Someone on a podcast says clean energy is just another way for connected people to get rich off government money.
A lot of people nod.
And the annoying thing is: the instinct is not stupid.
The Instinct Is Not Stupid
Government money does attract opportunists. Subsidies do create weird incentives. Consultants do appear out of nowhere. Companies do wrap themselves in good words when they want public money. Politicians do love a ribbon-cutting where they get to stand in front of a machine and pretend they built it with their own hands.
So if someone says, “I bet somebody is making money from all this solar stuff,” the honest answer is: yes. Of course. Somebody is making money from building energy infrastructure. That is what happens when civilization buys infrastructure.
The question is not whether somebody profits.
The question is whether your suspicion works in both directions.
Because if the rule is “follow the money,” then oil and gas do not get a hall pass because they wear boots in the commercial.
Older Money Looks Like Scenery
This is where a lot of American energy skepticism quietly breaks. It notices the new money. It notices the tax credit, the startup, the solar developer, the grant, the consultant, the environmental nonprofit, the politician saying “clean energy jobs” like he just learned the phrase backstage.
Then it looks at oil and gas - a sprawling incumbent system with tax preferences, trade associations, campaign spending, lobbying, public leases, pipeline fights, export terminals, school materials, state-level influence, think tanks, price shocks, and a century of cultural mythmaking - and says, “Well, that is just how energy works.”
No. That is also money.
It is older money. It is better-dressed money. It is money that has had enough time to become scenery.
That is the trick. When new industries get public support, it looks like politics. When old industries get public support, it looks like the economy.
This chapter is not an argument that every clean-energy subsidy is wise. Some are probably wasteful. Some are probably captured. Some are probably written in ways that make normal people wonder whether the entire policy process is a haunted spreadsheet. That is government.
But if a solar subsidy makes you suspicious, good. Keep that feeling. Do not throw it away. Just carry it a few more steps.
Carry it to the oil and gas lobby.
Follow It To The Lobby
OpenSecrets reporting republished by AllSides found that oil and gas spent more than $153 million lobbying the federal government in 2024 and $38 million in just the first quarter of 2025. Those are not charity numbers. That is not an industry wandering around Washington because it enjoys the architecture.
Money trail
Old money is still money.
A mature industry does not stop shaping rules just because its assets look familiar.
The money trail did not end when the slogans got patriotic.
Lobbying is how industries protect definitions. It is how they keep favorable tax rules favorable, slow down competitors, shape permitting, frame export policy, influence school standards, fund friendly research, and keep the public conversation focused on the costs of change instead of the costs of staying stuck.
That last part matters.
Every energy system has costs. The political game is to make your costs invisible and your competitor’s costs feel outrageous.
Solar has land costs. Talk about them.
Fossil fuels have land costs too: drilling pads, mines, pipelines, refineries, export terminals, waste sites, sacrifice zones, corn grown into ethanol, and huge landscapes arranged around fuel production and consumption.
Solar has supply chains. Talk about them.
Fossil fuels have supply chains too: extraction, shipping, refining, storage, hedging, price shocks, tanker routes, rail, trucks, pipelines, insurers, and the military logic of keeping global fuel movement safe enough that nobody notices until it breaks.
Solar has subsidies. Talk about them.
Fossil fuels have tax preferences, leases, public-land arrangements, regulatory histories, infrastructure support, and a cultural subsidy so large we mistake it for common sense.
The Rogan Test
This is where Joe Rogan is useful, not because he is the center of the universe, but because he captures a very American style of suspicion. He distrusts official narratives. He likes people who sound unscripted. He assumes incentives matter. He is allergic to being managed. A huge audience recognizes that posture because it feels like independence.
There is something healthy in it.
The country would be better if more people asked, “Who benefits?” before swallowing whatever institution, corporation, campaign, or media personality is selling them.
But a suspicion instinct is not the same thing as analysis. Suspicion tells you where to look. Analysis tells you what is there.
The Rogan-style move often gets the first part right and the second part sloppy. It sees a climate consultant and says, “Money.” It sees an oil company and sees gasoline, trucks, jobs, normal life. It sees a solar farm and asks who is getting rich. It sees an LNG export terminal and calls it energy dominance.
That is not independence. That is selective suspicion.
That is also why Joe Rogan’s audience matters. It includes millions of people who are genuinely skeptical of institutions, genuinely suspicious of money in politics, and genuinely tired of being told what to think. That instinct is healthy. The problem is where it gets pointed.
