“This is part of a larger crisis our nation is facing around electricity."
Excerpt from this story from Politico:
Interior Secretary nominee North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgumtestified at his confirmation hearing on Thursday that the United States must invest in “clean coal” to support the growth of an artificial intelligence industry.
Burgum said he would help develop resources like coal and natural gas from federal lands to provide more baseload power that data centers require for round-the-clock operations. He alluded to technologies like carbon capture and sequestration to reduce the climate effects of those fossil fuels while providing power for AI.
“This is part of a larger crisis our nation is facing around electricity. We have a shortage of electricity, and especially we have a shortage of baseload,” Burgum told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “Without baseload, we're going to lose the AI arms race to China. And if we lose the AI arms race to China, then that's got direct impacts on our national security in the future of this country.”
President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to position the U.S. as an AI leader, which he has said would require new energy sources, including from fossil fuels. Analyses have forecast AI and data centers will drive up electricity consumption in the U.S. after years of flat demand.
Coal is the most carbon-intensive fuel in the power grid, but proponents of carbon capture say that technology can mitigate its planet-warming effects. But the technology is nascent and has not been applied at broad scale in the power sector with government subsidies. Burgum has viewed the technology as promising, as he relied on it to set a goal for North Dakota to become carbon neutral by 2030.
Burgum said the current federal incentives were "out of whack" in providing disproportionate support for renewable power sources that don't provide round-the-clock power.
"We are creating roadblocks for people that want to do baseload and we’ve got massive tax incentives for people who want to do intermittent and unreliable," he said.
