If We Want to Beat China, We Must Build American Energy – Fast

When it comes to energy, the United States has a need for speed. 

President Trump is leading a once-in-a-generation movement to reindustrialize the economy, reshore manufacturing, lead the world in Artificial Intelligence and ultimately, bury China under the weight of U.S. economic might, much like President Ronald Reagan did to the former Soviet Union. 

Standing in President Trump’s way is an unprecedented surge in electricity demand driven by the very economic sectors in which we seek global leadership: Artificial Intelligence, cryptocurrencies, data centers, reshored manufacturing, and the increasing electrification of industry. A recent Brattle study estimates that a decade from now, the U.S. will need 50% more electricity annually compared to today.

If we don’t build new energy generation quickly and connect it to the grid, the economic renaissance that President Trump envisions will not happen and the U.S. will lose the AI race to China, threatening America’s continued global dominance. We need energy and fast.  

The challenge is that the very energy sources that can help the U.S. meet growing load demand in the near term are often disregarded by many of my fellow conservatives. Many conservative policymakers still view solar, wind, and battery storage as propped up, left-wing alternatives to more traditional sources such as oil and gas. 

I get it. I used to think that too. But the facts tell a different story. Solar energy, when made in America and deployed quickly, is a tool of energy abundance. It enables resilience and cost-competitive growth when appropriately paired with other generation sources. 

Today, solar power is the lowest-cost form of energy generation in the marketplace with onshore wind not far behind. Both can be built much faster than new natural gas or nuclear power plants. This is not a talking point, it’s a fact. I fully support natural gas and nuclear power, but in the next five years neither will be able to generate the massive amount of electricity we’ll need to achieve energy dominance. We need what’s available today, not what might come online years from now.

Justice Louis Brandeis once stated, “a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” One such courageous state when it comes to energy is Texas. The Lone Star State, surely no liberal hotbed, contains one of the freest, market-driven electric markets in the country – the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). ERCOT manages the power grid for the majority of Texas, ensuring reliable electric service to more than 26 million customers. On most days, the energy mix on the grid is more than 50% solar and wind. Ideology isn’t driving that, cost is. The right portfolio of lowest-cost energy generation at the right time of day saves ratepayers money. Period.

The previous federal administration based energy tax credits on ideology and arguments about global warming. And, in their rush to deploy solar and wind, they reopened the U.S. market to China – a nation that has systematically tried to control the entire global solar energy market. 

The Biden Administration quickly found Chinese solar companies guilty of abusing our trade laws in pursuit of monopolizing the market. Now, Reuters has reported that some Chinese solar equipment is being preprogrammed with sophisticated electronics to spy on U.S. energy usage and perhaps even shut off U.S. solar fields from Beijing. 

The last administration did a few things right where solar power was concerned, but for all the wrong reasons. That should not keep the new conservative majority from doing the right things for the right reasons: reshoring solar manufacturing to break China’s monopoly and rapidly deploying solar to help power President Trump’s reindustrialization and AI initiatives. 

Some conservative policymakers want to eliminate all energy tax credits from the IRA. What they should be doing instead is renaming those tax credits as “Reindustrialization Credits” to both power the President’s plan and rebuff China’s malevolent effort to control the global solar market. 

The facts don’t lie: solar and wind energy can provide the rapid deployment of power that our nation and economy urgently need, both now and for the foreseeable future. It’s time for Congress to recognize this reality and act accordingly.

Conservatives must lead the charge in reshoring solar manufacturing, modernizing the U.S. grid, and building an energy system that’s fast, secure, affordable, and American-made. The opportunity to establish American energy dominance is now, and the stakes could not be higher.

John Szoka is CEO of the Conservative Energy Network, a nonprofit coalition of 26 state-based organizations championing secure, reliable, affordable, clean American energy. John was widely recognized as the leading advocate for free-market solutions to a clean energy future during his ten years of service (2013-2022) in the North Carolina House of Representatives.