Energy Dominance
This is an example of Very Good Trump.
There has been a great deal to criticize about the first 3 months of the second Trump administration, from tariffs and geopolitics to legal peccadilloes and staffing decisions. Many of the issues on which the White House is focusing its attention are key campaign promises – especially on deportations and anti-DEI policies – but another major topic of the victorious Trump 2024 campaign has seemingly been put on the backburner. Ironically enough, this may be a good sign for the long-term success of the policy, as the president himself tends to screw things up when he takes a direct interest in them. We have seen how well the social media and Oval Office policymaking has worked when it comes to foreign policy, tariffs, and immigration – all issues that have been botched to various degrees by the administration. For what could be one of the most important policy goals of the second Trump term, avoiding this direct attention from the principal could be a godsend. The crucial issue in question here is that of energy policy.
During the first Trump term, the American energy economy was supercharged. The administration opened new leases, approved the construction of key energy infrastructure, pushed for a diversified energy mix, and turned America into a major net exporter of energy. This was an excellent start, but much of this good work was undone by the succeeding Biden administration. They shut down pipelines, privileged unreliable and cronyistic ‘green’ projects, and made new energy exploration nigh-impossible through overregulation and government interference. Trump campaigned on a policy of energy dominance and struck a chord with a great deal of Americans, especially in swing states like Pennsylvania, where fracking brought prosperity to moribund communities. The idea of energy abundance was clearly a winner and for good reason, as it is the key to making the 21st century an American-led one. The White House should make it a centerpiece of the second Trump term for several reasons – economics, geopolitics, and security.
The question of energy is quite possibly the most important one that nations will face over the coming century. Novel technology will allow us to access and exploit far more sources of energy than ever imagined in the past. And billions more people will begin to use energy at scale as their nations develop and grow into modern economies. All of that means that America needs to produce as much energy as possible, as soon as possible, both to power our own growing economy and export to the rest of the energy-hungry globe. Thankfully, America is an energy superpower of unparalleled strength – we have enormous reserves, high-tech industry, rapid innovation, and the ability to turn those reserves into usable energy – but we need to unleash it and do so in a way that cannot simply be reversed by the next misguided progressive who attains the presidency. This is the task that stands before the second Trump administration.
Energy abundance is the key to the future. The growth industries of the 21st century, the ones that will define the coming decades, are incredibly energy-intensive. Artificial intelligence, data centers, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, robotics, and the commercialization of space all depend on widely accessible and affordable energy. We have already seen companies like Microsoft and Amazon seek to buy the entire output of nuclear plants to power their forays into these sectors; this resource hunger will only grow as we progress further into the century and these technologies become more powerful. America needs to be at the forefront of these high-tech industries if we want to win the competition for the 21st century and remain the leading nation as we accelerate into a new age of technology and extraplanetary exploration.
The other side of the energy abundance coin is the consumer, who desires an ever-increasing standard of living that can only be powered by cheap, widespread energy. Historically, energy consumption has been an excellent gauge of living standards and prosperity; this relationship will continue into the future. We must not fall into the degrowth trap advocated by the climate radicals and the hardcore traditionalists who seek to de-materialize our culture and send us back to an era of relative penury. Americans deserve to consume more energy via personal transportation, home use, technological devices, robotics, and more. New labor-saving innovations will inevitably come online, just as the washing machine and dishwasher became ubiquitous in prior decades, and Americans should have the power needed to embrace these technologies. This will allow for greater leisure time, more societal happiness, and increased material wealth and prosperity. Part of the reason so many Americans today seem unhappy with their lot in life is that we do not have the perceived material abundance that was enjoyed by prior generations; energy dominance can rectify this perceived injustice and perhaps even calm some of our social tensions.
A policy of energy dominance will not only improve our economic lot, it will also allow us to buttress our national security and defend our geopolitical position as the world’s prime actor. Regaining energy independence, leading the world in production, and promoting our energy export sector would put us in an excellent position to lead America successfully through the challenges that are coming our way. Having the ability to domestically produce all the energy our society consumes would grant America a degree of security that few other nations could hope to match. Relying on foreign nations for our energy supply would create a colossal vulnerability for our whole society, as it would provide a painful pressure point through which to inflict harm on our citizenry. Removing that potential dependency is vital. A policy of energy abundance would also require the upgrading and hardening of our electrical grid, a prime target for enemy hackers and saboteurs. Diversifying our energy sources, building in redundancy, and promoting reliable baseline power will allow us to minimize the damage of such foreign assaults were they to come.
Energy dominance will be a boon to our geopolitical position, allowing us to help our friends and hurt our foes. It must be central to any 21st-century American grand strategy. By becoming an energy hyperpower, America can supply our allies with plentiful energy, allowing them to wean themselves off of purchasing from our foes. This has been an especially important issue for Europe, which has been buying its baseload power from Russia for decades now, providing Moscow with a whip hand over powerful EU nations and an economic lifeline for its war machine. That must end. And the way to do it is to sell Europe American energy instead. India has historically been in a similar position, importing much of its fossil fuel stockpile from Moscow. Tightening ties with New Delhi via energy sales would be an excellent way to ensure a strong Indo-Pacific bulwark against China’s attempts to attain regional hegemony.
