Trump’s ‘energy tsar’ says US will lose ‘AI arms race’ without fossil fuels

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Donald Trump’s pick for interior secretary has warned that the US will lose the “AI arms race” to China unless it ramps up electricity generation from fossil fuels and stabilizes its power grid.

Doug BurgumA billionaire businessman and former governor of North Dakota told US senators on Thursday that grid weakness and “redblocks” preventing companies from building fossil fuel plants have led to an “electricity crisis” in the country that can provide round-the-clock supply. power

He added that the Trump administration would allocate more public land to drilling for oil and reduce tax breaks in favor of renewable companies that produce “stable and unreliable energy.”

“The sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow,” Burgum said at his Senate confirmation hearing, adding that the balance is “out of whack.”

Electricity demand in the US is growing at an unprecedented rate, driven by growing demand from data centers for artificial intelligence processing – which Department of Energy It is predicted to triple in the next three years.

“Without baseload, we’re going to lose the AI ​​arms race to China, and if we lose the AI ​​arms race to China, that will have a direct impact on our national security,” Burgum said.

“Right now, we’ve got a deck stacked, where we’re building roadblocks for people who want to baseload. [electricity]And we’ve got massive tax incentives for people who want to be intermittent and unreliable.”

Bergum, who endorsed Trump after ending his own 2024 presidential bid, has also been tipped to lead the National Energy Council. If confirmed as Trump’s “energy czar,” he will have sweeping powers to push through the president-elect’s vision to “drill, baby, drill.”

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to open up federal land for AI infrastructure that would draw power from clean electricity sources — part of the Democratic leader’s efforts to curb emissions and tackle climate change.

Burgum says new technologies such as carbon capture storage can offset emissions produced by fossil fuels – although there are questions about the technology’s commercial and technical feasibility.

The former governor added that limiting U.S. fossil fuel production would have no environmental benefits, as less prudent governments would fill the supply gap.

“America produces cleaner, smarter and safer energy than anywhere else in the world,” he said. “When energy production is limited in America, it doesn’t reduce demand, it just shifts production to countries like Russia, Venezuela, and Iran—whose authoritarian leaders don’t care about the environment.”

The United States is already preparing for one Boom in natural gas-fired power plants According to Envarus, as many as 80 facilities are expected to come online by 2030 to increase baseload power.

Biden’s landmark climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, linked offshore oil and gas lease sales to new offshore wind leases. When asked if he would defend developing offshore wind projects, Bergum declined to comment.

Trump has promised to end offshore wind projects “on day one.”