan Antitrust Reform Act (MARA).
  • Damages Sought: Michigan is seeking triple damagesand the disgorgement of corporate profits obtained through these alleged anticompetitive practices.
  • Affordability Argument: Unlike previous climate suits focused purely on environmental damage, Nessel has framed this as an “affordability crisis” case, blaming corporate “greed” rather than market forces for high energy bills. 

Industry and Federal Response

• • Industry Denial: Defendants like ExxonMobiland Chevron have dismissed the suit as “baseless” and a “coordinated campaign” to regulate energy policy through the courts rather than through Congress.
  • Federal Opposition: The S. Department of Justice(under the Trump administration) attempted to block the filing, arguing it threatened national security and energy independence, but a federal judge dismissed the DOJ’s challenge in early 2026. 

Marching Off to War

The first shots of the war against Big Oil were fired many decades ago. For decades clean energy skirmishes were small, scattered, and largely ineffective. The clean energy transition has been marshalling an army, though. Significant majorities of Americans—and worldwide—place climate change among top priorities of concern. Costs of clean energy are competitive, thanks largely to all the benefits of scientific and manufacturing learning curves driving down the costs of technologies.

In the fight against Big Oil there are plenty of weapons to be wielded. Here are some of the most powerful actions that can be taken to push back against Big Oil’s power: carbon taxes, carbon border adjustment mechanisms (CBAM), cancellation of direct industry subsidies, and including the negative externalities that makes the true cost of fossil fuels more evident, thus making clean energy even more competitive.

Many countries in the Global South are accelerating implementation of clean energy, often leapfrogging the old grid-style model advanced nations have long enjoyed. China’s high production of clean energy material and tools are making inroads to the Global South, which not only supports clean energy implementation, but favors China’s domestic industrial base and builds markets. China’s diplomatic advantage, relative to the United States, grows stronger.

Americans are catching on that Big Oil want to keep customers buying their products, even though this raises costs for these customers. Americans are catching on that the higher energy prices can be put to Big Oil’s corruption and influence within the political realm. Affordability is likely to be a major battle ground for fossil fuels and clean energy in the upcoming elections and this is a winning plank for clean energy.

Big Oil’s tricks and lies are becoming transparent to more and more citizens.

The question isn’t whether this war will be won, but how long it will take and whether the world is lit aflame in a pyrrhic victory.

Consider me enlisted.

The post The War on Big Oil first appeared on David Guenette.

These days the American solar industry finds itself in a paradox. The technology has never been better, cheaper, or more essential to our national security. Yet, for a homeowner in many parts of this country, putting panels on a roof remains a Kafkaesque ordeal of permits, inspections, and utility delays that can drag on for months. While the cost of the actual hardware—the photovoltaic panels and battery storage systems—has plummeted, the price of permission has skyrocketed.

As we stare down the barrel of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act (OBBBA) and the repeal of most federal tax credits, the solar industry stands at a crossroads. The battle for the future of American energy is not just fought in the halls of Congress over tax incentives. It is being fought in town councils, county zoning boards, and state legislatures over something far less glamorous but infinitely more consequential: “soft costs.”

For too long, we have accepted a status quo where nearly 65% of the cost of a residential solar installation goes not to the equipment or the labor, but to administrative friction—the paperwork tax. See the post “Why I Haven’t Installed Solar Power and Batteries” [.https://davidguenette.com/why-i-havent-installed-solar-power-and-batteries/ ] on my own experiences with home solar and battery efforts. I ran a wide-ranging AI behind that post, titled “The American Solar Cost Paradox: Analyzing the Soft Cost Drivers and Policy Barriers to Affordable Residential PV in the U.S.”

Serious about energy independence, grid reliability, and consumer rights? If so, we must pivot our advocacy toward the aggressive streamlining of permitting, installation, and interconnection. The blueprint for this revolution isn’t theoretical; it is being written right now in statehouses from Tallahassee to Salt Lake City.

The Invisible Barrier

While federal advocacy groups like the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and American Clean Power Association (ACP) are rightfully engaged in a defensive struggle to preserve the Inflation Reduction Act’s legacy, the real friction points are local.

Consider the “soft cost” crisis. In Australia, a rooftop solar system costs roughly one-third of what it costs in the United States. The panels are the same. The sun is the same. The difference is bureaucracy. In the U.S., a patchwork of over 18,000 local jurisdictions—each with its own fire codes, zoning ordinances, and permitting fees—creates a regulatory thicket that suffocates innovation.

This bureaucratic drag is not just a nuisance; it is an economic drag that penalizes homeowners and threatens grid resilience. Every week a permit sits on a desk is a week a family continues to pay volatile utility rates. Every month an interconnection application languishes in a utility queue is a month that battery storage capacity is kept off a strained grid.

The “Deemed Approved” Revolution

Fortunately, a new wave of state-level legislation is challenging this inertia, led by effective trade associations that understand the power of structural reform. The most significant victory of the 2025 legislative cycle didn’t happen in a blue state known for environmental zealotry, but in Florida.

Florida’s HB 683, championed by the Florida Solar Energy Industries Association (FlaSEIA), is a masterclass in legislative streamlining. It attacks the bottleneck of municipal permitting with a simple, enforceable mandate: local governments must process residential solar permits within five business days. If they fail? The permit is deemed approved.

Of course, the counter-argument is that all this is likely to is streamline denying such permits. One interesting element of this bill is that it breaks the monopoly of municipal inspectors by authorizing private providers to conduct virtual inspections. This is a free-market, efficiency-driven policy that frames solar not as a climate issue, but as a business efficiency issue.

Automating the Future

Other states are providing the tool to direct alleviate bureaucratic delays in permitting solar and battery installations. The adoption of SolarAPP+—the automated permitting platform developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory— hopefully will shift best practice to statutory requirement.

In Massachusetts, S. 2780 is moving to mandate a “Smart Residential Solar Permitting Platform” that issues permits instantly. In New York, S. 5781 seeks to force all jurisdictions with populations over 5,000 to adopt similar automation. Hawaii’s SB 232 pushes for the same by 2026.

The argument for automation is unassailable. Manual plan review for standard rooftop solar projects is a waste of human capital. It is akin to using a bank teller to withdraw twenty dollars when an ATM is available. By mandating automated permitting, states can slash compliance costs by thousands of dollars per installation. This is not deregulation; it is modernization. Trade associations like SEIA and the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) have spent years building the technical consensus for this moment. Now, policymakers must have the courage to mandate it.

The Fight for Property Rights

Streamlining isn’t just about government permits; it’s also about private constraints. For decades, Homeowners Associations (HOAs) have acted as shadow governments, using aesthetic covenants to block solar installations or force homeowners into expensive, inefficient system designs.

Utah’s HB 340, which was signed into law in March 2025, codifies “solar rights” as a fundamental property right. It tells HOAs that they cannot ban solar or storage, and crucially, they cannot impose restrictions that increase the cost of a system by more than 10% or decrease its efficiency by more than 10%.

