It's something of an understatement to note that, since Donald Trump re-assumed the presidency last January, the future of America's energy sector has seen a major turnaround. Reliable, constant, affordable energy is the goal. Trump's Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, is the right guy to get it done. "Drill, baby, drill," will now be the order of the day.
This is necessary. Cheap, reliable energy isn't just important to our modern way of life; it's essential. One man who realized this is one Gary Abernathy, a former Washington Post columnist who now writes for the Empowerment Alliance. In a recent piece at that site, he presented us with three key natural gas projects that will be key parts of the transformation of the American energy portfolio.
Three states. Three projects. And a path forward.
First, the Alaska Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) LNG pipeline:
Once considered a lost opportunity, there is renewed interest in a project on Alaska’s North Slope “that would deliver vast amounts of natural gas … in an 800-mile pipeline, super-chill it in Southcentral Alaska, and transport the liquefied natural gas overseas to countries like Japan, Korea and Taiwan,” according to the Anchorage Daily News.
Some reports have suggested that President Trump’s tariff threats played a part in getting Asia’s attention. Whatever the case, delegations from those countries trekked to Alaska in early June “expressing interest in the project and also seeking to learn more about it. A Taiwanese official even said Alaska LNG could one day become that country’s primary source of energy, if the project is built,” the Daily News reported.
This is a project that holds great promise for the Great Land, not least of which is the promise of good-paying jobs for the mostly Alaska Native communities of the North Slope Borough. Alaska is, as I've said and written for many years, a veritable treasure chest, and not just full of oil and gas, but gold, tin, silver, lead, rare earth metals, and much more. For many years, presidential administrations of both parties have treated Alaska like a gigantic national park. That's changing now. The LNG pipeline, stretching from the North Slope to the Kenai Peninsula, will be a large, difficult thing to undertake, but I seem to remember an American president observing that we do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
Second, an LNG project in Louisiana:
A $28 billion LNG export project recently broke ground in Louisiana, slated to bring jobs and an expanded local tax base.
“Upon completion, Venture Global expects to become the largest LNG exporter in the United States and the second largest in the world,” according to the trade news site Offshore Energy. “Recently, CP2 received final approval and notices to proceed from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).”
In addition to providing U.S. natural gas to customers around the world, the project is expected to mean more than $4 billion in local property taxes during its operation and support 3,000 jobs in the state, including 400 direct, permanent employees.
Exports are good, not only for the exporting companies, but for LNG prices globally. American reserves are enough to make us a net energy exporter, as we were not so very long ago. And natural gas, like oil, is a fungible commodity: Increased supply decreases price everywhere, not just here. This isn't just good for our economy. It's good for everyone's economies.
And finally, in Texas, an LNG project to support data centers:
Across Texas “a frantic race to boot up energy-hungry data centers has led many developers to plan their own gas-fired power plants rather than wait for connection to the state’s public grid. Egged on by supportive government policies, this buildout promises to lock in strong gas demand for a generation to come,” according to The Texas Tribune.
“Operating alone, a wind or solar farm can’t run a data center,” the article noted. “Battery technologies still can’t store such large amounts of energy for the length of time required to provide steady, uninterrupted power for 24 hours per day as data centers require.”
Facing a “tidal wave” of new AI projects, companies are increasingly partnering with natural gas companies to “fuel the new era of demand.”
This comes with a very telling acknowledgement of reality. The claims of climate scolds and "green" energy grifters aside, their pet sources - wind, solar - simply don't measure up. Our modern technological lifestyle requires constant, reliable, affordable energy. That comes from high-energy-density sources. Sources like gas, oil, and nuclear power. As our technological lifestyle becomes ever more connected, with more and more information online, this increases the demand for data centers to handle the flow. The ever-increasing advent of AI centers will turbo-charge this demand. Natural gas (and nuclear power) can supply this demand. Wind and solar cannot.
See Also: Energy Win: Alaska's Willow Project Will Now Proceed
Energy Partners Eager to Kick in $115 Billion in Alaskan LNG
This is only part of a much larger energy picture. If we can maintain the current course, if we can continue to keep energy-friendly presidents in the White House, the United States could well be looking at an energy renaissance, the likes of which have not been seen since the Industrial Revolution. And we should remember, as well, that every major improvement in lifestyle has come with an increase in energy density of the primary source of energy: From wood and dung to charcoal, from charcoal to coal, from coal to natural gas and oil, and now, next, to the wholesale application of nuclear power.
That must be the next step. These projects are necessary, and the benefits of them will be far-reaching. But, as I am continually pointing out, we solve today's problems with tomorrow's technology. Nuclear power is an indispensable part of that technology. The new Small Modular Reactors (SMR), new technologies like pebble-bed reactors, molten salt reactors, and who knows? Maybe one day, fusion reactors, although I expect that fusion power will be 30 years off for some time yet, just as it has been for several decades. That's fine; fission reactors work very well.
It's an exciting and interesting time to be watching the energy sector.