If this book can reach that audience - if Joe Rogan reads it or hears about it and starts asking the same questions about oil and gas that he asks about everything else - then the argument has passed the test. It has survived contact with real skepticism.
That is the goal. Not to convert everyone. To make the suspicion harder to manipulate.
And selective suspicion is one of the easiest things in the world to manipulate.
Selective Suspicion
If I can teach you to be suspicious only of my competitors, I do not need you to trust me. I just need you to distrust them more.
That is a very profitable arrangement.
It also explains why “green energy is a money grab” is such a durable talking point. It is not completely false, which makes it stronger than a simple lie. Money is involved. Some people do want to get rich. Some companies do use moral language because moral language is good for fundraising, branding, and public contracts.
But the conclusion does not follow.
“Somebody profits from this” does not mean “the technology is fake.” If it did, we would have to throw out oil, gas, coal, nuclear, roads, bridges, medicine, internet service, defense contracting, agriculture, and most of the objects currently within arm’s reach.
The better question is: what kind of profit is it?
Profit from producing useful power is different from profit from keeping an old dependency alive. Profit from building a local grid asset is different from profit from extending fuel dependence. Profit from manufacturing equipment is different from profit from writing rules that make competitors harder to build. Profit from selling a battery is different from profit from convincing children that fossil fuels are synonymous with civilization.
That last one sounds dramatic. It is not. It is documented.
The Old Machine
The fossil fuel industry has spent decades trying to shape how Americans understand energy, climate, and modern life. Sometimes that happens through direct lobbying. Sometimes through trade associations. Sometimes through think tanks. Sometimes through friendly media. Sometimes through school materials that show up where teachers are underpaid, under-resourced, and grateful for anything that looks like a lesson plan.
This is where the “money grab” frame starts to boomerang.
If you are worried that clean-energy companies are trying to influence policy so they can make money, you should be furious at the older industry that already did exactly that and then convinced everyone it was patriotism.
The issue is not that solar people are pure and oil people are corrupt. People are people. Industries protect themselves. Capital looks for returns. Every sector hires lawyers, lobbyists, accountants, and marketers when the stakes are large enough.
The issue is asymmetry.
Oil and gas are allowed to be political while pretending to be apolitical. Clean energy is forced to be apolitical while being accused of politics.
Politics Pretending To Be Neutral
That asymmetry is everywhere.
When a state gives fossil fuel companies favorable treatment, that is economic development. When a state supports solar, that is green ideology.
When fossil fuel projects need pipelines, roads, leases, permits, tax rules, export approvals, and emergency response, that is infrastructure. When renewable projects need transmission, that is government overreach.
When gas prices spike because of global events, that is unfortunate reality. When electricity prices rise because the grid is underbuilt, that is clean energy’s fault even if the problem is decades of utility planning, fuel exposure, and political delay.
The old system has trained us to see its demands as adulthood and everyone else’s demands as special pleading.
That is why “follow the money” has to become more disciplined. It cannot just mean “notice the money attached to things I already dislike.” It has to mean following incentives until they become uncomfortable.
Follow the money to oil and gas lobbying.
Follow it to ethanol policy that turns a huge share of U.S. corn into fuel.
Follow it to public land arrangements and grazing fees that make certain land uses feel timeless.
Follow it to school curricula that made fossil fuels sound like the foundation of civilization.
Follow it to LNG export terminals that turn domestic gas into a global commodity play.
Follow it to the politicians who say “energy independence” while defending the fuel system most exposed to global price swings.
Follow it to the think tanks that teach people to fear a solar panel more than a refinery.
And yes, follow it to clean energy too. Please do. The book does not work if we replace fossil fuel mythology with solar mythology. Bad projects should be opposed. Corrupt deals should be exposed. Communities should not be steamrolled because a developer learned three climate phrases.
But the standard has to be even.
That is the whole ask.
One Standard
If a wind farm has to answer for its tax credit, a pipeline can answer for its lobbyist.
If a solar farm has to answer for its land use, corn ethanol can answer for its land use.
If a battery has to answer for its minerals, oil can answer for its wars, spills, leaks, price shocks, refineries, and permanent need for extraction.
If “green energy” is a money grab, then fossil energy is one of the most successful money grabs in human history. It just got there early enough to rename itself reality.
The next chapter is where that renaming gets extremely literal. Because if you want to understand how oil became normal, you have to look at what it taught children.