This “10% Rule” strips HOAs of the ability to use “reasonable restrictions” as a cover for de facto bans. It recognizes that energy independence begins at home, and that a neighborhood covenant should not override a homeowner’s right to generate their own power and store it for emergencies. As extreme weather events become more common, the ability to island one’s home with a battery system is a matter of safety, not just aesthetics. The Utah victory, secured by the Utah Solar Energy Energy Association, demonstrates that protecting solar access is fundamentally a conservative value rooted in property rights and self-reliance.

The Storage Imperative and Grid Access

The conversation about streamlining cannot end at the rooftop. It must extend to batteries and connections to the grid. As the penetration of renewables grows, the old utility model—centralized generation, one-way flow—is collapsing. The future is the Virtual Power Plant (VPP), where thousands of home batteries are aggregated to stabilize the grid.

Illinois has taken the lead here with SB 25, the “Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act.” By mandating the procurement of 3 GW of energy storage and establishing a statewide VPP program, Illinois is streamlining the value proposition for storage. It turns a passive home battery into an active grid asset, creating a revenue stream for the homeowner.

However, this future is threatened by utility obstructionism. In states like Arizona and Indiana, we are seeing utilities push for “Right of First Refusal” (ROFR) laws and onerous interconnection delays that protect their monopoly status at the expense of third-party developers and homeowners. Streamlining must include strict enforcement of interconnection timelines. Utilities cannot be allowed to act as the gatekeepers of the grid, arbitrarily delaying the connection of distributed resources that improve system reliability. Legislation like Georgia’s SB 203, which mandates nondiscriminatory interconnection for community solar, is another counterweight to utility stalling.

A Call for a Unified Agenda in 2026 and 2028

The path forward for 2026 is clear. The solar and storage industry must stop playing defense and go on the offensive. We need a unified legislative agenda that prioritizes three pillars of streamlining:

1. Mandate Automation: Every state should pass legislation requiring local governments to adopt SolarAPP+ or equivalent instant permitting for residential systems. There is no excuse for manual review in 2025.
2. Enforce Timelines: “Deemed approved” clauses must become the standard for both building permits and utility interconnection applications. Delays must carry a consequence.
3. Codify Energy Rights: State laws must explicitly preempt restrictive covenants from HOAs and local zoning boards that unreasonably inflate costs.

This is not a plea for subsidies. It is a plea for market access. The “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act may threaten the tax equity market, but it cannot stop the fundamental economic reality that solar is the cheapest form of new electricity generation. The thing that can stop this shouldn’t be bureaucracy. Of course, the other barrier is the money that’s being spent by the fossil fuel industry and some allies among electrical utilities just fine with the way things are now.

We need our elected officials to understand that being “pro-energy” means clearing the path for deployment. It means recognizing that a permit delay is a tax on the consumer. It means understanding that a three-month interconnection queue is a threat to grid reliability.

The trade associations identified in the research—SEIA, FlaSEIA, CALSSA, and others—are the trench fighters in this war. They are winning battles in Tallahassee, Salt Lake City, and Springfield that will define the market for decades. But they need the support of the public. Homeowners must demand that their local officials adopt automated permitting. Voters must tell their state representatives that energy freedom includes the right to store power without HOA interference.

Unfortunately, the post ignores (probably due to the prompt used) other important cost contributions to home solar and BESS. Examples include installation inspections being left to the inspection services of local towns and municipalities, where sufficient expertise is somehow expected by people already overburdened with other responsibilities. Local inspection shortfalls are often exasperated by state regulations that prove onerous. In Massachusetts, for instance, you basically are required to build a battery bunker and are restricted to only a few placement options. Garages are one of the preferred options, but garages then lose some of their flexibility of use. Safety is paramount, granted. But you know what is also important? It is important that the people writing the code to be expert, and the fact that you have to add thousands of dollars of additional building to have batteries suggests either a lack of imagination or a lack of expertise in the real world.

About the Post

This post is edited from a Gemini AI Summary prompt, which is to summary one aspect of an AI analysis of likely or possible future legislative action to push forward the clean energy transition sin 2026 and 2028. That report “Strategic Report: The U.S. Clean Energy Transition and Re-Industrialization (2026–2028),” ] contains useful appendixes, too. Here’s a gander at the table of contents:

I. The 119th Congress: Permitting and the “Abundance” Pivot (2025–2026) 1

II. Re-Industrialization and Supply Chain Security. 2

III. Analytical Conclusion: Political Capture Prospects. 3

1. 1. Democratic Capture in 2026: “Defensive Restoration”. 3
   2. Democratic Capture in 2028: “Industrial Permanence”. 3

Appendix A: Organization Directory. 4

Appendix B: Detailed Entity Profiles. 5

I’m not exactly thrilled with this post, but it does alright making the argument for updating permitting processes beyond the 19^th Century. (Another complaint I have is that the post isn’t snarky enough, but it seemed unseemly for me to go out of my way to “snark it up.”) There’s also too little on  another archaic practice that holds time of completion of solar and battery installation for the home, and that is inspection processes. For such a good idea as solar and battery and VPP, there sure is still a lot of friction generating more heat than light.

The post What is the State of States’ Efforts to Make Home Solar and BESS Easier and Cheaper? first appeared on David Guenette.

Sure, the fossil fuel industry is powerful, but this only means we should go after it as hard as we can. And why prosecute an attack on Big Oil? How about because the industry has been delaying progress on the green energy transition for decades and decades, even while it knew about the greenhouse gas effect. Or how about the fossil fuel industry’s long history of destruction of governments and environments, and its violence against people. How about the fossil fuel industry’s knee-deep involvement in corruption even at the expense of the Earth’s health, the world’s economy, and society’s continuance?

Let’s put the current world of carbon emission reduction in stark terms: Big Oil is fighting tooth and claw to remain relevant, and they’re using big corruption to do it. This isn’t a matter of “good business practices,” not unless you count extortion, bribery, and violence as good business practices. There’s a long history of lawlessness in the fossil fuel industry that spans international bribery, environmental disregard, and actual physical malfeasance and violence, but we’re fast running out of time to put things right.

Search as Catch Can

The beauty of the Internet today is that it is a lot harder to hide information. Even the simple Google search reveals many result pages of blood-curdling histories of Big Oil’s bad behavior, not that you don’t know about bad behavior already on the part of fossil fuels.

Search: “History of fossil fuel industry using force against individuals and groups”

Here’s the AI Summary for this search:

The history of the fossil fuel industry involves extensive use of force, from international conflicts over resources (like WWI/WWII oil/coal) to domestic suppression of Indigenous rights, land defenders, and workers, manifesting as militarized policing, human rights abuses, gender-based violence (especially around “man camps”), and systemic environmental racism that harms marginalized communities, alongside sophisticated legal tactics (SLAPPs) and lobbying to silence critics and influence policy for profit.

It is easy enough to fall down any number of rabbit holes when looking for answers. The answers to this search are wide-ranging, from world wars to SLAPP suits. An article, “Tactics Used by Fossil Fuel Companies to Suppress Critique and Obstruct Climate Action”, by Sophie Hartley in The Commons Social Change Library, has a nifty list of eight tactics employed by fossil fuel corporations, along with examples. The Commons Social Change Library is an Australian online resource “for the change makers of the world and for those interested in social change, activism, advocacy and justice.” You want another seven pages of search results on the query above, just type it into Google.

