America’s energy renaissance

Prioritizing reliability and affordability over arbitrary climate mandates.

In March 2025, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright addressed CERAWeek, an annual energy conference:

Wind and solar, the darlings of the last administration and so much of the world today, supply roughly 3% of global primary energy… Everywhere wind and solar penetration 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 rearview mirror?

It is hard to imagine any U.S. official acknowledging the shortcomings of wind and solar before 2025. Biden administration Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm had this to say at CERAWeek 2023: “And here’s where we need to start: by acknowledging the clean energy transition is happening … You now have 10 years of [Inflation Reduction Act] carrots you can take to the bank.”

These approaches — proffered by officials holding the same office on the same stage just two years apart — could not be more different. The year 2025 could be a turning point in the way policymakers approach energy, as false promises and big-government mandates give way to an unabashedly pro-consumer, pro-markets approach. America’s energy renaissance is rooted in energy reliability, affordability, and ingenuity.

This renaissance has been fueled by a flurry of policy changes at the federal level. In the Trump administration’s first 100 days, it restarted liquified natural gas export permitting, declared a national energy emergency, restored canceled oil and gas leases, expedited permitting for domestic energy resource development and critical minerals, and eliminated the de-facto electric vehicle mandate. The Environmental Protection Agency rescinded the Clean Power Plan 2.0, which would have forced coal plants to capture 90 percent of their emissions or retire by 2032, and rolled back 30 other rules. The administration even issued an executive order on April 8 to strengthen the reliability and security of the U.S. electric grid.

On May 23, the president signed several executive orders aimed to “usher in a nuclear renaissance,” requiring the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to permit new reactor licenses within 18 months, reforming nuclear research and development at the U.S. Department of Energy, advancing new reactor construction on public lands, and mining and enriching uranium within the U.S. The orders are a promising step toward more baseload power that is reliable, affordable, and also happens to be zero-emissions.

State, local, and regional authorities are also coming to realize the same principles. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) is stepping up its warnings about grid reliability this summer, with the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) at an elevated risk of electricity shortfalls due to “the decline in dispatchable generation and the increasing share that solar and wind resources have in meeting demand.” Five utilities in my home state of Alaska, which don’t get warnings from a grid monitor like NERC, called for finishing the licensing of the Susitna-Watana Hydroelectric Project, emphasizing that “energy decisions have long-lasting consequences and therefore should be based on costs, reliability, fuel diversity, and technology.”

Foreign countries are waking up to the consequences of prioritizing climate mandates over energy reliability and affordability. On April 28, 2025, 50 million people in Spain saw a country-wide blackout when 15 gigawatts of power, or about 60 percent of the country’s generation, dropped off the grid. At the time of the blackout, 78 percent of Spain’s electricity was being served by wind and solar, which tripped off immediately. In contrast, thermal generators powered by oil, natural gas, or coal have inertia in their spinning turbines, which can temporarily maintain the grid when other generators fail. Javier Blas, an opinion columnist at Bloomberg, called Spain’s debacle the “first major blackout of the renewable-energy era.”

This administration hasn’t done everything right, but it is on the right track. However, a renaissance only lasts if it is defended — by policymakers and by the public who see its benefits. And there are serious signs that the U.S. could slip back to the energy mandate status quo in several short years.

Yet that doesn’t stop me from feeling hopeful that energy and environment policy will remain rooted in realism — and a profound respect for the role that abundant, affordable, and reliable energy plays in promoting human flourishing. Minnesota’s policymakers should recognize this and reverse harmful policies such as its moratorium on new nuclear reactors and the clean electricity by 2040 mandate.