Article by Robert Gottliebsen, courtesy of The Australian
18.03.2025
Wright, who is the American equivalent of Australia’s Energy Minister Chris Bowen, provides a low-emissions energy strategy that Australia will need to embrace to be globally competitive and maintain living standards. US energy policies have left Americans in a similar situation to Australians, with more than 20 per cent of Americans struggling to pay their energy bills and 10 per cent receiving a disconnection notice in the past 12 months.
Wright: “I am a climate realist. I’ve been studying, speaking and writing about climate change for over 20 years.
“Climate change is a global physical phenomenon that is a side effect of building the modern world.
“We have indeed raised global atmospheric CO2 concentration by 50 per cent in the process of more than doubling human life expectancy, lifting … almost all of the world’s citizens out of grinding poverty, launching modern medicine, telecommunications, planes, trains and automobiles too. Everything in life involves trade-offs. Everything.
“Natural gas today supplies 25 per cent of global primary energy and has been the fastest-growing source of energy over the last 15 years.
“Wind and solar, the darlings of the last administration and so much of the world today, supply roughly 3 per cent of global primary energy.
“Everywhere wind and solar penetrations have increased significantly, prices on the grid went up and stability of the grid went down. Is this pathway really going to put natural gas in the rear-view mirror?
“Nitrogen fertilisers, synthesising natural gas, is responsible for fully half of global food production. Natural gas is the largest source of home heating in the US. It is central to the rapidly growing petrochemical industry and the largest supplier of processed heat for manufacturing steel, cement, countless metals, gypsum, semiconductors, polysilicon and thousands of other materials. Oh yes, and natural gas is also responsible for 43 per cent of US electricity.”
Here are Wright’s long-term solutions (followed by my adaptation to Australia):
1. Advance energy addition, not subtraction:
“Going forward, my department’s goal will be to unleash the great abundance of American energy required to power modern life and to achieve a durable state of American energy dominance.”
2. Unleash American energy innovation:
“US research and development efforts will prioritise affordable, reliable, and secure energy technologies, including fossil fuels, advanced nuclear, geothermal and hydropower. The US must also prioritise true technological breakthroughs – such as nuclear fusion, high-performance computing, quantum computing, and AI – to maintain America’s global competitiveness.”
3. Return to regular order on LNG exports:
“America is blessed with abundant energy resources – we are the world’s top oil and gas producer and a net energy exporter for the first time in decades. Our energy abundance is an asset, not a liability. On January 20, the US resumed consideration of pending applications to export American liquefied natural gas to countries without a free-trade agreement with the US.”
4. Promote affordability and consumer choice in home appliances:
“A top US priority will be to ensure that American families can choose from a range of affordable home appliances and products. My department will initiate a comprehensive review of the DOE Appliance Standards Program. Any standards should include a cost-benefit analysis considering the upfront cost of purchasing new products and reflecting actual cost savings for American families.”
5. Refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve:
“The SPR is a national asset that protects our security in times of crisis. It must be refilled. Unfortunately, the SPR is currently at historically low levels. We will not permit this to become a new status quo.”
6. Modernise America’s nuclear stockpile:
“We urgently need to modernise the nation’s nuclear weapons systems. My department will continue its critical mission of protecting our national security and nuclear deterrence in the development, modernisation and stewardship of America’s atomic weapons enterprise, including the peaceful use of nuclear technology and non-proliferation.”
7. Unleash commercial nuclear power in the US:
“The long-awaited American nuclear renaissance must launch during President Trump’s administration. As global energy demand continues to grow, America must lead the commercialisation of affordable and abundant nuclear energy. As such, the department will work diligently and creatively to enable the rapid deployment and export of next-generation nuclear technology.”
8. Strengthen grid reliability and security:
“Fortifying America’s electric grid is critical to the reliable and secure delivery of electricity. Under President Trump’s Executive Order, “Declaring a National Energy Emergency”, the department will identify and exercise all lawful authorities to strengthen the nation’s grid, including the backbone of the grid, our transmission system. Moreover, after two decades of very slow demand growth, electricity demand is forecast to soar in the coming years.”
9. Streamline permitting and identify undue burdens on American energy:
“The US will prioritise more efficient permitting to enable private sector investments and build the energy infrastructure needed to make energy more affordable, reliable and secure.”
Now to Australia. We have erected many remote renewable facilities that, like those in the US and Europe, have proved to be very costly when transmission lines plus replacement and restoration costs are included.
We need to make them more efficient by combining them with natural gas “turn-off, turn-on” power, which (like the US) we can also use to replace coal.
Beetaloo in the Northern Territory can do the job, augmented by Victoria’s large low-cost reserves, which require electoral defeat of the ALP state government to gain access.
Given the US and parts of Europe are returning to nuclear, Australia’s ban on this carbon-free energy source makes no sense. But we should only use it where the sums make sense.
We can use these twin strategies to slash emissions, avoid brownouts and, without current unaffordable subsidies, reduce power bills.
Wake up Australia! The new US Energy Secretary Chris Wright plans to change world energy strategies. Australia is in grave risk of being left behind in what will be a gas and technology driven world.