But we don’t want to hurt the world economy, right? Isn’t this one of the gaslit claims we hear from so many corporate interests?

Search: “What is the role of the fossil fuel industry in negative contribution to the world’s economy?”

A leading question?

Not really. Here’s the first part of the AI Summary return:

The fossil fuel industry negatively impacts the global economy primarily through massive health costs from air pollution (millions of deaths, trillions in losses), enormous government subsidies ($7 trillion globally, diverting funds from other needs), climate change damage (extreme weather, sea-level rise), and energy inefficiency, creating economic burdens that outweigh short-term benefits and hinder sustainable growth. These “hidden costs,” or negative externalities, strain public budgets, reduce workforce productivity, and destabilize economies through climate disasters, even as the industry provides jobs and energy security. 

One of the four cited sources in the summary is “The Incredible Inefficiency of the Fossil Energy System”, by  RMI’s Daan Walter, Kingsmill Bond,  Amory Lovins,  Laurens Speelman, Chiara Gulli, Sam Butler-Sloss, published on June 4, 2024. Here’s how this paper begins:

Today’s fossil energy system is incredibly inefficient: almost two-thirds of all primary energy is wasted in energy production, transportation, and use, before fossil fuel has done any work or produced any benefit. That means over $4.6 trillion per year, almost 5% of global GDP and 40% of what we spend on energy, goes up in smoke due to fossil inefficiency. Literally.

Look, I’m not one of those people who backdate accusations. I understand that fossil fuels play an important part in the development of our societies and technological advancement and general population growth. All hail Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, and railroads, refrigerators, oil furnaces, tractors, and clothes washers. Yes, fossil fuels have delivered huge benefits for mankind over the last several centuries. I’m not a big fan of having to cut my own wood to keep my family from freezing.

At least here in the developed world, our age of technology would not have developed, or developed as fast, anyway, without the boost we get from fossil fuels. But we are at the point when fossil fuels should be over, must be over, and thank goodness we have great alternatives in the age of solar, wind, and batteries and all the other digital wonders of The Electrotech Revolution. It is past time for fossil fuels to retire gracefully from the stage, especially for the generation of electricity, but instead Big Oil acts like a belligerent guest who demands another drink even when you’re already in your pajamas and asking the guest to leave, only to hear the guest passing gas then claiming it’s the sound of the floorboards squeaking.

The problem is that fossil fuels have become—and have been for some while—more than an unruly guest insisting on another pour because it makes them feel good.

There’s a killer in the house.

Battle Time: Grid Your Loins

How did I get to this point of thinking about the fossil fuel industry as the killer in the house?

Recently, I was trying to figure out exactly how we’re going to meet the electricity demand growth everyone’s talking about (AI! Data centers!). I’ve written about some other aspects of this, including the likely exaggeration of the load demand growth numbers by Big Oil as justification for building many more new natural gas generation plants, in my post “New Gas Generator Plants and the Plan to Flood the (Electricity Demand Growth) Zone.” One of the interesting point is that supply chain constraints make the industry target of 100 new generators only—at best—30% achievable by 2030, and that’s with everything else going perfectly.

I’ve also recently written about what is often called “Grid at the Edge,” by which is meant the needed upgrading and expansion of our electricity grid to accommodate all that new juicy electricity that is already overwhelmingly from renewables in 2025. The main approach is to add digital intelligence and technology to the grid so that electrical capacity can be handled more efficiently. There are lots of parts to this grid improvement in the U.S.

But what does “the edge of the grid” mean? Here’s another AI Summary result:

“The edge of the grid” refers to the physical boundary where the traditional centralized power system meets end-users (homes, businesses), a zone now filled with smart tech like solar panels, EVs, and batteries (Distributed Energy Resources), allowing for two-way energy flow and localized management, unlike older one-way grids. It’s where innovation meets the consumer, enabling active grid participation but also introducing new security challenges.

The query below was submitted to Gemini under the “deep research” mode.

Query: What conditions (laws, regulations, state or PUC rulings) must be in place for Distributed energy resources and VPPs to be deployed in American electrical grids? What technological capabilities and technologies must be in place? What are the probable timelines for such grid upgrades and the timelines for DER and VPP growth?

The result was a tidy 18-page report titled “The Edge of the Grid: A Comprehensive Analysis of the Regulatory, Technical, and Economic Conditions for DER and VPP Deployment (2025–2030).” The report included 44 endnote source references. Here’s a paragraph from the Executive Summary that goes to the issue I was after:

This report posits that the realistic timeline for a wide DER-enabled grid system in the U.S. has shifted from an optimistic, policy-accelerated horizon of the mid-2020s to a pragmatic, necessity-driven struggle that will likely not achieve broad national scale until the early 2030s. However, this delay is not uniform. We are witnessing the emergence of a “Two-Speed Grid,” where specific regions and sectors will achieve advanced DER integration by 2028 out of sheer survival necessity, while vast swaths of the country will face stagnation, locked in a traditional centralized paradigm until the next decade.

A “shift from an optimistic, policy-accelerated horizon of the mid-2020s to a pragmatic, necessity-driven struggle that will likely not achieve broad national scale until the early 2030s”? That doesn’t sound like the best progress, does it?

Still, the report lacked specificity as to the actual mechanisms contributing to the timelines for the development of edge of grid, so I added my specific query items. Here’s the close of the revised report’s Executive Analysis:

Our findings indicate that while the federal implementation of FERC Order No. 2222 has encountered significant friction—resulting in multi-year delays across major Independent System Operators (ISOs) like SPP and MISO—state-level initiatives have accelerated, creating a “dual-track” deployment landscape. The conditions for success have thus shifted from a reliance on wholesale market access to a mastery of state-specific “value stacks,” requiring aggregators to navigate a complex patchwork of interconnection rules, telemetry requirements, and consumer protection mandates.

Nothing like getting a FERC order number for a sense of specificity. It’s a nifty report and a great primer on the factors determining grid enhancement development timelines, along with breakouts for different states and their own and various legislative mandates, or lack thereof. Still, what the report gained in specificity—I now understand much better the regulatory problems of PJM, for instance—the report lost some clarity as to the overarching challenge. The first version put this forward more forcefully right there in its Executive Summary:

The catalyst for this shift is the passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) in July 2025, which has effectively ended the era of federal “green industrial policy” initiated by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The OBBBA’s repeal of key investment tax credits (ITCs) and production tax credits (PTCs), coupled with stringent “Foreign Entity of Concern” (FEOC) restrictions, has pulled the financial rug out from under the residential and commercial solar sectors just as they face their stiffest competition for capital from the booming Artificial Intelligence (AI) infrastructure market.

In other words, the progress we were making got its legs kicked from under it. You can thank Trump and the fossil fuel industry that bought him.

