OUR DAILY THREAD: Big Oil's Boomerang?
The world wants to move on
THE SET-UP: And the winner of this year’s Gordon Gekko Award for Outstanding Achievement in Greed goes to … Big Oil!
A perennial winner of the award, the six oil majors faced stiff competition this year from the private prison industry, which is reaping a windfall from President Donald J. Trump’s mass deportation of immigrants living and working in the United States.
Private prison giants CoreCivic and GEO Group were joined by shadowy newcomers like Acquisition Logistics LLC in an impressive effort to wring every last drop of profit out of the suffering of anyone unfortunate enough to be warehoused in deadly hellholes like Camp East Montana in Texas.
But Big Oil’s unparalleled penchant for profiting off human suffering won the day with an impressive one-two punch of recurring war in the oil-rich Middle East and anthropogenic climate change. While profiteering off war has kept Big Oil near the top of the leaderboard for decades, the arrival of ever-deadlier heatwaves in Europe and South Asia is the ultimate realization of the industry’s long-term commitment to the profit motive in spite of knowing full-well what it would trigger. The move that truly set them apart was the pursuit of a new slate of environmentally destructive drilling projects in Africa and South America, thereby demonstrating a willingness or even an eagerness to add more gases to the hothouse currently cooking Europe for the fourth time this year.
It was a masterstroke of unrepentant greed that borders on the sadistic.
And they’ve been richly rewarded for it.
According to newly released numbers by the crunchers at Oxfam:
The projected full-year profits of BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies amount to $147 billion, more than their combined profits over the previous 21 months (Q2 2024 to Q4 2025). Among the biggest winners, Chevron is expected to report that it has quadrupled its profits to $1,200 a second in the last three months, while ExxonMobil’s profits are expected to have tripled to $1,800 a second.
Breaking down to profit per second (pps) illustrates the vast gulf between people struggling to afford fuel and unwillingness of the industry to absorb any of the additional cost of doing their business. In fact, they use crisis as a permission slip to go further. And the future of other people is a sacrifice they are willing to make:
New Oxfam analysis of academic data published in Nature finds that the emissions from BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies were sufficient to cause around 1 in 4 heatwaves reported globally between 2000 and 2023 – heatwaves that would have been virtually impossible without human-made climate change.
Oxfam also took note of the “masterstroke” move:
Yet rather than scaling back fossil fuel production and accelerating the transition to renewable energy, the six largest fossil fuel corporations plan to increase oil and gas production by 14 percent by 2030 compared to 2024 levels, equivalent to pumping an additional 2.5 million barrels of oil a day.
Oxfam’s inequality analysts posted their full analysis on the org’s Substack. Yes, it’s daunting stuff. But there’s also no shortage of news detailing a surge in clean energy projects since the Iran War disrupted planet petroleum. Ironically, the Iran War may be enriching the usual suspects now … but it might already be boomeranging on them. - jp
Latin America’s First Solar Train Launches: It Will Travel 26 miles With Zero Emissions
https://www.cronista.com/en/today/latin-americas-first-solar-train-launches-it-will-travel-26-miles-with-zero-emissions/
Pakistan’s 27 Gigawatts of Solar Boom Matches Its Entire Fossil-Fuel Power Legacy
https://www.gadgetreview.com/pakistans-27-gigawatts-of-solar-boom-matches-its-entire-fossil-fuel-power-legacy
Wind, solar and heat pumps offer EU escape from LNG dependence by 2030, study says
In Germany, Wind and Solar Overtake Fossil Fuels
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/germany-wind-solar-power-2025
Spain’s Solaria gets EIS approval for 600-MW Italian solar project
https://renewablesnow.com/news/spains-solaria-gets-eis-approval-for-600-mw-italian-solar-project-1298802/
Britain has approved a 700-acre solar farm in Cumbria, a project so vast it could take nearly two years to build
https://www.vozpopuli.com/indux/en/britain-has-approved-a-700-acre-solar-farm-in-cumbria-a-project-so-vast-it-could-take-nearly-two-years-to-build/7743/
EPC firm SunEarth Solar tapped for 30-MW project in Romania
https://renewablesnow.com/news/epc-firm-sunearth-solar-tapped-for-30-mw-project-in-romania-1298792/
Eureka Gold Mine inaugurates a 5.4 MW solar power plant in Zimbabwe
https://www.financialafrik.com/en/2026/07/28/eureka-gold-mine-inaugurates-a-5-4-mw-solar-power-plant-in-zimbabwe/
SolarAfrica, MPower to build 184 MW solar, 300 MWh storage plant in Mpumalanga
https://www.financialafrik.com/en/2026/07/28/eureka-gold-mine-inaugurates-a-5-4-mw-solar-power-plant-in-zimbabwe/
Algeria’s solar market moves beyond potential
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/07/28/algerias-solar-market-moves-beyond-potential/
As US Residential Solar Industry Craters, Florida Bucks Trend
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southeast/2026/07/28/879331.htm
Trinity Energy project takes Florida Costco distribution center off-grid
https://solarbuildermag.com/projects/trinity-energy-project-takes-florida-costco-distribution-center-off-grid/
Texas is Constructing the Largest Coal Plant Solar Project in North America
https://www.tomorrowsworldtoday.com/manufacturing/texas-is-constructing-the-largest-coal-plant-solar-project-in-north-america/
As central Minnesota coal plant edges toward closure, massive solar project keeps growing
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/07/28/xcel-energys-sherco-solar-project-near-becker-gets-bigger
Virginia clean energy firm plans 350-megawatt solar plant near Buckeye
https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2026/07/28/apex-energy-grande-verde-solar-buckeye-az.html
Indiana lands first US factory for high-efficiency bifacial solar cells, creating 1,200 jobs
https://www.thecooldown.com/green-business/indiana-solar-cell-factory-1200-jobs/
New Solar Cell Design Solves A Problem That’s Plagued Panels for Decades
https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Solar-Energy/New-Solar-Cell-Design-Solves-A-Problem-Thats-Plagued-Panels-for-Decades.html