Unleashing U.S. Energy: Lessons from Iceland

Energy security is a key factor in securing any nation’s economy, and countries like Iceland are taking it to the next level. In under a century, Iceland went from one of the European Union’s poorest economies to one of the wealthiest by utilizing what was already under its feet: an abundance of easily accessible energy, in the form of geothermal and hydropower resources.

L-R: ON Power Representative, Ólafur Elínarson, Luke Bolar, Amanda Sollazzo, Hillary O’Brien, Hali Gruber, Dillyn Carpenter, Andrew Kelley, Ryan Mowrey, Adam Stewart, Kári Valgeirsson, Lucy Sadler, Kiddi Haflidason, Ayla Neumeyer, Alexandra Slocum, Ken Klukowski, Jeremy Harrell, Sara Lind Guðbergsdóttir, Andy Zach, Matt Mailloux, Andrew Fishbein

Iceland has some of the shallowest geologic heat reservoirs in the world and a landmass that is more than 10 percent glaciers. ClearPath’s educational series, the Clean Energy Innovation Academy, explored Iceland’s unique clean energy infrastructure with Congressional staff, learning about real energy projects and cutting-edge innovations. We traveled with 10 U.S. Senate staff to study Iceland’s grid, powered  by 70% hydropower and 30% geothermal energy. Many of Iceland’s geothermal plants are co-located with industrial parks and facilities, a successful model many U.S. energy developers are interested in to power emerging manufacturing facilities or data centers. The educational visit included:

Climeworks’ Mammoth facility, the world’s largest Direct Air Capture (DAC) facility designed to capture up to 36,000 tons of CO₂ a year.

In the 1930s, Iceland made a change from importing oil and coal to meet its electricity and home-heating needs to embracing its own geologic resources by building out geothermal and hydropower capacity. This strategic shift delivered lower energy costs for consumers, highlighting the immense value of harnessing domestically abundant natural resources. They credit low-cost energy for their economic growth. In the same way,  the U.S. can continue to advance and achieve global energy leadership, by investing in drilling technology and next-generation power generation.

The U.S. energy landscape currently features a diverse mix, with significant contributions from natural gas and coal, alongside a growing share from geothermal. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), currently, the U.S. has 4 Gigawatts of geothermal electricity plants in operation, making it the world leader in installed geothermal power capacity. While this is roughly a quarter of the worldwide geothermal capacity, it’s less than 1 percent of our grid. As energy producers and customers look to grow capacity,  the geothermal industry is successfully adapting technologies pioneered by the oil & gas industry to unlock previously inaccessible geothermal power resources in the U.S. 

This existing capacity, combined with our vast untapped potential, provides opportunities for the U.S. to meet rising energy demand. With U.S. electricity demand projected to surge by 35-50% by 2040—the equivalent of adding three Texas-sized grids—the U.S. must pursue an energy strategy that leverages every reliable, baseload power source available. While Iceland operates a nearly 100% renewable grid, the success of that grid is due to the 100% baseload, 24/7 power characteristics of geothermal and hydropower sources. That works for a small nation of approximately 350 thousand citizens. The U.S. – with a population of 350 million – cannot replicate this formula exactly, but we can continue to learn how to utilize all natural resources, like geothermal and hydropower, but also fossil energy and critical mineral resources to meet our growing energy needs and secure America’s future.

The insights gained from Iceland’s proactive approach to harnessing its resources, streamlining processes, and fostering innovation are a look at what’s to come for the U.S. as we seek to meet surging energy demands, diversify our grid, and cement our leadership in critical technologies. 

Energy Incentives Will Unlock Energy Dominance (The Washington Times)

This op-ed was originally published by The Washington Times on April 28, 2025. Click here to read the entire piece.

The first 100 days of the new Trump administration have reshaped the energy landscape. Reliable, affordable energy is a top priority as the president seeks to unleash a new era of American energy dominance. Lower energy prices can usher in a true golden age for U.S. consumers. Done well, this agenda can also reduce global carbon dioxide emissions.

This dynamic is underscored by the president’s work to recruit new artificial intelligence and data center investments to the U.S. These investments can lead to economic development and will require rapid energy demand growth when paired with an American manufacturing resurgence, increasing U.S. energy demand by as much as 18% over the next decade, according to data from the North American Electric Reliability Council. Energy prices are one of the most important cost drivers in these energy-intensive industries.

A rapid increase in supply is required to maintain affordable costs for all American consumers. The U.S. must rapidly deploy all types of new American power. To effectively deploy these new technologies at speed, the administration will need to break down permitting barriers to accelerate the buildout of new energy infrastructure like pipelines, transmission, and other grid-enhancing technologies.

