Posted on April 20, 2026 by Jeremy Harrell
This op-ed was originally published by The Ripon Society on April 20, 2026. Click here to read the entire piece.
Energy security is no longer just about how much energy a nation produces at home. While America has rightly focused on deploying energy systems domestically, competitors like China and Russia are working to manipulate and corner global energy markets to their advantage. The world needs more energy to power the industries of the future, and the nation that builds the next generation of energy technologies, finances the infrastructure and secures the supply chains will win in those global markets and wield long-term strategic leverage.
The race for energy dominance has never been more vital than it is today, and America’s strategy to compete globally must meet this moment.
The scale of the opportunity is enormous. In 2025, worldwide energy investment reached roughly $3.3 trillion, including about $2.2 trillion for clean energy technologies and infrastructure. Over the rest of this decade, the world will need to add thousands of gigawatts of new power capacity driven by the expansion of AI, increasing electrification of economies and new industrial production at home and abroad. However, recent ClearPath analysis found that since 2015, China has outpaced the United States nearly ten-to-one in financing global energy projects, establishing itself as the primary partner to key nations.
Strategic clean energy systems will be among the world’s biggest growth markets. The question is whether the U.S. will be the leading solutions provider for that market or continue to watch China dominate.
China’s rise in this market is the result of a multi-decade strategy including massive state subsidies, unfair trading practices, intellectual property theft, poor environmental standards and a relentless focus on scale. China’s share of global manufacturing in six clean energy technologies – solar PV, wind, electric vehicles, batteries, electrolyzers and heat pumps – is around 70 percent. Additionally, China is the top producer of 20 critical minerals and commands a 70 percent market share of global refining capacity for strategic minerals that underpin modern energy technologies.
This competition is also expanding into technologies where the U.S. has an opportunity to seize the lead, if we move with urgency. Nuclear energy is a clear example. Today, China has 35 of the world’s 72 nuclear reactors under construction. Over the past decade, most new reactor construction starts globally have relied on Chinese or Russian designs. For its part, Russia has spent years building influence through reactor exports and long-term nuclear partnerships. That should be a wake-up call. Countries are not just choosing technologies. They are choosing suppliers, financing partners and strategic relationships that can last for generations.
The answer for the U.S. is not to copy or out-subsidize China and Russia. Instead, we should play to our uniquely American strengths and do it with much greater focus. The U.S. still has the best innovation ecosystem in the world. We have deep capital markets, world-class research institutions, top engineering talent and a private sector that can move faster and adapt better than any centrally planned economy. We also have something China does not: a network of allies and partners that want American energy.
That’s why the right strategy for American energy dominance is simple: innovate fast, build here and sell globally.
Click here to read the full article
