Trump’s Energy Revolution: Fossil Fuels, Climate Rollbacks, and the Future of U.S. Policy

If you’re a non-member and you’d like to read the full essay, click here.Introduction

America’s stance on climate change took a dramatic U-turn during Donald Trump’s second term in the White House.

After years of positioning itself as a leader in global climate initiatives, the United States abruptly retreated from that role.

Climate policies were rolled back with gusto, international agreements were spurned, and fossil fuels were given pride of place once again.

This analysis examines how Trump’s administration reversed course on emissions cuts and clean energy, why global climate tipping points are looming regardless, and why America’s past climate leadership may have been a well-intentioned misstep.Trump’s Second Term Climate Policy Rollbacks

Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office brought an aggressive “climate regulation bonfire” — a purge of policies aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

The administration unapologetically doubled down on oil, gas, and coal, often under the banner of “energy dominance” and economic growth.Key climate initiatives of the previous administration were not just paused but actively dismantled.

Notably, many measures targeting emissions reductions, renewable energy support, and environmental protections were weakened or outright reversed:

Paris Agreement ExitThe U.S. swiftly moved to withdraw (again) from the Paris Climate Agreement, abandoning its emissions pledges and climate finance commitments. Trump officials framed this international accord as an unfair economic burden, leaving the global pact without its second-largest emitter.

Power Plant Emissions Rule RepealedThe Environmental Protection Agency’s strict new GHG standards for power plants — which would have forced coal plants to cut 90% of emissions by 2032 — were scrapped . On the campaign trail, Trump had lambasted these rules as part of an “anti-American energy crusade,” and in office he made good on the vow to revoke them .

Methane Regulations Rolled BackAmbitious rules to curb methane leaks from oil and gas operations met a similar fate. The administration, echoing fossil fuel lobbyists, tore up requirements for methane capture and even quashed a new methane fee that was meant to penalize excessive emissions.

Vehicle Emissions Standards GutttedTougher tailpipe emissions standards for cars and trucks, which had been designed to push automakers toward EVs and higher efficiency by 2030, were put on the chopping block. The message was clear: keep those gasoline engines roaring.

Renewable Energy Support SlashedTax credits and incentives for solar, wind, and electric vehicles faced intense skepticism. Trump repeatedly derided clean energy subsidies as “wasteful spending”. His team explored ways to kill off these subsidies, aiming to stall the renewables boom sparked by the Inflation Reduction Act. (Admittedly, fully dismantling that Act proved difficult in practice, given many Republicans’ quiet fondness for the green jobs it created .)

Environmental Reviews ShortenedIn the name of infrastructure and growth, the administration sped up federal environmental reviews for projects, curtailing requirements under laws like NEPA. This made it easier to approve pipelines, drilling, and highways without lengthy climate impact assessments — effectively trading green tape for red carpet.

At every turn, Trump’s policies signaled that carbon emissions were not a concern of his government.He appointed industry-friendly figures to key agencies, slashed climate research budgets, and often openly mocked renewable energy (see: “windmill noise cancer”).

The cumulative effect was a stark deprioritization of climate action in favor of short-term fossil fuel development.

While supporters cheered the regulatory rollbacks as a boost to the economy, critics warned these reversals would “remove many of the key climate regulations enacted over the past four years” — leaving the U.S. further from its emissions targets.

Trump’s second term became, in essence, an experiment in what happens when the world’s largest economy shrugs off climate leadership and hits the gas on fossil fuels instead.

Tipping Points: Climate on the Brink

Melting ice and disintegrating glaciers are perfect examples of climate tipping points.

Once enough warmth is added, ice sheets begin the process of irreversible collapse — one of many dire thresholds scientists warn about.The Earth’s climate doesn’t particularly care who occupies the White House.Decades of accumulating greenhouse gases have brought us alarmingly close to various climate tipping points — critical thresholds beyond which irreversible changes will unfold.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has identified multiple systems at risk of such tipping behavior.

These include:

• The disintegration of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets (threatening several meters of sea-level rise over centuries)
• The dieback of the Amazon rainforest, the collapse of coral reef ecosystems
• The thawing of carbon-rich permafrost Cross one of these thresholds, and we set in motion self-perpetuating changes — feedback loops that accelerate warming even if human emissions cease.