Corruption R Us

And so, back to the malfeasance of Big Oil. We all remember the infamous meeting between Trump and representatives from the fossil fuel industry during the 2024 campaign for the Presidency of the United States, where Trump asked for a $1 billion. There was an uproar about quid pro quo, but that turned into nothing, mainly because the election finance system is already so badly corrupted that even the obvious solicited bribe was seen as “business as usual.”

Big Oil has a long history of bribery, although the bribes to United States officials have been rarer than the bribes to foreign officials. The information is easily available, should you be interested.

Search: “Fossil fuel industry history of bribery and corruption”

Here’s the AI Summary:

The fossil fuel industry has a long, documented history of bribery, corruption, and deceit, from early 20th-century scandals like Teapot Dome involving oil barons and politicians, to modern-day accusations involving climate fraud, lobbying abuses, illegal payments to foreign officials, and the funding of misinformation campaigns to block climate action, using front groups and complex schemes to influence policy and hide harmful knowledge.  

Let’s see. There’s “Climate Change Deception Campaigns,” “Bribery and Illegal Payments,” and “Lobbying and Political Influence” among the “Modern Corruption and Climate Deception” category, with types of activity ranging from bribery, fraud, racketeering, greenwashing, and state capture.

The most brilliant of these criminal activities by Big Oil, at least in our time, has been state capture, which is why I refer to Trump as “President Big Oil Stooge.” Trump has taken Big Oil money and come out swinging against climate change, even while the results are a weakened economy, especially relative to Red China’s economy. Then there’s the problem for us rate payers in that electricity generated with fossil fuels is now intrinsically more expensive, but then “affordability” is a hoax, I guess. There’s the problem with meeting growing demand load, because renewables are the quickest to market and to interconnect, if, that is, the playing field is level, but the One Big Beautiful Bill Act has pressed the greasy thumb of Big Oil on that scale, and viciously.

Oh yeah, there’s also the problem of climate change and the U.S. falling behind on efforts to reduce its carbon emissions, and that leads to all sorts of other rising costs for us and the world.

By the way, let’s take a moment to talk about subsidies. The next time someone tells me that renewable energy is only cheaper because of subsidies, I’ll likely kick that person on the shin. Sure, the Federal government has supported the development of clean energy, as it should do with new technologies with public-facing benefits. Can this person, now hopping about in pain clutching his or her leg, explain to me why the fossil fuel industry, well established in its 150-year-old-plus history, still requires government subsidies, both direct ones and the indirect support from being allowed to freely dump into everyone’s common atmosphere the poison fossil fuel extraction and use produces?

The fact is that the days of fossil fuel being the primary source of energy for the world are over. The fact is that Big Oil is playing dirty to keep their source of revenue and profit in the mix.

Better a Big Oil Dissident than a Victim of Cognitive Dissonance

When I talk about the malfeasance of Big Oil, I’m not talking about the guy pumping gas, the oil field or pipeline worker, fuel tank driver, or refinery engineer. I’m talking about those within the fossil fuel corporations who have known that fossil fuel’s days are numbered, and known it for decades, but who have nevertheless kept pushing for exploration and market expansion instead of looking out for their stockholders by shifting their corporations’ resources toward clean energy, or for that matter, anything other than the polluting and costly business of heating up the globe. If no other charges are to be leveled at such individuals, the failure to act with due fiduciary responsibility is clear. Bribing, corrupting governments, and exercising violence against people and the environment is not exercising fiduciary responsibility, unless, of course, you justify any such action as the means to maximize your shareholders’ value.

But, of course, even five-year-olds understand that “maximizing shareholder value” is neither a sensible nor moral primary action. Even five-year-olds understand that not causing harm to others is a central moral consideration. The day is coming when oil executives will face the gallows and utter, for one last time, “I was only maximizing shareholder value.”

Whoa! Gallows? Really?

Well, as far as I’m concerned, as an anti-death penalty guy, I’d only bring them to the gallows as show and tell, in what would be a moment of somewhat mean-spirited hijinks before carting them off to their new prison home. But I do think that the comparison of the sins of the oil industry with the sins of the Third Reich, as meted out at Nuremberg, is apt. Big Oil seems all too happy to keep turning up the world’s thermostat for a few extra bucks. Their attack on humankind and the very world itself, when such consequences are cumulatively considered, can be counted against the hundreds of millions of people directly suffering and killed and the trillions of dollars in monetary loss that coulda, shoulda been used to better each and all.

Frankly, the climate/clean energy world has been playing far too nice for far too long. We’ve allowed ourselves to be gaslit by those who stand for short-term gain. We’ve offered reason and the benefit of the doubt to those whose only reason to act is to benefit themselves. Big Oil is connected, of course, to other malignant players, and some part of the financial world should be put up in the dock as well, as should some politicians and other enabling operatives. But Big Oil—like Big Tech these days and monopolists—seems happy enough also to undermine the foundations of American Democracy for the sake of a few extra baubles, so the best actions we can take is to understand as clearly as we can that there are bad players in this world of ours. We need to consider not only how best to counter them, but how to bring them to justice.

The post How Do I (Big Oil) Love Thee (Big Oil)? Let Me Count the Money, Despite the Costs first appeared on David Guenette.

The essay was written by Joey Eschrich, who is the co-editor of Climate Imagination: Dispatches from Hopeful Futures, a new anthology collection of speculative fiction, essays, and artworks edited by Eschrich and Ed Finn, publishing on December 2, from MIT Press. Here’s how the anthology is described by Eschrich:

We challenged our contributors, who represent 17 countries around the world, to envision hopeful futures shaped by climate action. These visions of the future are grounded in the scientific consensus about the severity and urgency of the climate crisis, but also in the cultural and geographic complexities of real places across the globe, and real communities on the ground.

The start of the third paragraph caught my eye, not at all surprising since The Steep Climes Quartet centers around Berkshire County, MA. “For me, the act of hope is easier when it attends to the local and the particular. The climate crisis is one vast phenomenon with which we’re all contending.”

Well, amen brother.

Eschrich continues preaching to my specific choir:

It kicks up chaos in disparate forms everywhere—a wildfire here, catastrophic flooding there; crop failures here, migration crises there—but it’s also a protean, or perhaps a tentacular thing. We’re all dealing with it locally, on our home turf, with our friends and neighbors. Climate stress and climate action are multifarious, which makes it easy to forget that we’re all in the same struggle together.

Some of the contributors—many, actually, is my guess, not having yet seen Climate Imagination, although the book is on order—hail from lands beyond America. It turns out that in lands other than the Western developed countries, talk about “climate fiction” is even less defined than the crazy quilt of pseudo-genre with which we westerners get to play. Environmental degradation, colonialism, and disparate cultures come into play, as one would expect. Hannah Onoguwe, who is rooted in West Africa, raises an interesting point:

I’ve found that with readers, when a story is rooted where they are, then it morphs into something that could be happening to someone they might have bumped into recently. When it actually resonates and the issues are close to home, they are more likely to be moved to action. It ceases to just be science fiction, something “out there” from the West created and consumed purely for entertainment.

Amen, sister.

Onoguwe addresses an essential dynamic in climate fiction. “I’ve heard some writers talk about jumping on this bandwagon of climate fiction just because it’s ‘trending’ and so, why not? Some are focusing on what publishers might be looking for, which might not always translate into actual care for the environment.” But her argument extends into the urgency of the crisis and beyond literary entertainment.

