I believe that I can confidently claim that one thing that Trump is not guilty of is smart long-term thinking.

I wonder what Big Oil is thinking these days.

War is Good (for Big Oil)

Among the consequences of the US/Israel-Iran War is the ongoing rise in oil prices. Another consequence of this war is the significant increase in the resources and money the US directly provides Big Oil, whether through the purchase of higher volumes of fossil fuels (at higher costs) to feed military actions or in the indirect expenses of insurance and military protection coverage of the significant chunk of the oil transport market that passes through the Strait of Hormuz. That’s right: the United States government is now getting into the business of insuring oil tankers, since Lloyds of London and the other main marine insurers aren’t interested in covering loss of shipping when their clients ply the waters adjacent to Iran. There are other geopolitical consequences, too, such as today’s “permission” by our government to allow India to buy Russian oil, where the higher prices for oil will bring in more revenue to Russia and thus help that country prosecute its war against Ukraine, but hey, that doesn’t seem to be a bug for Trump’s program, but rather a feature.

And then, of course, armed conflict causes a noticeable spike in greenhouse gas emissions. Here’s a Gemini AI summary to the search, “war and greenhouse gas emissions”:

Global military activity contributes approximately 5.5% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions, a figure larger than the entire aviation industry. Wars, such as in Ukraine and Gaza, release immense CO₂ through fuel-heavy combat, infrastructure destruction, and future reconstruction needs, often operating outside mandatory international reporting standards. 

Key Aspects of War and GHG Emissions:

• • Massive Carbon Footprint: If the world’s militaries were a country, they would rank as the fourth largest emitter globally.
  • Major Conflicts: The first 15 months of the war in Gaza resulted in at least 32 MtCO₂e, comparable to Croatia’s annual emissions. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has generated an estimated 230 MtCO₂e in roughly two years.
  • Fuel Consumption: Militaries are intensive consumers of fossil fuels. The U.S. Department of Defense is considered the world’s largest institutional consumer of oil.
  • Infrastructure & Rebuilding: Beyond immediate combat, destroying cities and the subsequent carbon-intensive reconstruction efforts create significant, long-term environmental impacts.
  • Transparency Gaps: Military emissions are often exempted from international climate agreements like the Paris Agreement, making their true impact hard to track.

So now add to the above count the US-Israel-Iran War and the expansion of the conflict throughout the Middle East.

Big Oil—Happy, Sad, or Confused?

I’ll play an amateur psychologist for Big Oil and try to think through the emotive state of the industry. The good (i.e., happy) news for Big Oil is that the price per barrel has been quickly climbing due to the latest Mideast conflict, and that means profitability is up, and especially for the U.S. industry. Big Oil has been operating on a surplus basis price-wise, hovering not that far above profit margin make-or-break levels with per-barrel costs around the sixty-dollar mark. But today, Brent Crude is up $7.28 per barrel, or $92.69. Natural gas too is climbing. It is great for the U.S. fossil fuel corporations having Trump as their front man, considering that the supply of Mideast oil and gas is curtailed, so profits accrue more to the U.S. corporations. Headlines talk about oil hitting $150 per barrel in weeks.

If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.

Big Oil’s applause—especially for the U.S. corporations—grows louder when you consider the anti-clean energy efforts of President Big Oil Stooge. The States are facing growing electricity demand with the much-ballyhooed AI data center predictions, but also for the welcome electrification of heating and cooling, transportation, and some electrification expansion in various segments of industry.

Dark Clouds in Reality Land

But this boon has the capacity to go bust. Not because AI and data centers aren’t a real thing, although there’s a bunch of questions about this, too. One big question centers on just how real the electricity growth load demand really is, but I’ll leave further discussion on this topic to another recent post, “Fossil Fuel Demand Growth Uber Alles.”

On the other hand, any price rise in fossil fuels makes clean energy that much more competitive and the issue of affordability is rising across the country. Even in Trumpland, there’s a growing chorus for solar power. From Solar Energy Industries Association,” published on February 19, 2026:

A recent poll from Fabrizio, Lee & Associates, chief pollster for President Trump, found that a clear majority of Republicans support expanding solar power in the United States. In the survey, 68% of GOP voters agreed that “we need all forms of electricity generation, including utility solar, to be built to lower electricity costs,” while 70% said they support utility-scale solar deployment when projects use American-made materials. Another poll from Kellyanne Conway’s KA Consulting showed that three-quarters of Trump voters (75%) in Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, and Texas believe that solar energy should be used in the U.S. to strengthen and increase our energy supply.