The point of no return.

The sobering reality is that these tipping points are perilously close to being triggered.

The IPCC’s latest assessment finds there is now a >50% chance that global temperature rise will exceed 1.5 °C in the next couple of decades.

In fact, under high-emissions scenarios, we might hit that 1.5 °C mark essentially now (between 2018 and 2037) and barrel onward to a hellish 3.3 — 5.7 °C of warming by 2100.That level of heating hasn’t been seen in millions of years, and it would undoubtedly push multiple systems over the edge.Even more moderate warming (~2 — 3 °C) brings a real risk of irreversible ice sheet loss and other nasty surprises.

Every fraction of a degree makes a difference — for example, what used to be a once-in-a-decade heatwave becomes roughly five times more frequent at 2 °C warming compared to the preindustrial climate.

An “overshoot” above 1.5 °C, even if later brought down, could lead to permanent extinction of species and the collapse of entire ecosystems like tropical reefs.

The thing is, these tipping points loom regardless of U.S. policy.Even if Washington had remained gung-ho on climate action, the sheer inertia in the earth system means some further warming is baked in.

Carbon dioxide concentrations are at their highest in over 4 million years , and the planet’s oceans and ice sheets are already responding.

The IPCC notes that due to thermal inertia, we’re locked into at least some additional warming over the next decade “even if we were to reach net-zero emissions tomorrow” .

In other words, stopping on a dime isn’t possible — the climate train has momentum, and the brakes only do so much.Now add the fact that global emissions have continued to climb (more on that in a moment), and it becomes painfully clear that surpassing critical thresholds is increasingly likely.

Planetary tipping points are not waiting around for American leadership; they are being triggered by the aggregate of global emissions. That is why scientists grimly warn that humanity is nearing a point where certain climate disasters become inevitable — no matter what any one country does.

U.S. inaction under Trump’s second term might accelerate the timeline a bit, but the tragic irony is that

U.S. action alone could not have averted the danger if others stay the course toward higher emissions.The climate, indifferent to politics, is inching toward its breaking points — and we’re all along for the ride.

Rising Emissions Abroad: China, India, Russia, and the Rest

If U.S. climate leadership fizzled, it wasn’t in a vacuum — many of the world’s other big emitters were more than happy to continue with business-as-usual pollution.

Global greenhouse gas emissions hit record highs in recent years and show no real sign of peaking .

The blunt truth is that the growth of emissions from developing and emerging economies has vastly outpaced the cuts achieved in the West.Any notion that the U.S. could “lead by example” was undercut by the relentless rise of carbon output in places like China, India, and Russia, as well as many developing nations pursuing economic growth.

Let’s start with China, the world’s largest carbon polluter. China’s emissions are now roughly double those of the U.S., and they keep rising — up an estimated 5.2% in 2023 alone, bringing China’s CO₂ output to 12% above its 2020 level .

Despite impressive investments in solar and wind, China has been on a coal power building spree of jaw-dropping scale.In 2023, Chinese authorities approved 114 gigawatts of new coal-fired power capacity (a 10% jump from the previous year), and over 200 GW in the last two years .

For perspective, that’s like building the entire U.S. coal fleet all over again.Construction began on 70 GW of new coal plants in one year, and dozens of existing coal mines are expanding. This “coal boom” directly undermines global climate goals — analysts warn it’s a “direct threat” to limiting warming to 1.5 °C .

Beijing has pledged to peak emissions by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2060, but in practice it is front-loading fossil infrastructure now (to avoid energy shortages) and deferring major cuts to later . The result:

China’s near-term targets remain modest, and it is not yet bending the curve of emissions downward.

Next, India — the third-largest emitter — continues to prioritize development and poverty alleviation, which for now mean a strong reliance on fossil fuels.

India’s per capita emissions are low, but its total emissions have surged with economic growth.In 2022, India’s GHG emissions rose again (as did those of fellow emerging giants Indonesia and Brazil) .

India has set goals to ramp up renewables and reduce emissions intensity of its GDP, but it has not committed to an absolute emission cut in the near term. In fact, India is still expanding coal mining and coal-fired generation to meet exploding electricity demand.

Both India and China pushed back at COP negotiations against language calling for a “phase out” of coal, preferring the softer “phase down.”