Yet Climate Imagination carries a subtitle: Dispatches from Hopeful Futures. There’s something of a cottage industry around climate optimism these days, and who can blame any so involved, but Gu Shi, who contributed two short stories, caught my eye. “City of Choice” presents a world where, “due to climate change, an annual ‘Flood Season’ arrives each summer, submerging the city’s roads, plazas, green spaces, and the lower floors of buildings. The protagonist, a mother who works as an urban planner, uses her professional knowledge to enhance the city’s resilience while repeatedly escaping crises with her three children, aided by artificial intelligence.” Shi’s take on optimism is that things can get worse, but we can take action. “I believe that this unwavering courage to never give up in the face of disaster is perhaps the greatest form of hope.”

Amen.

For Onoguwe, her novelette “Death is Not an Ornament” conjures up another Nigerian civil war for a hopeful climate future, because “much has to change besides the mindsets of stakeholders—it will require policies and institutions that ensure that countries are actually keeping their word when they make environmental commitments.” She continues:

To catalyze change, we will need people fueled by this radical passion who are also able to communicate in the local languages and proffer little everyday practices and manageable changes that work. I think if we turn away from purely economic considerations to a more nurturing outlook, then it won’t seem like we’re losing too many of the benefits and conveniences of the current status quo.

Civil war? Yikes. That’s quite a route to hope. I’m looking forward to reading this work, because, of course, in the end it is the writing that tells the tale.

But overall, the thing I’ll be most curious about is not only the grounded aspects of the anthology’s story settings, but whether or not these stories are temporally local, by which I mean near- and mid-futures that reflect the reader’s world. Future worlds are challenging from the writing perspective, but there lies a common problem with climate fiction: worlds decades and centuries past our own time may reflect consequences of climate change and even offer optimistic new worlds that have overcome or adapted to climate change. But, as they reputedly say in Maine, Yuup, you can’t get theyah from heah.

I’m inclined to consider that the most optimistic climate fiction is grounded in the world we recognize as our own but also shows how we can deal with climate change. Arguably, America under Trump is among the most pessimistic locales relative to climate change, even as many other countries find themselves leapfrogging fossil fuel infrastructure into clean energy. One can also argue that Trump will prove little more than a speed bump in America’s path toward the clean energy transition, but the real point is that in America, legislation is the biggest driver of the clean energy transition, even with Biden’s IIJA and IRA legislation getting killed in the crib. Economics plays another essential role, although the American concept of “free markets” is tainted these days when the concept of capitalism hope can seem dim and dimmer.

I’m most interested in stories that start here and end up there, moving from where we are and showing how we get to where we’re going. This is the story that needs believing.

The Steep Climes Quartet starts with Kill Well, set in 2026 (and, yes, believe me, I’m tempted to buy more time, but the first book is published and already revised to account for Trump winning a second term). Dear Josephine, also already published, is set in 2029. Over Brooklyn Hills is set in 2035, and the target publication is Spring 2026. The last book in the series, Farm to Me, is set in 2047, and this book is currently only pages of notes and the stories I tell myself about what this book will be. The series’ through characters live in one locale, although, of course, there are plenty of plot points and transient characters all over the place and all but the luckiest of us are already drowning in news. Nonetheless, climate change and climate change progress is seen directly and primarily through the Berkshires perspective.

Describing a path toward climate progress within a recognizable world for the reader is an act of hope, one grounded in today’s and tomorrow’s world where we live, with all the facts, political realities, societal struggles, business conflicts, household economic anxieties, personal relationships, and all the other big questions, just like in our very own lives.

The act of hope is showing how, with all our stuttering steps, we can get there.

The post Climate Fiction, Optimism, and Realism first appeared on David Guenette.

“The clean energy transition is projected to be a strategic necessity for long-term economic stability, characterized by high initial investment and systemic risks in the near term (to 2035), followed by structural benefits and industry contraction by mid-century (2050), culminating in significant net economic gains by the end of the century (2100).”

This is a quote from a Gemini Deep Research analysis I’d run recently. The prompt:

Analyze both negative and positive economic consequences of a transition to clean energy by 2035, 2050, and 2100, respectively, breaking out consequences for the general economy and the economic effects on the fossil fuel industry and shareholders and investors. How fast may this clean energy transition happen without creating economic hardship on the general economy?

Notice that I didn’t insist that Gemini look at the good aspects of the clean energy transition as much as on what happens to the traditional and dirty energy system that’s been in place for a couple of hundred years. Nonetheless, facts are that the best plan is the clean energy transition.

That’s not the plan of Big Oil, though.

No, the plan by Big Oil is to push and scrape and pull the levers of corrupted governance as fiercely as possible for as long as possible, claiming that a flotilla of hundreds of new gas turbines is needed and Big Oil points to AI as the reason why.

And when the clean energy transition eats fossil fuel’s lunch? You can be your bottom dollar that Big Oil—alongside the too-often allies the power utilities—will argue, of course, we all need to keep using fossil fuel power generation because—Whaaa!—nobody wants stranded assets, do they? What about all those institutional investors that kept pension funds in fossil fuels, or—horror!—those poor stockholders and C-Suites full of good and decent people? You’ll have to bail them out, right?

Unfortunately, this is exactly the sort of argument we can expect if there’s not clear legislation outlining the course and timeline for the clean energy buildout. Unfortunately, bailing out the poor little rich men seems a near-inviolate tradition in America. Remember TARP in 2009, when the big financial institutions that caused the worldwide economic collapse because of their obviously crap securitizations got bailed and not jailed?

The United States needs large scale plans and authority to shift the current energy infrastructure to one based on clean energy and a full-on buildout of a digitally intelligent and flexible grid capable of load balancing, distributed energy resource management, instantaneous demand response, and incorporation of virtual power plants.

Sure, here in the land of Trump, a.k.a., President Big Oil Stooge, this seems impossible. But Trump’s days are numbered and the opposition needs clear and new alternatives for America as it reemerges from the current nightmare.

We’ve done large-scale before and we can do it again. Only smart and ambitious Federal policy and agency can bring about the shift to clean energy and capable and smart grids in the timely fashion needed, while road mapping by law to make clear where the country is going. That way, we can avoid all the brand new but doomed stranded assets being pushed by the fossil fuel interests and apply laws of fiduciary responsibilities to tell these S.O.Bs., “Sorry, do not collect $200 and go directly to jail.”

Here are a few examples of Federal energy-related agencies we’ve benefited from in the past:

• Federal Power Commission (FPC) (1920-1977): Established to coordinate federal hydropower, later became independent, regulating interstate electricity and natural gas.
• Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) (1946-1974): Managed nuclear development; abolished to separate research/development from regulation, leading to DOE/NRC.
• Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) (1975-1977): Briefly housed energy R&D from the AEC before becoming part of the Department of Energy (DOE).
• Rural Electrification Administration (REA) (1935-1994): A New Deal agency that funded rural power lines, dramatically expanding access.
• The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) (1933): Federally-owned U.S. corporation that provides electricity, manages flood control, and promotes economic development across the Tennessee Valley region (mostly Tennessee, parts of AL, MS, KY, GA, NC, VA).