This story is not simply wishful thinking on the part of pro-solar outfits like the SEIA. This story is making headlines and getting coverage in the mainstream media.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects a record 86 GW of new utility-scale electric generating capacity will be added to the U.S. grid in 2026, driven by a 62% increase in renewable energy additions over 2025 levels. Solar (51%) and battery storage (28%) dominate the growth, with 93% of new capacity coming from renewables and storage, including 43.4 GW of solar and 24.3 GW of battery capacity.

If these projections hold, renewables (including small-scale solar) are expected to surpass natural gas in total capacity by the end of 2026. And these projections were done well before the US/Israel-Iran War. Consider, too, that the Trump’s administration is hostile to clean energy. Consider, too, that most other nations aren’t hostile to clean energy and with spikes in price of natural gas, I’m guessing other nations reliant on natural gas and other fossil fuel imports grow even less happy with such dependency.

It remains to be seen how long the price jump for fossil fuels will continue. The cost of running a gasoline-powered car or diesel-based transport continues to climb, and there are already signs of a resurgence of EVs in the U.S., although there’s already been plenty of solid growth of EVs in the majority of the world.

So, How Happy is Big Oil?

As much as I’m horrified by Trump’s stupid fantasy play with real world life-and-death ramifications, I find myself wondering if the foreign military entanglements might boost the move away from Trump and his madness. The 2026 midterms look better than ever for the shift in Congress toward the Democrats and with Trump’s gang of incompetents mucking up the economy and dealing out threats to democracy, 2028 looks good for a full ousting. Of course, if Democrats keep their fealty to corporations as a priority, my bet is off.

Dear Josephine, the second book of The Steep Climes Quartet, takes place in 2029. There’s a new, unnamed Democratic administration just in, and the Congress has moved toward progressive gains. Energy and climate policies are back in play, with the sort of 100-Day advances a guy can hope for, but politics still has its partisan problems and by no means are all Democrats clear about working for citizens instead of corporations. Campaign funding reform has not been accomplished, but the fight is on. Progress moves more slowly than many of us might like, but progress takes place. Big Oil’s efforts to maintain business continues, especially in the push to get more and more gas plants built. By 2035, which is the year Over Brooklyn Hills, the third book of The Steep Climes Quartet, takes place, Big Oil is on its back foot, but still has plenty of kick left, even as court cases against the industry and pro-energy transition legislation do well. The problem remains of too much money in the political system, although real progress to kill Citizens United and the absurd legal foundation for that awful decision is finally imminent. Everyday life continues: people struggle with bills and are exasperated or delighted in relationships, work, and circumstances beyond an individual’s control.

The carbon emission tide is turning, but slowly, like the proverbial change in direction of a large ship’s course. Plenty of damage has been done and shows up in climate change consequences. Tipping points are an ongoing concern. Greed, power, and selfishness are counterpoints to our better angels.

We Are All Sad, Really

As excited Big Oil may be about expanded sales and profits, they live in the same world as the rest of us, and that world is getting hotter because of Big Oil’s expanded sales and profits. From the AGU Journals collection, Advancing Earth and Space Sciences posted a Geophysical Research Letter titled “Global Warming Has Accelerated Significantly,” authored by G. Foster, S. Rahmstorf, and first published on March 6, 2026. Fortunately for us non-scientists, AGU offers a plain text summary, as follows:

The rise in global temperature has been widely considered to be quite steady for several decades since the 1970s. Recently, however, scientists have started to debate whether global warming has accelerated since then. It is difficult to be sure of that because of natural fluctuations in the warming rate, and so far no statistical significance (meaning 95% certainty) of an acceleration (increase in warming rate) has been demonstrated. In this study we subtract the estimated influence of El Niño events, volcanic eruptions and solar variations from the data, which makes the global temperature curve less variable, and it then shows a statistically significant acceleration of global warming since about the year 2015. Warming proceeding faster is not unexpected by climate models, but it is a cause of concern and shows how insufficient the efforts to slow and eventually stop global warming under the Paris Climate Accord have so far been.

If even this is too long to read, here are the key points:

Key Points

• • During the last decade, the rate at which Earth warmed increased substantially
  • After removing the influence of known natural variability factors, the increase of the warming rate is statistically significant
  • At the present rate, we will exceed the 1.5°C limit of the Paris Climate Accord by 2030

We no longer have the opportunity to keep global warming from occurring, but we do have the capacity to slow down carbon emissions and make it more likely that climate change consequences are less severe.

If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.

The post Oil War and Counter-War on Oil 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.

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.