Special Edition: Energy Dominance in 2025

Thomas Edison once boasted, “We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles.” While the level of technology available to us has vastly changed since Edison’s day, according to many critics, the capabilities of the American energy juggernaut are too stuck in the past to reflect the needs of the 21st-century global economy. Indeed, more and more Americans are seeing skyrocketing electric bills as the power grid is beginning to buckle under the demands imposed on it. The dual pressures of the power-hungry data centers powering the AI revolution and the need to decarbonize our energy output in order to fight climate change have only underscored the problem.

Immediately after his second inauguration, President Donald Trump called for American “energy dominance,” established a National Energy Dominance Council, declared a national energy emergency, and issued several energy-related executive orders. He has emphasized increasing U.S. energy production and exports and reducing domestic energy prices but has not defined energy dominance as a concept or set out a comprehensive energy strategy. What should “energy dominance” mean, and how can America best achieve it?

To read all of the articles in this symposium, go here.