At the same time, we can use energy to harm our enemies, both through denying them access to our production and by using it to drive prices down, removing a key source of their revenue. In the realm of fossil fuels, radically boosted US production could help drive down prices globally, making adversarial petrostates like Iran, Russia, and Venezuela struggle to earn enough to carry out their malign goals. Homegrown energy industries, including so-called ‘green’ technologies, can obviate the need to import Chinese energy technology like solar panels, securing our economic independence and closing off a major market for Chinese products. The same goes for mineral production and the processes needed to transform those raw materials into usable technologies. Building out those energy-adjacent industries would not only be a boon to American high-tech manufacturing – a key cause of the Trump administration and its base – but also to our ability to continue large-scale energy production and transmission well into the future.
The US should be completely agnostic as to what types of energy power this future of abundance. We should not privilege ‘green’ projects like solar or wind, nor should we force the use of the dirtiest fossil fuels, like coal. We should want a widespread diversity of energy sources and open the market to all of the various types of energy production and resource exploitation. The push should be for energy sources that are the most effective, advanced, and exportable; that will vary greatly by region and use case, so no proverbial stone should be left unturned. Fossil fuels are versatile and highly exportable. Nuclear power is a clean, reliable, highly advanced form of baseload power that will also be critical to the future of technology and space exploration. Geothermal energy is often underdiscussed, but there are large swathes of the country that could exploit this form of power; the budding supervolcano in Yellowstone would perhaps be able to power multiple states if tapped appropriately (this also vastly reduces the potential for a catastrophic eruption). Solar power is supremely effective in the sunny Southwest, wind power is reliable and accessible in areas like the Great Plains, and hydropower produced via dams has a longstanding and well-tested track record in the Pacific Northwest and the South. We should find the best energy mix for each different region and promote it heavily.
The United States has massive untapped deposits of a wide variety of energy resources. We host one of the largest accessible untapped fossil fuel reserves in the world and have led in developing the innovative solutions needed to extract this energy in a cost-effective manner. We have a great deal of critical minerals needed to produce this advanced technology and other important energy infrastructure projects, despite the fact that we largely import these minerals from abroad – although that may be changing as new ventures come online. We have significant uranium reserves, necessary for clean and effective nuclear power, plus the ability to produce enormous amounts of energy from our natural geothermal, hydro, solar, and wind resources. The problem here is that we need to allow our companies to access and exploit these resources if we are to produce enough energy for the future growth we hope to see across our society and economy. This requires a novel approach that incentivizes energy, not penalizes it.
We cannot afford to leave these resources untapped, but as of now, the federal government is getting in the way of that process. The Trump administration should focus on expanding our production across all domains, including on the federal lands which comprise a large portion of the resource-rich American West. Incentivizing exploration by opening leases and shifting to a taxation system that favorably treats the financially-risky investment in exploration would be boons to the energy sector. The administration has already begun to promote this approach, opening resource exploration in Alaska, as well as on the seabed both within our own territorial waters and the large section of open ocean between the West Coast and Hawaii – technically international waters, but de facto controlled by Washington. Cutting more environmental and other overbroad regulations would allow for faster production timelines and a greater deal of innovation and exploitation of energy resources. Instead of sitting in legal and regulatory hell for years, if not decades, such a shift in approach would allow projects to come online much faster, bringing abundant energy to Americans sooner rather than later.
Energy exploration and exploitation are not the only important parts of the strategy. Just as crucial is the ramping up of construction on energy infrastructure projects, including pipelines and transmission networks, and the facilities needed to improve export capacity. Abundant energy will require a stronger and more diversified electrical grid to transmit power to end users across the country. It will require the construction of energy pipelines, new transmission lines, and substations. To promote our energy exports, we will need to build out our refining capacity to operate better with US-produced fuels as well as create new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals and the specialized oceangoing vessels that are necessary to ship LNG overseas. Modernizing port infrastructure and other export-oriented facilities will also be required. The old adage “drill, baby, drill” is no longer enough if we truly seek long-term energy dominance. Just as important is “build, baby, build.” For without the ramped-up energy infrastructure laid out above, our ability to extract energy will fail to be matched by our ability to transmit, use, and export it.
A policy of energy dominance, buttressed by the aforementioned reforms, would put us in the driver’s seat when it comes to winning the 21st century. Just as the electrification projects of the New Deal changed America and aided us in our staggering 20th-century economic growth, an energy dominance agenda would help us shape the coming decades in our favor. This time, however, we should avoid the pitfalls of the Roosevelt administration’s government-led strategy and instead let the private sector do what it does best, free from overbearing government intrusion. American businesses have the ability and desire to achieve energy abundance, and the federal government should be here to turbocharge that effort, not undermine it.
Trump’s energy team – namely Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin – are very well situated to achieve this important goal and implement the White House’s strategy. They are familiar with both government and industry and realize that the former too often gets in the way of the latter. And even the president himself, who has no shortage of frailties and negatives, is a stalwart supporter of American energy production and export – such exports may even reduce the trade deficits he cares so deeply about. The right team is in place at the right time. They have just under four years to reorient the American energy economy and allow its dynamism to shine through. If they can pull off this feat, it may very well be the most profound and lasting positive legacy of the Trump presidencies, driving us into the future with confidence and a strong tailwind at our back. We best hope they succeed. Our future may very well depend on it.