The bottom line: their climate actions, while not nonexistent, are far from sufficient to significantly curb global emissions in the 2020s.They simply have other priorities and will not sacrifice growth for the climate — at least not at the pace the science demands.Then there’s Russia, the fourth-largest emitter, which can only be described as a climate laggard (if we’re being polite).

Russia’s economy is tightly bound to oil and gas exports, and its leadership has shown minimal interest in decarbonization.The Climate Action Tracker rates Russia’s policies as “Highly insufficient,” noting that current plans actually lead to rising emissions through 2030 rather than any decline .

In essence, Moscow’s climate policy is to pump and drill as usual.They did adopt a net-zero-by-2060 pledge, but it’s largely nominal; their 2030 target is so weak that Russia could meet it without cutting a single ton (due to accounting tricks with forests and an already achieved drop from the 1990s).

A 2021 climate law was watered down to remove enforcement teeth, leaving no penalties for big emitters . The verdict from analysts is scathing: Russia shows “no real commitment to curb emissions” .

In fact, if every country followed Russia’s approach, we’d be on track for well over 3 °C of warming .Clearly, meaningful global progress was not going to come from Moscow.

Beyond these major players, many developing nations are understandably more focused on immediate development needs than on aggressive carbon cuts.

Their emissions are rising as populations grow and industrialization proceeds.Collectively, the G20 nations (which include China, India, Russia, and others) account for about 76% of global emissions — and in 2022 the G20’s emissions increased by 1.2%, not decreased, with particularly large upticks in China and India .

While some high-income countries in the group (like those in the EU) did cut emissions, those reductions were outweighed by growth elsewhere.

The pattern is clear: for all the talk of global cooperation, most countries are not delivering major emissions cuts.Even promises made under the Paris Agreement are often hedged or delayed.

Many developing nations have conditional targets (saying they’ll act only if they receive funding and tech support), which means without massive aid flows — which thus far have not materialized — their emissions will keep climbing.

It’s little surprise, then, that atmospheric CO₂ hit a new record high and global energy-related CO₂ topped 40 billion tons in 2023 .In sum, the lack of commitment to significant carbon reduction outside the West has been a huge obstacle.

The U.S. stepping back under Trump only amplified a trend that was already evident: global emissions weren’t slowing.

• China built coal plants; India and others followed suit
• OPEC countries expanded oil production
• Russia doubled down on gas Even as renewables grew, they were simply adding to energy supply rather than replacing fossil fuels — global fossil fuel consumption hit an all-time high in 2023, providing about 81.5% of the world’s primary energy (only a hair down from 82% the year before) .

The torch of climate leadership, once held aloft by the U.S., was effectively dropped — and no one is going to pick it up.America’s retreat from climate policy might seem less a decisive turning point and more like

one more step in the slow march toward collective failure.The Folly of America’s Climate Leadership

For years, the United States prided itself on “leading” the fight against climate change — setting ambitious national targets, pushing international accords, and (during the Obama era and briefly under Biden) implementing policies to cut domestic emissions.

It was often assumed that U.S. leadership would spur other nations to follow suit, creating a virtuous cycle of global action. However, looking back now, that effort appears to have been a well-intentioned mistake.In practice, America’s climate leadership achieved scant global benefit while imposing political and economic costs at home, making it a dubious strategy that arguably backfired.

Firstly, unilateral and front-loaded action by the U.S. opened it up to be exploited by free riders.While the U.S. limited coal use, raised fuel economy standards, and poured billions into clean energy, countries like China ramped up manufacturing of solar panels (often powered by cheap coal) and cornered the market on critical minerals for batteries.

In essence, America paid the price for early action, and others reaped the rewards.A report by the Heritage Foundation bluntly noted that rejoining the Paris Agreement “saddles the U.S. with high financial costs, and [gives] China a free ride.”

Under the Paris framework, the U.S. committed real money and real emissions cuts, whereas China’s pledge allowed it to keep increasing emissions until 2030.The mismatch between U.S. enthusiasm and other countries’ hesitance meant that American industries sometimes faced stricter regulations (and higher costs) that foreign competitors did not.

The result: negligible impact on global CO₂ levels and a broken kneecap for U.S. manufacturing and energy sectors.