In addition to streamlining the permitting process to increase and maximize new investments, minimizing the tax burden on developers is another essential part of this equation. Maintaining low corporate rates is certainly going to help, but tax incentives also play an enormous role in minimizing investment risk and keeping prices low. Fortunately, some key incentives will not require drastic policy changes like the green new deal or a heavy-handed government regulation.

Existing incentives authored or supported by Republicans in Congress under current law are critical for American leadership in new, affordable, 24/7 American power. These forms of power include advanced nuclear, geothermal, hydropower, natural gas with carbon capture, and even new breakthroughs in fusion technology. Key incentives, like 48E/45Y technology-neutral electricity credit; the 45X advanced manufacturing credit; the 45Q carbon capture, utilization, and storage credit; and the 45V hydrogen credit, can reduce the costs for American producers and support the manufacturers and the mineral supply chain across the economy. Simply put, consumer prices go up if the U.S. doesn’t lower the tax and energy cost burden for American producers and manufacturers.

Click here to read the full article

Power Demand Explained: Watts, Gigawatts and the Future of Energy

These days, we hear a lot about the rapid increase in global energy demand due to various factors like growing economies, widespread electrification, and the rise of data centers as AI expands. And it’s true. Here in the United States, after 15 years of static growth, our electricity demand is rising at an accelerated rate. Researchers estimate that by 2030, we will need 20% more energy – a total of 5 million gigawatt-hours of electricity each year.

“5 million gigawatt-hours.” That sounds like a lot. But what does that really mean?

Let’s start with the basics. A watt is a measure of power in an instant. For example, the 60-watt light bulb in your lamp at home requires 60 watts of power to turn on. A Watt-hour is a measurement of that power usage over time.

So, let’s say you turn on your lamp to read a book for two hours, you use 120 watt-hours of electricity. Easy enough.

Now, let’s take a look at a few other examples, going in order from smallest to largest. But first a reminder about unit prefixes: there are one thousand watts in a kilowatt, one million in a megawatt, and one billion in a gigawatt. 

While you’re reading your book, your lamp might only use 120-watt hours of electricity, but the average American household will use 2.4 kilowatt-hours during that time. That’s your lamp, the AC, the TV playing, and so on. Scaling up – with 150 megawatt-hours – you could power 42,000 American households for three hours while they watch a Sunday afternoon football game… or you could use your 150 megawatt-hours to power the NFL stadium itself. In the same amount of time, a large city like Washington D.C. would consume 25 times that much electricity, almost 4 gigawatt hours.

Currently, the U.S. needs around 4 million of these gigawatt-hours a year – again that’s 4 million billion watt-hours – or 4 with 15 zeros after it – and those needs are met with a mixture of 60% fossil fuels, 30% renewables, and 10% nuclear energy. And to get us 20 percent more energy – up to 5 million gigawatt hours a year  – we would need the equivalent of 1,500 Hoover dams in additional generation. That means we are going to need a lot more of ALL of these energy sources to keep up with expected demand.

And, we don’t just need more energy, we need energy that is affordable, reliable and clean. In other words, we need to take a pragmatic, all of the above approach to U.S. energy development. To keep the lights on – at a price that consumers can afford, we need more baseload energy –  the 24/7/ 300 and 65 days a year electricity sources that provide clean power. That means things like advanced nuclear, geothermal, and natural gas with carbon capture.

Ultimately, in order to generate and move all this energy around, we are going to need more than 15,000 new energy projects in this decade alone, and every single one of those projects starts with a permit. Unfortunately today in the United States, you can get a college degree faster than you can get a permit to build a clean energy project. That is why we all must work together to streamline federal permitting processes and unleash American energy. 

ClearPath’s answer to the power demand challenge? It’s time to Let America Build.

Delivering America First Energy Policy — 5 Priorities for the 119th Congress

The 119th Congress and incoming Administration have a major opportunity: Make America the world innovation leader in clean energy and clean manufacturing. This opportunity builds on the foundation established under the first Trump Administration to unleash American energy projects and build a stronger America.

The incoming Trump administration has nominated leaders to key agencies who have the experience to deliver on these results – Lee Zeldin for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Chris Wright for the Department of Energy (DOE), and former Governor of North Dakota Doug Burgum for the Department of the Interior (DOI).

And Congress is poised to deliver on this too by focusing on innovation over regulation and markets over mandates to advance clean, reliable, and affordable American-made energy.

ClearPath has outlined five policy areas for the 119th Congress to unleash the power of American innovation:

ClearPath’s mission is to accelerate American innovation to reduce global energy emissions. ClearPath therefore supports all-of-the above energy and innovation policies that make America stronger and more secure. 

We look forward to advancing policies that will further strengthen America’s leadership role in clean energy and innovation.

