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Donald Trump’s choice for interior secretary has warned that the US will lose the “artificial intelligence arms race” to China if it does not increase electricity generation from fossil fuels and stabilize its power grid.
Doug Burgumbillionaire businessman and former governor of North Dakota, told US senators on Thursday that the country has an “electricity crisis” due to weaknesses in the grid and “roadblocks” that prevent companies from building fossil-fueled power plants that can supply 24-hour power.
He added that the Trump administration would allocate more public land for oil drilling and cut tax breaks to benefit renewable energy companies that produce “intermittent and unreliable power.”
“The sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow,” Burgum said at his Senate hearing, adding that the balance was “disturbed.”
Electricity demand is growing at an unprecedented rate in the U.S., fueled by skyrocketing data center demand for AI processing — which Department of Energy predicts it will triple in the next three years.
“Without a baseload, we’re going to lose the AI arms race with China, and if we lose the AI arms race with China, that will have direct implications for our national security,” Burgum said.
“Right now we’ve put together a series where we’re creating barriers for people who want to work baseload (electricity), and we’ve got huge tax incentives for people who want to work intermittently and unreliably.”
Burgum, who endorsed Trump after ending his own 2024 presidential bid, is also tipped to lead the National Energy Council. If he is confirmed as Trump’s “Energy Czar,” he will have great powers to push through the president-elect’s vision of “drill, baby, drill.”
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden signed an executive order opening up the federal government to artificial intelligence infrastructure with the condition that the power be drawn from clean sources of electricity — part of the Democratic leader’s push to curb emissions and combat climate change.
Burgum said new technologies like carbon storage could eliminate the emissions produced by fossil fuels — although there are questions about the technology’s commercial and technical feasibility.
The former governor added that limiting US fossil fuel production would produce no environmental benefit, as less scrupulous governments would fill the supply gap.
“America produces energy cleaner, smarter and safer than anywhere else in the world,” he said. “When energy production is curtailed in America, it doesn’t reduce demand, it just shifts production to countries like Russia, Venezuela and Iran — whose autocratic leaders don’t care about the environment.”
The US is already ready for a boom of natural gas power plants to increase baseload power, with as many as 80 facilities to be on by 2030, according to Enverus.
Biden’s landmark climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, tied the sale of offshore oil and gas leases to new offshore wind leases. When asked if he would protect the offshore wind farm projects under development, Burgum declined to comment.
Trump has promised to end offshore wind projects “on day one.”