Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump and Elon Musk tweeted on August 12,X-cast.” Perhaps the most influential comment was Trump’s claim that we have 100 to 500 years of oil left.
The policy implications of these words are vast. do not have I’m low on energy. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
In making this declaration, Trump threatens to upend half a century of liberal orthodoxy. We have an energy crisis and an environmental crisis, so cuts are necessary. Not only that, but we need bureaucratic overseers to tell us how we should live, including abstaining from meat. No more gas stoves, just use public transport. They eat insects. And it goes on and on.
Trump So It’s different from all of them. He does not accept liberal/globalist piety, no matter how many times it is repeated. We are reminded just how much of a threat he is to the status quo, so we should not be surprised if the liberal/globalist establishment fights back.
Indeed, Trump has long spoken about “energy dominance.” He took it to a new level on July 18 in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Busy “Liquid gold at your feet,” i.e. oil.
Former US president and 2024 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks during the final day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on July 18, 2024. (Brendan Smiarowski/AFP via Getty Images)
Trump said that if we are willing to take advantage of this abundant resource — if the anti-energy policies of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are defeated — we can not only reduce energy costs and curb inflation, but “we can eliminate $36 trillion of our debt.”
Yes, we have enough energy resources to service and pay off our national debt. According to the Institute for Energy Research (IER), the technically recoverable petroleum resources in the United States are total 2.136 trillion barrels. At the current price of $80 a barrel, $171 trillion. Additionally, according to IER, the U.S. has 3.391 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. It’s Worth It $165 trillion.
Oil and gas combined is $336 trillion. And then there’s coal, which also has hundreds of trillions of them. Sure, we need to invest more in cleaning it up, but clean coal is a much better investment than windmills.
Trump is asking the American people: “Do you want trillions of dollars to jump-start your economy, or nothing?” Would you wait for Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (someday) to install an electric vehicle (EV) charger 50 miles from where you live?
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg (Official White House Photo by Oliver Contreras via Flickr)
We’ve spent a century and a half building carbon energy infrastructure — refineries, storage tanks, pipelines, gas stations — and it works well. Why would we want to try something new (even though governments are trying to do it) when we have something proven?
Indeed, a closer look at the anti-energy voices makes Trump’s pro-energy case even stronger. During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden Pledged “Ending fossil fuels[s].” And during his presidency, News only ReportsThe U.S. government has cut new oil and gas leasing in its territory by 95%.
Considering this, why do Does the Federal Government own that much territory? Wouldn’t it be better if the state owned it? Over the past few decades, the expansion of national energy sovereignty has The winning question. More please.
But Biden doesn’t appear to be running again. So let’s talk about Harris. As a loyal vice president, she is seen as a supporter of all of the president’s policies. If she wants to reverse the environmentalist stance, now is her chance. After all, she has already rejected the progressive environmental policies she supported during her short-lived 2019 presidential campaign.
What did Musk think of Trump’s comments at the X-Mobile show praising carbon energy? After all, Musk is the face of the leading EV company, Tesla, and EVs are commonly seen as part of the “green energy” coalition and therefore opposed to carbon fuels.
Elon Musk (Jordan Strauss/InVision/AP)
However, Musk has nuanced views on “climate change.” He told President Trump that the current levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are 400 ppm (PPM, or 0.0004 percent) do not have crisis. He argued that if it goes up to 1000 PPM, there will be problems.
But with Earth only adding about 2 parts per million per year, there’s plenty of time to come up with a strategy, Musk continued. “I don’t think we should blame the oil and gas industry and the people who have worked so hard in these industries to provide the energy we need to power our economy,” Musk said.
Musk thinks like a patriot (and a Texan), not an environmentalist. As President Trump says, if the American economy is doing well, a certain percentage of the population will freely choose to buy EVs. So Musk will do well at Tesla, and in the meantime we’ll have the energy to do what he wants. Really Wish: I want to go to space.
But here on Earth, if you’re worried about too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, there’s a very simple solution. Remove carbon. Trees have been capturing carbon for thousands of years, and we can harvest carbon from the atmosphere to use in everything from cement to plastics to nanotubes.
This would lead to new carbon-based industries and needs bipartisan support. In fact, in 2019, I headlined an article, “How to Make Rural America Great Again,” outlining a vision of carbon fuel production and carbon capture intertwined in a circular carbon economy. Fortunately, this story Repost By Rep. Ro Khanna of California, a thoughtful Democrat.
In the past five years, the case for carbon fuels has actually intensified. Big Tech, including artificial intelligence (AI), is itself a heavy industry. Energy-hungry data centers.
A car is plugged into an electric vehicle charger in Kennesaw, Georgia, near Atlanta, on February 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
So it turns out that super energy consumers (mostly blue state tech companies) and energy producers (mostly red state companies) need each other. Both sides should grasp the “grand carbon bargain”, connect different regions, and build a new type of national win-win relationship.
In the meantime, more energy will be available. August 13, Chevron Announced The company’s $5.7 billion project, Anchor 140 miles off the coast of Louisiana, ushered in a new era of deepwater production, with cutting-edge technology enabling equipment to drill nearly seven miles while withstanding pressures of 20,000 pounds per square inch. Chevron expects its floating platform to produce 75,000 barrels of oil and 28 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. Reuters Reports Another US company, Beacon Offshore Energy, is poised to make a similar breakthrough.
This American “can do” power will allow us to drill deeper everywhere and get more energy. In other words, America’s $336 trillion energy fortune is just a springboard to even more wealth.
By the way, the United States is not uniquely blessed. Almost 100 Countries Oil is produced all over the world, and in 2023 new oil fields continue to be discovered around the world. 131 Discoveries.
(magical_light/Getty Images)
The key to energy development anywhere in the world is a good political environment: one that welcomes entrepreneurs, keeps taxes low, has few regulations and no environmental constraints. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask in exchange for an abundance of energy. But as we have learned, many on the left are busy every day coming up with ways to impoverish average Americans as an offering to the environmental gods.
Trump is the antidote to this environmentalism. In fact, Trump preaches a different kind of environmental protection. As he said in Milwaukee, “We are a country that has the opportunity to make absolute wealth in energy.” Just Aug. 14, he emphasized that message, cut We could cut our electricity bills by over 50 percent. Of course, the only way to do that is to produce more energy, and that’s what Trump is promising. If energy abundance and the wealth of Americans is part of his consistent message through November, he’ll win handily.