Let’s get to work.

The Heat Beneath Our Feet: The U.S. Needs More Geothermal Energy

Hello I’m Matt Mailloux from ClearPath. 

What if I told you one of our best clean energy resources is right under our feet? We take for granted the heat buried in the Earth’s core. But have you ever thought about turning that heat into electricity — or harnessing it to power a heavy manufacturing site?

That’s ok if you haven’t, because at ClearPath, we think about this a lot!

Geothermal is one of the most reliable, zero-emissions energy sources. Even though it provides 24/7 clean reliable power, it is often the most overlooked. The good news is that private companies are now using geothermal to meet our energy needs – powering datacenters, U.S. manufacturing, and affordably keeping the lights on.

Enhanced geothermal projects are ready to go. Using technology from the oil and gas industry to unlock heat in a much wider set of geologic areas.

Some often think of geothermal as a technology prime for the Western U.S., but as these new innovations progress — we could see states all across the country deploying enhanced geothermal. Today geothermal is less than one percent of the U.S. electric grid. But, by 2050 the NREL predicts it could increase to provide up to 60 gigawatts of power added to the grid. That’s the type of energy supply we’ll need to meet ever-growing demand. 

First, let’s take a look at two exciting companies putting innovation into action… and then….we’ll look at the policy barriers standing in the way.

Fervo Energy is an enhanced geothermal company based in Houston, that leverages oil and gas technology to get heat. Fervo’s first projects rapidly reduced costs, reaching parity with drilling costs for oil & gas. 

Eavor [“Ever”] — Is another company pioneering the future of geothermal energy, using a series of closed loop wells that collect heat through conduction.

These two companies, paired with federal R&D support from the DOE FORGE site… have advanced drilling techniques to make drilling new geothermal wells more predictable, reduce upfront costs, and encourage more private sector investment.

With promising developments like these, let’s talk a little bit about the policy barriers that are holding them back. For starters, out of the $62 billion for demonstration projects at DOE from the IIJA, geothermal received a fraction of that amount. 

Think about it this way, Geothermal received just 10 percent of the funding allocated to technologies like energy storage or carbon management. We will need all of these resources to meet energy demand and provide clean, affordable, and reliable energy. 

But perhaps the biggest roadblock to geothermal is the permitting process. Geothermal projects can trigger environmental review up to 6 different times during development. Congress can expedite reviews for resource confirmation wells – like regulations for oil & gas development have allowed for two decades. Congress has been working to address these policy challenges in a bipartisan manner. 

Expediting environmental reviews and funding demonstration projects could lead to the huge increases in geothermal capacity like I mentioned before. It’s time for Congress to unlock the heat beneath our feet.

CO2 Pipelines Are Safe…and We Need a Lot More

You’ve probably heard about a clean energy technology called Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage – or “CCUS” for short.

This is a method of capturing carbon dioxide or “CO2” from emissions sources like power plants and industrial facilities. Another method for reducing emissions is called Direct Air Capture, which removes CO2 that is already in our atmosphere — think a giant vacuum. If we’re serious about global emissions reduction — we need both.

In addition to driving down emissions, captured CO2 is also a valuable commodity.  CO2 is not only used to make your beer fizz, carbon oxides can be used for everyday products like building materials, fertilizer, and fuels. CO2 that is not in use can be permanently and safely stored – usually underground – where it resides for thousands of years. 

Often, when CO2 is captured, it’s not located near an available storage or use site and has to be transported to another location. Today, the best and safest way to move CO2 is through pipelines. 

Pipelines are everywhere – often without us even realizing it. They are beneath our highways, run through our cities, and connect our homes. Other essential resources, like natural gas, water, and waste, are all moved by pipelines. That’s because pipelines are the most land-efficient way to transport materials while minimizing environmental impact.

The Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, also known as “PHMSA”, has long regulated the security of this infrastructure. PHMSA provides national standards for pipeline design, construction, maintenance and operation. These ensure that all necessary measures are taken to mitigate risks and safeguard the well-being of your family and the environment.

Now let’s talk about CO2 pipelines. The U.S. currently has more than 5,000 miles of these pipelines, which have been safely operating across our country for over 50 years. CO2 is a stable, non flammable gas – we know it’s safe. We breathe it in and out every day – it’s even used in fire extinguishers. Over the last twenty years, there have been zero recorded fatalities associated with the very few CO2 pipeline incidents that have occurred. A pipeline accident, like we saw in 2020 in Satartia, Mississippi, while concerning, is extremely uncommon and is not representative of the safety performance of this critical infrastructure over the last several decades.

