What President Trump Can Do With The American System 2.0 - Flipbook - Page 26
measure of total energy consumption per person. This perspective gives us an ability to understand the contributions of di昀昀erent energy
sources to the long-term growth of the economy.
The post-war economic boom through the
early 1970s is expressed as a roughly 50 percent
increase in economic energy 昀氀ux-density. However, in the early 1970s, we had the beginning
takeover of radical environmentalism and postindustrial policies (leading into globalization),
and U.S. energy 昀氀ux-density 昀氀atlined. Following the 2009 crisis, the downward trend accelerated (while President Trump’s 2016 policies
began to reverse this, the Biden administration
put us right back on track toward disaster).
This stagnation and collapse in energy consumption has primarily been due to abandoning manufacturing. From 1950 to 1971, across all
sectors (commercial, residential, transportation,
and industry) there was a signi昀椀cant increase in
energy consumption per person. Since the shift
of the United States into a post-industrial services economy, per person energy consumption for
industry collapsed, while the other three sectors
all grew. From 1950 to 1971, energy for industry
averaged nearly half of total energy consumption; today, it’s less than a third. Today, the per
person energy consumption for industry is less than
it was in 1950.
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This gives us a clear perspective on the massive energy requirements to return the United
States to its status as a manufacturing superpower. Over the next 25 years, we should plan
to increase the energy 昀氀ux-density of the United States economy by 50 percent (mirroring the
growth during the post-World War II economic
boom). This will require:
• Eliminating the “Green New Deal” nonsense
and related radical environmentalist policies,
including the burdensome red tape and regulations hampering energy expansion.
• An immediate expansion of the use of oil
and gas and clean coal (as some of the cheapest and most rapidly-deployable sources of
electricity and heat energy for industry and
transportation).
• Rapid e昀昀orts to standardize and mass produce nuclear 昀椀ssion power plants (to provide
cheap and abundant nuclear power as the
new primary source of baseload electricity).
• A crash program to commercialize fusion
power (ensuring growing energy needs can
be met long into the foreseeable future).
President Trump’s call for “hundreds and hundreds
of power plants” is right on track, as the perspective
What President Trump Can Do With the American System 2.0