This all reminds me of Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA) of 1935, a landmark U.S. federal law passed during the Great Depression to regulate massive, often corrupt, interstate utility holding companies, forcing them to register with the SEC, simplify structures (often limiting them to a single state), and keep regulated utility business separate from other ventures, ultimately breaking up huge monopolies and protecting consumers from price gouging, though parts were later repealed by the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

If you want more gray hair, follow the PUHCA link to Wikipedia and see how we’ve been where we are today fighting special interests, and that there are solutions to moderate greed and self-serving. I know, radical, right?

Summary of Economic Trajectories of the Clean Energy Transition: A Multi-Temporal Analysis of Consequences to 2100 AI Report

Here’s the summary of Economic Trajectories of the Clean Energy Transition: A Multi-Temporal Analysis of Consequences to 2100. If you what the detailed analysis, follow this link. I’ve kept all the references and sources used by Gemini in its report generation. One of the more interesting conclusions is that the U.S. needs to resolve supply chain problems with critical clean tech minerals. There’s already a lot of work underway, including this bit of news from today, “A huge cache of critical minerals found in Utah may be the largest in the US.”

Optimal Transition Pace: Fastest and Most Orderly

The analysis concludes that the optimal speed for the clean energy transition—the speed that minimizes overall economic hardship on the general economy—is the fastest possible orderly transition, aligning with the IEA’s rapid shift benchmark of 2035.

The greatest risk of economic hardship is a disorderly or delayed transition, where postponed climate action triggers a sudden, destabilizing repricing of assets, potentially causing a global financial crisis on the scale of 2008.² Minimizing hardship requires proactive policies like robust Just Transition programs and supply chain security to manage social and market friction.²

Economic Consequences by Timeline

1. The 2035 Horizon: Investment Surge and Financial Shock

2. The 2050 Horizon: Structural Costs and Systemic Stability

3. The 2100 Horizon: Net Benefits and Resilience

Mitigating Economic Hardship

The transition’s speed is constrained by policy and social stability, not just technology. To manage economic hardship (e.g., localized unemployment, cost inflation) and ensure the fastest orderly pace, two key interventions are required:

1. Fully Implementing Just Transition Policies: Proactive social support is necessary to manage labor displacement and regional friction. The cost of comprehensive worker and community support, such as guaranteeing pensions, income support, and retraining, is relatively small compared to total infrastructure spending; for example, a high-end estimate for a US program is around $600 million per year.
2. Securing Critical Mineral Supply Chains: Policies must focus on diversification, recycling, and market stabilization (e.g., strategic stockpiling) to prevent supply disruptions and cost escalation of clean technologies.⁵

The post Let’s Go Big on the Clean Energy Transition first appeared on David Guenette.

I say there’s need for as much noise as possible about climate change, and, yes, best to be well-informed, of course. Here’s something that is increasing clear: Big Oil has turned the government of the United States into their bum boy, reversing climate progress and attempting to put in place programs that will have them sell fossil fuels for many decades to come, both to domestic gas power utilities and to as many foreign markets as can be gained.

This isn’t “just business.” This isn’t “free market.” This is a future that is antithetical to reducing carbon emissions at the very time that reducing carbon emissions is exactly what needs doing to keep climate change from getting worse and worse. This is a future being pursued through corruption that exceeds the worst previous instances of corruption in the history of the United States.

I’m not sure that polite restraint and cautious, faultless understanding of every aspect of climate change is all that useful, considering the battle ahead. There certainly seems to be a rise in calls for moderation, for calm, for getting everything right, for pinpoint accuracy on every bit of climate science and future projections, and the recent Bill Gates piece is just one example. Of course, predicting the future, especially for complex systems, is not a matter of pinpoint accuracy. But while we can’t know exactly what the global average temperature rise will be exactly when, we know global warming is a fact.

Somehow, though, there are those in the climate change arena who point to others’ distress about climate change and see such behavior as unseemly, apparently. Let’s all remain polite, shall we? How about a cup of tea, and please don’t raise your voice or point fingers.

Here’s the response to the persistent dictate that discussions about climate change should be decorous: Bullshit.

Climate change is a political issue, but it is also a moral issue: We must turn up the temperature on those forces that would burn the world up. We must make this immorality illegal.

The “politeness” sentiment is illustrated in the COP30 aftermath and in the previous COPs and other national and international meetings about climate change and in the coverage of the topic by mainstream (read “corporate”) media. Somehow, after more than enough evidence to the contrary, we still think fossil fuel interests must have a role in decisions about transitioning away from fossil fuels, or that Saudi Arabia or other petrostates have any right to skew consensus about addressing climate change. Here’s something we should all agree on: Al Gore’s view that the fossil fuel industry is the enemy of climate progress. To think otherwise is to concede the battle.

It is crucial that people be alarmed about climate change and that climate change is a core political issue.

While we may not know exactly what lies ahead, we know certainly that climate change is a big problem. We know that humans have been altering their environment at the geophysical level in the use of fossil fuels and that’s not good for a whole lot of species, including us. So, bicker if you wish about the definition of a point-something degree or the state of research that shows how much climate change will hurt the world’s GDP by 2050, but keep in mind that we already stand on a planet-wide emergency footing. Keep in mind that President Big Oil Stooge is making things worse in the United States, reversing a lot of carbon emission reduction efforts. Keep in mind that the U.S. is the second biggest carbon emitter in the world, with China having taken the gold only recently and threatening to give it back to us.

The good news is that it does look like the transition to clean energy is going to happen. Renewables and batteries have economy of scale and technological advantages and affordability fundamentals that fossil fuel lacks. The Electrotech Revolution is unstoppable.

Unfortunately, The Electrotech Revolution is being slowed down, at least here in the U.S., which, imperialistic thinking or not, means a slow down for the rest of the world, too. The real issue isn’t if The Electrotech Revolution happens, but rather will it happen fast enough. Even without Trump pressing his thumb on the scale to benefit fossil fuels, there are plenty of other headwinds. Build, baby, build should be the constant order of the day, at least if we’re talking clean tech and grid technologies and digital power management systems and not natural gas generation plants.

Yet too many in the climate movement minimize what we are up against, which is Big Oil, and its annual worldwide $5trillion dollar market. Come on, wake up and smell the petrochemicals: fossil fuels have been cavalierly dumping shit into everyone’s air, literally, and have been doing this since Day One, 200 hundred or so years ago, even while selling this shit to an ever-growing population that’s now surpassed 8 billion people. It’s not like I’m trying to argue that significant human advancement, including the 8 billion-plus people, couldn’t have happened without fossil fuels. Sure, okay. So stipulated. Thank you for your service, but retire already, and here’s your gold watch.

Fossil fuels are no longer the cheapest and faster way to bring power to people. Renewables are now cheaper and faster to put in place, with greater implementation flexibility, including micro grids not requiring the huge infrastructure buildout for transmission, and these are all good characteristics and a great comfort given the humans’ world-wide need for energy and the societal benefits that ensue from energy wealth.

