Liquid Gold: Donald Trump’s Winning Message On US Energy And Wealth

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The policy implications of those words are vast & profound: We are not running out of energy. In fact, it is just the opposite. In so declaring, Trump threatens to overturn a half-century of the liberal scarcity orthodoxy: We have an energy crisis, also an environmental crisis, so we need to cut back. Not only that, we need bureaucratic overseers to tell us how to live our lives: Less meat. No more gas stoves. Use mass transit. Eat insects. And on and on.

Trump’s message is so completely different. He does not accept liberal/globalist pieties, no matter how many times they are repeated. We are reminded of just what a threat he poses to the status quo; and so we shouldn’t be surprised when the liberal/globalist establishment lashes back. 

In fact, Trump has already been talking about “energy dominance” for a very long time. In his July 18 acceptance speech to the Republican Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he took it all to an entirely new level, speaking of the “liquid gold under our feet.” Oil.

If we are willing to use this abundance, Trump says — that is, if the anti-energy policies of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris can be overcome and vanquished — we will not only cut energy costs, and thus inflation, but “we will be able to substantially reduce our national debt of $36 trillion.”

We possess enough energy wealth to pay down or even pay off our national debt. According to the Institute for Energy Research (IER), technically recoverable oil resources in the U.S. total 2.136 trillion barrels. At the current price of $80 a barrel, that’s $171 trillion. Moreover, according to the IER, we also have 3.391 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. That alone is worth another $165 trillion. 

That’s an oil-and-gas total of $336 trillion. Then there’s coal; we have hundreds of trillions of tons of that, too. It may cost extra to clean it up, but clean coal is a far better investment than windmills & low efficiency solar panels.

Trump is asking the American people: Would you prefer those hundreds of trillions of dollars in energy resources to revitalize our economy, or not? Or would you rather wait for Transportation Security Pete Buttigieg to (some day) install an electric vehicle (EV) charger 50 miles from where you live? 

We’ve spent a century and a half building & expanding our carbon energy infrastructure: all of those refineries, storage tanks, pipelines and filling stations. And it works well. Why would we want to risk something completely new (with the government managing it) when we can instead continue to use the tried and true?

Indeed, the strength of Trump’s pro-energy pitch is all the greater when we contrast it to the anti-energy alternative of the Democrats. During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden repeatedly pledged to “end fossil fuels.” And, during his presidency, Just The News reports, the U.S. government reduced issuing new oil and gas leases on its property by 95 percent.

Perhaps we should consider why does the federal government own so much territory? Wouldn’t it be better if the states owned & managed their own land? Over the past few decades, the expansion of state energy sovereignty has been extremely successful. More of that, please. 

However, Biden is out of the 2024 race and isn’t running again, so we should talk about Kamala Harris. As a loyal VP, she is a considered to be a supporter of all Joe Biden’s presidential policies. If she wishes to reverse those green policy positions, now’s her chance. After all, she has already disavowed the avant-green policies she embraced during her own short-lived campaign for the Oval Office in 2019.

In their recent interview on X, what did Musk make of Trump’s words in praise of carbon based energy? Given Musk is the face of Tesla, the leading EV company and EVs are typically considered to be part of the “green energy” coalition and so anti-carbon fuels.

Musk has a nuanced view of “climate change.” He told Trump that the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere, a little more than 400 parts per million (PPM, that’s 0.0004 percent) is not a crisis. If it gets up to 1000 PPM, he asserted, then it becomes a problem.

Musk continued adding, the Earth is only adding about two PPM per year, so we have plenty of time to figure out new strategies. Musk said, “I don’t think we should vilify the oil and gas industry and the people that have worked very hard in those industries to provide the necessary energy to support the economy.”

Musk is thinking more as a patriot (and Texan), as opposed to being a Green. When the American economy is strong, as Trump has said, a certain fraction of the population will freely choose to buy EVs. Musk will still do fine with Tesla; and, in the meantime, we’ll have enough energy to do what Musk really wants: Go into space. 

However here on Earth, trees & the oceans have been capturing atmospheric carbon for eons: and we can do it too, by harvesting atmospheric carbon into everything from cement to plastics and nanotubes.

This could in fact lead to a completely new sector of carbon-based industries. In fact, back in 2019, this author headlined a piece, “How to Make Rural America Great Again,” outlining a vision of carbon-fuel production alongside carbon capture, entwined in a circular carbon economy.

During the last five years, the case for carbon based fuel and energy sources has actually grown stronger, as we come to understand Big Tech, including artificial intelligence (AI), as its own kind of heavy industry, is also dependent on high energy consumption.

Super energy consumers (mostly tech) and energy producers need each other. Both sides should grasp the “Grand Carbon Bargain,” to create a new economic engine for the nation.

In the meantime, more energy abundance is coming. On August 13, Chevron announced its new $5.7 billion project 140 miles off the coast of Louisiana called Anchor, is ushering in a new era of deepwater oil and natural gas production; utilizing the latest technological advances to enable equipment to drill down nearly seven miles and withstand pressures up to 20,000 pounds per square inch. Chevron projects that its floating platform will produce 75,000 barrels of oil and 28 million cubic feet of natural gas a day. Reuters reports another U.S. company, Beacon Offshore Energy, is also poised to make a similar breakthrough.

Thanks to this American Can Do effort, we’ll soon be able to drill deeper everywhere to secure even more energy. So, those $336 trillion for American energy gold will be just the springboard for more wealth.

In addition, nearly 100 other countries around the world also produce oil; and the global oil industry continues to discover new fields everywhere. In 2023, 131 new field discoveries were made worldwide.

One of the important keys to expansive energy development & production anywhere in the world is a supportive political environment: a business friendly approach & attitude which encourages entrepreneurs, low taxes, less regulation and no green strangulation. That’s not an unreasonable request to ask for in return for energy abundance. However, as we have learned, plenty on the Left wake up every day working to make the average American poorer as an offering to their green gods.

Trump’s energy policies and proposals are the answer & the antidote to the Left’s green zealotry. Indeed, Trump is preaching about a different kind of green. As he said in Milwaukee, “We are a nation that has the opportunity to make an absolute fortune with its energy.” On August 14, he reaffirmed that message by pledging to reduce consumer electricity bills by 50 percent or more. Of course, the only way to do that is to increase national energy production.✪

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