Secondly, America’s climate leadership was politically fragile, built on executive actions and goodwill that could (and did) vanish with a change in administration.The world saw the U.S. spearhead the 2015 Paris Agreement, only to withdraw from it in 2017, then rejoin in 2021, then effectively quit on it again in 2025.This on-again, off-again behavior undermined the very notion of consistent leadership. It also revealed a hard truth: a democracy with shifting political winds is ill-suited to lead a long-term global effort requiring multi-decade commitment.

Allies and adversaries alike learned not to count on Washington’s promises.

In the end, the ambitious U.S. targets and pronouncements were written in sand.One might even say the American climate leadership era became a “damning indictment of failed climate leadership”, to quote UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s harsh assessment of the world’s overall efforts.

The U.S. wasn’t solely to blame for that failure, of course, but it demonstrated how even a leading nation’s bold plans can evaporate overnight — casting doubt on the wisdom of relying on such leadership in the first place.

Thirdly, and most importantly, America’s emissions cuts did little to change the trajectory of climate change so long as others didn’t follow.While U.S. emissions did drop roughly 14% from 2005 to 2019, global emissions grew by over 50% in that time.

All the wind turbines in Texas and solar farms in California couldn’t offset the surge of coal-burning in Asia.By 2020, China alone was adding more emissions each year than the U.S. was cutting.

The sad reality is that climate change is the ultimate collective action problem — if major players refuse to play ball, one country’s noble efforts amount to a drop in the rising ocean.America’s climate leadership may have morally given the world a nudge, but geopolitically it played the sucker.

The nation strained to lead by example, only to watch others effectively say “thanks, but we’ll take the economic growth instead.”

In hindsight, expecting that example to compel cooperation from rivals (or even friends) was naïve.

None of this is to say U.S. climate policy was wrongheaded in its aims; avoiding catastrophic warming is clearly in everyone’s interest.However, going above and beyond — without assurance that others would also step up — appears to have been a strategic blunder.

It expended domestic political capital and generated backlash (contributing to Trump’s anti-climate platform finding a receptive audience), while yielding minimal environmental payoff.

Had a more hard-nosed stance been taken — one conditioning U.S. action on parallel moves by China et al., or focusing on technological breakthroughs rather than unilateral cuts — the outcome might have been different.Instead, America’s earnest leadership became easy to reverse and easy to flout.The Biden administration’s decision to eagerly re-enter global accords put America in an exposed position and handed strategic leverage to competitors like China.

This critique may sound cynical, but it reflects the disappointment of seeing the world’s biggest economy make sacrifices that barely moved the needle on global emissions.

Sometimes, leading by example just makes you lonely — and leaves you looking a bit foolish when the herd goes the other way.In the end, America’s prior climate leadership might be remembered as a noble miscalculation: a case of too much, too soon on the mitigation front without a realistic plan to bring the rest of the world along.

Trump’s second-term retreat, while damaging from a climate perspective, also lays bare an uncomfortable insight: perhaps the U.S. shouldn’t have charged so far ahead to begin with.In a world addicted to carbon, going cold turkey alone was never going to work.The failure was not just Trump’s doing; it was baked into a global approach that lacked enforcement and assumed rational cooperation that never fully materialized.

It’s a harsh lesson in realpolitik versus idealism in climate policy.

Fossil Fuels vs. Electric Vehicles: A Reality Check

One of the most contentious debates in climate policy is whether to rapidly phase out fossil fuels — for example, by mandating electric vehicles (EVs) — or to continue using oil, gas, and coal a while longer in a pragmatic transition.

The Trump administration unapologetically sided with fossil fuels, criticizing efforts to force an EV shift.Is there a rational case for this stance?Arguably, yes.Fossil fuels should continue to be used (for now) instead of rushed, mandated EV adoption, and here’s why:

Electricity Isn’t Clean (Yet)An electric car is only as green as the grid it plugs into.In the U.S. and many countries, a large share of electricity still comes from coal and natural gas. Research shows that the power charging today’s EVs largely comes from burning fossil fuels, not renewables . So pushing millions of new EVs onto a coal-heavy grid could increase overall emissions, effectively just moving the pollution from tailpipes to power plants.