Now that we have the tools and technologies of solar, wind, batteries (and some other still emerging technologies), we must confront the huge, entrenched interests of fossil fuel. This includes not just Big Oil but those who, for near-term rewards, support Big Oil’s ongoing nefarious climate change deny and delay tactics and market distortion strategies. Whether driven by delusional conviction or operating cynically for self-benefit, the fossil fuel corporations and petrostates and their supporters should be objects of close attention and reprobation. We must combat Big Oil’s corruption that extracts unfair advantages for market gain. We must demand legislation that identifies as criminal the corrupting activities of Big Oil and their minions, corruption aimed to keep Big Oil profiting from what is now a clearly inferior and more dangerous energy production system.

Climate change is a political issue, but it is also a moral issue: We must turn up the temperature on those forces that would burn the world up. We must make this immorality illegal.

The fact that clean energy has an established history of and the certain capacity for being more affordable and safer energy should make it easier to push for laws that directly block Big Oil’s corrupting practices. Let’s vote for political candidates who push for safer, cleaner, more affordable energy and for legislation to make political and market corruption illegal again.

It’s a win/win.

The post Putting the Bite of Law on Fossil Fuel Corruption first appeared on David Guenette.

It is hard to exaggerate just how strenuously President Big Oil Stooge has been sucking at Big Oil’s greasy tit. Or whatever the guy has to suck.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) that was signed into law on July 4, 2025, is much more damaging to clean energy in the United States than I and most people, think. OBBBA not only takes away tax incentives and other clean energy development programs that had been defined and passed into law in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 in the Biden Administration, but it tilts the table for fossil fuels. OBBBA does this mainly through tax policy, disappearing tax credits from clean energy and adding more tax credits and other financial boons to fossil fuel energy. OBBBA uses specific tax provisions to shift market dynamics and encourage investment in “traditional” energy sources.

Here are some of the glad tidings for the fossil fuel industry:

1. Rolling back fossil fuel royalty rate increases mandated by previous legislation (IRA) to put back in place royalty rate structures for onshore and offshore oil and gas leases.
2. Providing more favorable tax treatment for intangible drilling and development costs (IDCs) to fossil fuel and introduces a new tax credit for metallurgical coal.
3. Accelerates the phase-out and adds restrictions to many clean energy tax credits established by the IRA
4. Makes it very difficult for clean energy projects to qualify for tax advantages because construction of such projects must start by July 4, 2026 or they must be operational by the end of 2027, greatly limiting opportunities for developers

It is largely about market signals by making these tax changes, with the effect that OBBBA makes fossil fuel extraction more profitable while making new renewable energy projects less financially attractive.

OBBBA and PUHCA and Forgotten Lessons from the Past

The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 (PUHCA), also known as the Wheeler-Rayburn Act, is a US federal law giving the Securities and Exchange Commission authority to regulate, license, and break up electric utility holding companies. It limits holding company operations to a single state, thus subjecting them to effective state regulation. The impetuous for PUCHA was the spiking rates for electricity from huge electricity companies that spanned states and owned many related businesses (electric street cars being a common choice) and were in fact huge conglomerations without competition. No competition, higher and higher charges.

The passage of the 1935 act was a difficult birth, long in gestation. Why so difficult and so long a process? Well, The National Electric Light Association (NELA)—the main trade group for the electric conglomerates—organized the largest U.S. public relations campaign of the 1920s. Public relations, a practice that grew out of the propaganda battles of WWI, at the hands of well-funded NELA, was aimed, according to Wikipedia’s history of PUHCA at “stigmatiz[ing] public ownership [of electric utilities] on the one hand while promoting the rapid consolidation of the private sector into a few giant multi-tiered holding companies. In the early 1920s, nearly 2,000 cities had public electric utilities, and a war was being waged against them.” It’s a fascinating history and it took 15 years and Senate resolutions directed at the FTC to investigate the PR campaigns underwritten by “six to ten layered pyramid holding company structures that concentrated financial power in the hands of a few.”

I’m cribbing mightily from the Wikipedia article, but the full article is fascinating reading, especially in light of obscene concentration of money today in the hands of the few. Would you be surprised to learn that early on in the 1020s-1930s investigations, large scale corruption was found among the electric conglomerates? Would you be surprised that electricity rates kept rising, becoming unaffordable for a greater and greater number of people even through the early years of the Great Depression?

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 was a form of direct structural regulation. PUHCA was designed to break up large, multi-state utility monopolies and regulate their corporate structure and financial practices to prevent abuses and ensure fair rates. It was one of several New Deal trust-busting and securities regulation initiatives that were enacted following the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression. In 1932 “eight of the largest utility holding companies controlled 73 percent of the investor-owned electric industry. Their complex, highly leveraged, corporate structures were very difficult for individual states to regulate.”

The efforts to pass the bill were met by a huge counter-effort. The Wikipedia article states, “The FTC investigation produced thousands of pages of testimony on how the country’s electric industry successfully enlisted the support of the press across the country with its strategy of dangling advertising dollars and submitted vast quantities of anonymous materials to it for publication. The country’s mostly conservative press had become allies with the industry in its goal to stigmatize the municipal ownership community as un-American.”

Sounds a lot like the way business works in America today. Keep the use of media in mind as you read the rest of this post.

But what does OBBBA have to do with any of this? Google answers:

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) of 2025 did not repeal or directly amend PUHCA, but it significantly changed the energy landscape that PUHCA was designed to regulate. PUHCA’s primary goal was to regulate and break up complex utility holding company structures, while the OBBBA focused on modifying energy tax credits, which indirectly affects the structure of the utility industry by altering investment incentives… By changing the financial incentives for energy projects, the OBBBA influences the types of investments and structures that utility companies will be able to form in the future, which is a core concern of PUHCA.

Energy Innovation is a non-partisan energy and climate policy think tank that describes itself this way: “We provide customized research and policy analysis to decision-makers to support policy design that enhances security and access to affordable energy, while reducing emissions at the speed and scale required for a safe climate future.” On July 1, 2025, the think tank published a report titled “Final Analysis: Economic Impacts Of U.S. ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’ Energy Provisions,” by Robbie Orvis, Megan Mahajan, and Dan O’Brien. The deck of the report says it all: “The One Big Beautiful Bill Act makes energy more expensive, costs jobs, and makes it harder to meet growing electricity demand.”

In case you want more, here’s how the report opens:

The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) was signed into law on July 4th. The final legislation contains policies that would increase oil and gas leasing, cut fossil fuel royalty rates, repeal clean energy tax credits, and delay funding for agricultural and forestry conservation. The law will harm America by cutting new electricity capacity additions, increasing consumer power prices, and reducing U.S. GDP and job growth:

• • Power generation capacity will fall 340 gigawatts by 2035, raising costs to meet growing demand and damaging industrial competitiveness
  • Wholesale electricity prices will increase 25 percent by 2030 and 74 percent by 2035; electricity rates paid by consumers will increase between 9-18 percent by 2035
  • Household energy costs will increase $170 annually by 2035
  • America loses $980 billion in cumulative GDP through the budget reconciliation window
  • Workers suffer 760,000 lost jobs by 2030

By average ranking for household energy cost increases and population-weighted job losses, the five biggest losers from OBBBA’s passage include:

• • South Carolina
  • Florida
  • Texas
  • Kentucky
  • North Carolina

Gee, all Red States, but who’s counting. Not those states’ congressmen and senators, apparently.

