December 2025. BP’s executive vice president calls it ‘an excellent year.’ Seven major oil and gas projects delivered. 150,000 new barrels per day flowing. Five of seven projects ahead of schedule.
Same month. Same planet. The United States celebrates its first-ever grid-connected wave energy system. Output: enough to power a few dozen homes.
One side of this race is sprinting. The other is crawling.
The ocean is constantly moving. Waves roll in. Tides flow with clockwork reliability. Wind blows stronger offshore than on land. All of that movement is energy. Harvestable, clean, endless energy.
Wave power, tidal stream, floating offshore wind. These aren’t science fiction. They work. They’ve been tested. The technology exists.
So why aren’t we using it at scale?
Let’s look at what fossil fuels achieved in 2025
BP delivered seven major projects across five countries. Egypt. Trinidad. West Africa. The Gulf of Mexico. The UK North Sea. Their $4.8 billion Greater Tortue Ahmeyim project shipped its first LNG cargo. Their Murlach field squeezed more oil from decades-old infrastructure.
Shell started pumping from its Whale platform in the Gulf of Mexico. One platform. 100,000 barrels a day.
Shell and Equinor merged their UK North Sea operations into Adura, now the largest oil producer in British waters. 140,000 barrels daily. Their stated goal? Maximise the remaining value.
This is what a well-funded, politically supported energy sector looks like.
Now the other side
America’s first wave energy system? A pilot project at the Port of Los Angeles. Kilowatts, not megawatts.
The UK’s tidal pipeline? 120 megawatts planned by 2030. That’s roughly what one medium-sized gas plant produces. And it won’t be built for five years.
The UK Energy Minister called the wave sector “still emerging” with “promise.”
Promise. Emerging. Potential.
Compare that to BP’s “excellent year” of actually delivering.
Here’s where it gets infuriating
Global investment in upstream oil and gas in 2023: approximately $500 billion.
Global public investment in all ocean energy: $710 million.
That’s not a typo. Fossil fuels received roughly 700 times more investment than marine renewables.
The US Department of Energy just launched its largest-ever wave energy programme. $112.5 million over five years.
BP approved a single Gulf of Mexico development worth $5 billion. One project. Forty-four times more than America’s entire wave programme.
This is not a race. This is a marathon runner competing against someone in a Ferrari.
Every major government has committed to net zero. They’ve signed agreements. Made speeches. Set targets.
Yet in 2025, the UK still offers tax incentives for new North Sea drilling. The US held new offshore lease sales. American crude production hit an all-time record: 13.6 million barrels per day.
Record oil production. In the middle of a climate crisis. While marine renewables sit in “pilot phase,” waiting for funding that never quite arrives.
This is the gap between what governments say and what governments do.
Marine renewables aren’t losing because the technology doesn’t work. It works.
They’re losing because governments fund oil extraction at 700 times the rate they fund ocean energy. They’re losing because political will is finite and it’s being spent propping up an industry that’s supposed to be winding down.
The physics is on our side. The engineering is proven. What’s missing is pressure.
If this makes you angry, good.
Do something with it. Talk about it. Share it. Ask your MP or congressperson why tidal energy gets pocket change while oil companies get tax breaks.
I track the gap between what governments promise and what they actually deliver. I dig into the numbers nobody else is reporting. I connect the dots between policy, industry, and what it means for our oceans.
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