Until we clean up power generation, mandating EVs everywhere might be putting the cart before the horse.In fact, under current grid conditions, battery EVs can produce more total carbon emissions than efficient gasoline cars when you include manufacturing and electricity use.

For now, widespread EV adoption is not an emissions silver bullet — it simply shifts the source of the emissions.

High Manufacturing FootprintBuilding EVs is an emissions-intensive process, especially the massive lithium-ion batteries.

Mining and processing the critical minerals (lithium, cobalt, nickel) require huge energy inputs, often from fossil fuels.

An MIT analysis noted that making a new EV can generate around 80% more CO₂ emissions than manufacturing a comparable gas-powered car due to the battery production . While EVs can pay back this “carbon debt” over time by avoiding gasoline, it takes years — and if the vehicle’s electricity is coal-powered, the breakeven takes even longer.

Forcing a rapid turnover of the vehicle fleet to EVs means a big upfront spike in emissions from all the battery factories, mining operations, and supply chains needed to build those cars. It’s like medicine that initially makes the fever worse.

Grid and Infrastructure ChallengesThe electrical grid and charging infrastructure need a dramatic upgrade to handle a fully electrified transport sector.

Recent events in California provided a cautionary tale. In late 2022, just one week after announcing a 2035 ban on new gas car sales,

California’s grid operators begged EV owners not to charge their cars during a heatwave (to avoid blackouts).The state’s grid, strained by air conditioning demand and reduced power supply, could barely support the existing number of EVs, let alone the millions more that policy would require. This incident — essentially telling drivers “please don’t charge your mandated electric cars!!” — was a poignant reminder that infrastructure can be a limiting factor.

Without massive investments in grid capacity, storage, and fast chargers, a forced EV rollout could lead to frustrated consumers and even power crises. Policymakers risk creating an EV dystopia where you have an electric car in the garage but can’t reliably charge it when needed.

Continued Improvements in Fossil TechMeanwhile, traditional internal combustion engines (ICE) have become much cleaner and more efficient than in decades past.

Modern gasoline cars emit a fraction of the pollutants (like NOx, SOx, particulates) that older models did, thanks to advanced filters and catalytic converters.

Hybrid technologies can further cut fuel use and emissions.

There’s an argument for leveraging cleaner ICE vehicles and hybrids as a bridge until truly clean electricity and next-gen batteries are ready.It might make more sense to encourage, say, hybrid pickups that get 40 mpg, rather than mandate EV pickups that require 100 kWh batteries charged from coal plants.Fossil fuels, used wisely (with efficiency and pollution controls), could continue to play a role in transport for a transitional period without derailing climate progress — especially if their use is paired with carbon capture innovations down the road.

Economic and Geopolitical RealitiesFinally, forcing an abrupt transition to EVs could have unintended economic consequences.

EVs are still generally more expensive upfront than ICE vehicles, and mandates or bans could hit lower-income consumers hardest (who might be unable to afford a new electric car). Additionally, the EV supply chain heavily depends on China (for battery materials and manufacturing).

Rapidly shifting to EVs essentially hands the keys of transport to Chinese battery makers.There’s a strategic case for not rushing into that dependency.If fossil fuels remain part of the mix a bit longer, the U.S. can take time to develop domestic battery supply chains and more secure resource access, rather than scrambling and ending up beholden to overseas suppliers.

In short, an orderly transition beats a hasty one.To be clear, electric vehicles are a promising technology and over their lifetime can be cleaner than gasoline cars under many conditions — especially as grids get greener.

The point, however, is that mandating a wholesale switch right now might be counterproductive.

It’s trying to sprint before we can jog.EV’s are not emission free when your power is coming from a coal plant.

Until energy generation is decarbonized, pushing 100% EVs is somewhat like switching all your home appliances to electric when your electricity comes from a diesel generator — it just doesn’t accomplish what you think it does.

A more nuanced approach: continue to use fossil fuels in the interim (preferably cleaner and more efficiently) while focusing policy on greening the grid and improving battery tech.Once renewable or nuclear electricity is abundant and truly clean, then EVs will deliver their full climate benefits.Until then, forcing everyone into a Tesla might feel like progress, but it could be a lot of churn for minimal gain — or even an increase in short-term emissions.Trump’s pro-fossil stance, ridiculed by environmentalists, rests on a certain practical logic:

Keep using what works and is available (oil/gas) until the alternatives genuinely outperform on cost, convenience, and carbon.The administration balked at top-down EV mandates and instead promoted fuel freedom — even floating the idea that fossil fuels are essential to reliability and prosperity.