Here’s another interesting article that puts the OBBBA in perspective as a clean energy killer, this one from Utility Dive, which “provides in-depth journalism and insight into the most impactful news and trends shaping the utility industry. The newsletters and website cover topics such as smart grid, regulation and policy, demand response, generation, and more.” The article, titled “Navigating the One Big Beautiful Bill era in US power markets,” published on October 8, 2025, and was written by Kushal Patel, Gregory Gangelhoff, Tali Perelman, and Amber Mahone. There’s a nice chart courtesy of Energy and Environmental Economics, but these paragraphs tell the tale just as well:

Solar: Exposed to trade policy more than any other resource, solar faces a wide range of cost impacts. Capital costs could increase by 30% to over 300%, depending on AD/CVD tariffs. Corresponding levelized costs could rise by 44% to 470%. Solar also faces reduced long-term certainty from OBBBA’s shorter tax credit timeline. If projects experience only reciprocal tariffs and minimum AD/CVD tariffs announced by the Commerce Department, E3 would expect levelized costs to increase by up to 114%. This is before incorporating FEOC dynamics, however, which E3 would expect to further increase costs all else being equal.

Wind: Wind is similarly affected by earlier expiration of production and investment tax credits, which introduces uncertainty around project economics in the 2030s. While not as tariff-sensitive as solar, policy changes still shift wind’s relative cost-competitiveness. Furthermore, increasing federal hostility to wind development, such as restricting development on federal land and revoking permits for projects already under construction, seem to pose greater risk to wind than solar.

Battery Storage: Tariff impacts are smaller in range but more certain, largely due to dependence on imported lithium-ion cells. Battery projects are less affected by OBBBA’s tax credit revisions, with eligibility extending through 2032. Under safe harbor provisions, which let developers preserve credit eligibility based on when construction begins, some projects could still qualify through 2036 before a credit phase-out period begins. Storage may be more susceptible to risk of FEOC non-compliance, however, given the dependence of the current supply chain on China. Slower solar development may also hamper battery economics in the medium to longer term.

Gas: Under the highest tariff assumptions, the competitiveness of new gas combined cycle plants is enhanced, most notably for projects requiring around-the-clock power. These dynamics could influence build decisions through 2029, with the greatest effect on projects still in early planning or pre-construction phases. The rapid increase in data center load also enlarges the market for CCGTs due to higher run times. Gas CTs may also maintain an advantage over battery storage for peaking applications, at least until battery supply chains can adapt to the new tariff regime.

Bottom line: fossil fuels have gamed the energy sector.

Where are the Muckrakers?

This information about OBBBA is known, but in bits and pieces, mostly. When one considers the significant hit on the American economy—never mind the climate change issue—one might think this is a pretty important news story. One might even be up in arms, right? Well, Trump keeps damaging the country—literally, with the East Wing teardown—and corruption runs wild, often funded by the billionaires, so there’s a lot to keep up with.

In the November 14, 2025, The Guardian, George Monbiot takes  a pretty good stab at this sort of reporting, pointing out that, unfortunately, all is all quiet on the western front. The piece is titled “Dark forces are preventing us fighting the climate crisis – by taking knowledge hostage.”

The sub-title says it all: “The fundamental problem is this: that most of the means of communication are owned or influenced by the very rich.” Here’s the opening paragraph:

If this were just a climate crisis, we would fix it. The technology, money and strategies have all been at hand for years. What stifles effective action is a deadly conjunction: the climate crisis running headlong into the epistemic crisis.

This is well worth the read, and if you remember from earlier, there are some spooky analogs today to the PR campaigns of the 1920s and 1930s aimed at protecting electricity conglomerates’ interests. He cites several examples from the BBC, which, he admits, may not be owned by billionaires, but nonetheless plays their game:

While [BBC] no longer provides a platform for outright climate denial, almost every day it breaks its own editorial guidelines by hosting Tufton Street junktanks (which often argue against environmental action) without revealing who funds them. Shouldn’t we be allowed to know whether or not they are sponsored by fossil fuel companies?

The BBC told its presenter Evan Davis to stop making his own podcast about heat pumps, on the grounds that discussing this technology meant “treading on areas of public controversy”. Why are heat pumps controversial? Because the Energy and Utilities Association, which lobbies for gas appliances, paid a public affairs company to make them so. The company, WPR, boasted that it set out to “spark outrage”. The media, BBC included, were all too happy to oblige.

“Junktanks.” You gotta love it. In The Steep Climes Quartet series I write in a number of junktanks in the service of Big Oil, but the first two books are already published and as much as I like the term, I can at best get this term into the third book’s manuscript, which is undergoing some polishing.

The great term notwithstanding, Monbiot’s point about the media controlled by those with huge stacks of money is a good one to remember. Know thine enemies.

Indeed, Who Pays to End the Gas Age?

It was a busy day for The Guardian. On the same day Monbiot published his piece, an editorial titled “The Guardian view on Cop30: someone has to pay for the end of the oil and gas age” published. Coming from COP30, the editorial strikes a note of mixed optimism and pessimism with its subtitle, “The fossil-fuel era is drawing to a close, but at a pace far too slow for the planet’s good or a fair transition to a clean energy future.”

The fossil fuel era is indeed drawing to a close, but when? The fossil fuel industry—especially in America—is playing a long game that includes buying market advantages like the OBBBA and tariffs while trying to set in motion the buildout of a great many new gas generation plants that they can keep feeding their natural gas for decades to come.

The editorial takes a lap around how much money is needed by developing countries for clean energy buildout and how much money the developed world seems interested handing over, and the developed countries are many steps behind. There’s a real opportunity for developed countries with the means—and here in the States, the political will, hopefully, at some point—to develop the clean energy manufacturing base and practice a new type of Great Powers diplomacy, where clean power tech is literally handed out to address the energy poverty of the Global South, while blocking Big Oil from selling their poison. The fact is that clean energy wins and wins big in free competition. It is all win/win, except for Big Oil (yay!), with the developed countries not only developing the clean their own domestic manufacturing base but enjoying the lower costs for clean energy that comes from economies of scale. A great card to play if you are into playing that Great Powers game, but the better end is abundant power across the world, a vast reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and a low, low electricity bill in the mailbox every month.

We’ve seen how hard and dirty Big Oil plays, of course, and OBBBA and tariffs are hard blows against clean energy.

And Big Oil is still at it, of course. Another article in November 14, 2025’s The Guardian, there’s this, by Nina Lakhani, their climate justice reporter: “Fossil fuel lobbyists outnumber all Cop30 delegations except Brazil, report says.”

Enough said?

The post OBBBA and PUHCA: Rigging and a Runaround first appeared on David Guenette.