Given the current state of technology and infrastructure, there’s a compelling argument that this slower transition — one that does not prematurely kill the internal combustion engine — could avoid economic disruption while still allowing incremental emissions improvements.

It’s not a fashionable viewpoint in climate circles, but it’s one grounded in the engineering and economics of the present.Sometimes, letting the perfect be the enemy of the good (by insisting on zero-emission vehicles now) can backfire.A bit more patience with fossil fuels, paired with smart investment in future tech, might serve us better than hurriedly mandating EVs and then realizing we’ve simply moved the pollution upstream.

Nuclear Energy: The Only Long-Term Solution

If there is one area where consensus might be found between pragmatic climate skeptics and hardcore climate activists, it’s the rising recognition that nuclear energy may be the only viable long-term solution for powering human civilization without frying the planet.Solar and wind, while wonderful, have inherent limitations (intermittency, land use, energy storage needs) that make it hard for them to carry 100% of the load.

Nuclear power, on the other hand, offers dense, reliable, round-the-clock energy with zero greenhouse emissions during operation.

Under Trump’s second term, nuclear received positive attention — a bridge between his fossil-first approach and the need to reduce emissions.

Rather than betting the farm on renewables and fantasy tech, invest heavily in nuclear innovation now, so that by the time fossil fuels finally bow out, we have a robust, proven energy source to take their place.Why nuclear?

Simply put, because it’s the only energy source with the scalability and consistency to replace fossil fuels entirely.As of 2023, fossil fuels still supplied about 80% of global primary energy , a mind-boggling share that hasn’t budged much in decades.

The world consumes energy on the order of hundreds of exajoules per year — an almost unfathomable amount — and doing that with just solar panels and wind turbines would require massive overbuilding and storage solutions that are not yet feasible.

Nuclear fission, however, can generate enormous power from a tiny footprint.

A single reactor plant can produce a gigawatt or more continuously, rain or shine, with fuel that is energy-dense (a pellet of uranium contains millions of times more energy than a lump of coal).It doesn’t care if the wind is blowing or if it’s night. In a decarbonizing world, nuclear is the one technology that can ensure baseload power supply while complementing renewables.

As one industry saying goes: wind and solar can help mitigate climate change, but nuclear can solve it.

The challenge, of course, is making nuclear safer, cheaper, and more politically palatable.That’s where heavy investment and innovation come in.

Tech visionary Bill Gates has been one of nuclear energy’s most prominent champions.

His company TerraPower is developing the Natrium reactor, a next-generation design that combines a sodium-cooled fast reactor with a molten salt energy storage system.

This advanced reactor aims to be safer and more flexible than old-school reactors.

The Natrium design can ramp power output up or down by storing excess heat in molten salt tanks, effectively working like a giant battery to balance the grid. It also uses sodium coolant, which operates at atmospheric pressure (reducing the risk of high-pressure accidents) and allows passive cooling in emergency scenarios.

In late 2024, Gates himself broke ground on a Natrium demonstration plant in Wyoming — on the site of a retiring coal plant, symbolically enough .

As Gates put it, this project is a “big step towards safe, abundant, zero-carbon energy”.

If successful, the Natrium reactor will deliver 345 MW of steady power (with the ability to boost to 500 MW during peak demand) and serve as a model for replacing coal plants around the country .

We need dozens more projects like this, supported by government and private sector alike, to jump-start a nuclear renaissance.Meanwhile, halfway around the world, China is racing ahead on nuclear innovation — including what one might dub a “sun in a box” reactor.

In 2021, Chinese researchers launched a 2 MW experimental thorium molten salt reactor, the first of its kind to operate since the 1960s.

Now they plan to build a larger 10 MW demonstration thorium reactor in the Gobi Desert by 2030.

Molten salt reactors (MSRs) are an advanced concept where the nuclear fuel is dissolved in a hot salt liquid that circulates as both fuel and coolant.They have inherent safety advantages (if the reactor overheats, the salt can drain into a passive storage tank and solidify, stopping the reaction).

Thorium, a widely-available element, is used in these reactors by breeding it into uranium-233, offering potentially inexhaustible fuel if the technology pans out.

The Chinese effort puts them at the forefront of MSR technology and thorium fuel cycle development.It’s been colloquially referred to as harnessing an “artificial sun” on earth, since like the sun it produces heat that can generate power (though to be clear, MSRs are fission, not fusion — but China is working on fusion “artificial sun” projects too!).

Investing heavily in nuclear energy isn’t just a pie-in-the-sky notion; it’s becoming a geopolitical competition.Russia and France have long histories in nuclear tech, China is pouring billions into every reactor design imaginable, and startups in North America are developing everything from small modular reactors to fusion prototypes.

The U.S. can ill afford to lag.

Under Trump’s second term, despite the climate skepticism, there is support for nuclear: efforts to revive the domestic uranium industry, streamline reactor licensing, and fund advanced reactor demos enjoybipartisan backing.

The reason is simple — if we want abundant energy and a stable climate, nuclear has to be part of the equation.Even many environmentalists have come around to this view, seeing that waiting for 100% renewables and storage to materialize fast enough is too risky a bet.

Nuclear power, especially next-gen designs, offers a dispatchable, zero-carbon source that can replace coal and gas plant-for-plant.

It’s not without challenges (waste and safety concerns linger in the public mind), but those are engineering problems that can be solved, not fundamental physics limits.In fact, the new designs aim to solve many of those old headaches.Some advanced reactors will “burn” existing nuclear waste or use spent fuel as input (closing the fuel cycle).

Others are walk-away safe, meaning even in total loss of power they won’t meltdown — a far cry from Chernobyl or Fukushima scenarios.

Gates’s Natrium, for instance, and other small modular reactors are engineered to eliminate the potential for the kinds of failures that have haunted nuclear’s reputation. And because they’re smaller and often factory-produced, they promise lower costs and faster deployment.

It’s no exaggeration to say that a nuclear resurgence is our best shot at a sustainable future: when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing, a fleet of advanced reactors could keep the lights on without a puff of CO₂.Imagine mid-century energy grids powered by a combination of renewables and a backbone of nuclear plants — fission providing the steady 24/7 supply and maybe fusion on the horizon as well (if our “artificial suns” in labs finally break through).

That vision achieves what neither fossil fuels nor renewables alone can: reliable, scalable, clean energy at all hours.It’s the only realistic way to square the demands of modern civilization with the limits of the atmosphere.

We need to go nuclear to go green.It’s telling that even a figure like Trump, who famously loved coal, recognized the value of nuclear. By the end of his first term, his administration was funding small reactor projects and extolling American nuclear technology exports.

In the second term, one could see a convergence: climate advocates, national security hawks, and industry all aligning on nukes as the path forward.Bill Gates’ reactor and China’s molten salt experiments are just the beginning. The case is strong that a Manhattan Project-scale investment in nuclear energy — from tried-and-true reactors to cutting-edge designs — is urgently warranted.

Everything else might buy us time or cut the edge off emissions;

Only nuclear can fundamentally solve for the base demand of 8 billion people aspiring to Western living standards without emitting carbon.It’s the closest thing we have to a silver bullet, and we’d be foolish not to fire it.Conclusion

Climate disaster, at this point, has an air of inevitability about it.

Perhaps the sharpest (and saddest) observation one can make is that we’ve treated the problem like a political football for so long that the clock simply ran out.The world’s great powers fiddled with pledges and finger-pointing while the planet warmed. America’s retreat under Trump was a severe blow, but even before that, the trajectory was ominous.

In the end, it seems we’ll get to test all the hypotheses the hard way — by living through the consequences. As we step off the cliff of tipping points with a shrug, one might wryly note: we didn’t solve climate change, but we sure negotiated a great deal with gravity. The band plays on, the emissions rise, and Mother Nature is about to show us that she always gets the last word.

About the Author

Lawton is an economist who writes about markets, policy, and the forces shaping American life. His essays blend historical insight with data-driven analysis, covering everything from trade wars and inflation to labor markets and financial bubbles.

When he isn’t writing essays, he’s making music, cooking food, and hanging out with his cat, Boudin.

Read more of his work on Medium: https://medium.com/@lawtonperret

Read More

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