As demand for clean, reliable, and affordable energy grows, so will the demand for effective carbon management technologies. That means, to meet our energy security and global emission reduction goals, the build-out of CO2 pipeline infrastructure is vital.  An estimated 30,000 – 96,000 miles of CO2 pipelines will be needed by 2050 – that’s roughly 5 to 18 times the length of our existing network. 

We get it, some people are uneasy about new infrastructure. But let’s face it, whether you care about climate change or U.S. competitiveness- we need these technologies. By building CO2 pipeline infrastructure, we are not only building our capacity to reduce emissions and protect our environment, we’re also creating jobs, bolstering local economies, and continuing to use the energy sources that make our country strong. In America, we’re not afraid to build — it’s what we do. 

And, through R&D and innovation, we’ll leverage the efficiency and maintain the strong safety record of this vital American infrastructure.

Let America build – A policy path to modernize energy permitting

Our team spends a lot of time on reliable, affordable, clean energy systems that run 24/7. These types of technologies are an integral part of our energy future, but with a growing economy and electricity demand doubling, we need MORE power.

This means building a lot of new nuclear, geothermal, and clean fossil power plants. We’ll also need immense new transmission and pipeline infrastructure to move energy around the country.

But we’ve got a ton of work to do in very little time. 

Whether you are motivated by deep emissions reductions, furthering our nation’s energy security, or enabling the next generation of American manufacturing, the coming decades are essential. By many estimates, that means at least 10,000 new clean energy projects this decade alone. And, every one of those projects will require new permits to build. 

Unfortunately, the U.S. has a world-class apparatus… for getting in the way.

Let me give you an example. The National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, calls for developers to measure the environmental impact of their projects. But NEPA was passed years before we had other laws with strict environmental standards like the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, or Endangered Species Act. 

Each of those are important — but all together … permit reviews can spiral into extremely long efforts, spanning thousands of pages with duplicative analyses and dozens of bureaucrats required to sign off on each individual project. And, this is not even taking into account the time it takes for any local permitting or state regulations. While this system may have made sense 50 years ago, the surge in new energy demand requires a new way.    

When we think about how to build tens of thousands of new clean energy projects, and how to balance speed and safety, it’s obvious the U.S. needs a more predictable process. 

At ClearPath, we always focus on solutions. Here are two that should be pretty simple: 

First, grant immediate approval to projects on a site that have already undergone an environmental review.

Second, we must expedite court challenges so a final decision on projects is made in a timely manner. 

Let me simplify both concepts.

Do you remember standing in line at the airport before TSA pre-check? That was brutal! Now, individuals who have proven they are not a risk can move through an expedited line.

Here’s another example.

There are mountains of evidence that some projects have little to no environmental impacts, such as an advanced manufacturing facility that produces parts for clean energy on a brownfield, or converting a retired coal plant to an advanced nuclear facility or siting a new geothermal plant at a depleted oil and gas well. These are the types of projects we should automatically permit to move forward.

Just like random screenings at TSA, we can audit the operators to ensure they’re complying with all environmental laws as we go. So new energy accelerates at no new environmental costs.

And for those projects that do need permits up front, we should ensure reviews are complete within 1 year and resolve any legal disputes within 6 months.

Under the current system, clean energy projects can suffer long delays, sometimes decades, largely because of obstructive litigation practices. We must strike the right balance while halting the never-ending cycle of frivolous lawsuits. 

At ClearPath, we believe all of this can be done without rolling back environmental protections or eliminating the public’s opportunity to be involved in the review process. Even with these necessary changes, a project would still be required to comply with environmental laws during its entire lifetime.*

It’s a win-win. Let’s get building.

A Decade of Dedication

The climate debate sure looked different 10 years ago. 

When I founded ClearPath in 2014, we looked at global temperatures, sea levels and the so-called “100-year weather events.” We studied the data AND watched the political discourse.

And we were concerned. 

At the time, many advocates said we could only solve the climate challenge with 100% renewable energy and by starving the fossil energy industry. They said the government needs to solve the challenge; free-market innovations would be too expensive, and consumers and industry wouldn’t adopt them.

Advocacy for small modular nuclear was limited, few embraced carbon capture as a solution, and other game-changing technologies like long-duration, grid-scale storage were barely a glimmer. 

Thankfully, conservatives knew there was a better way.

Over the past 10 years, the ClearPath family of entities has worked with private sector innovators and leaders in Congress to shape conceptual ideas into pragmatic policy, leading to the construction of real projects. These relationships have led to significant clean energy policy wins – from developing the moonshot Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program concept in 2016 to the inception of the 45Q tax incentive in 2018 and the Energy Act of 2020, which culminated with new legislation like the Better Energy Storage Technology (BEST) Act and the Advanced Geothermal Innovation Leadership (AGILE) Act.

Over the last decade, U.S. emissions have decreased by 15%, more than any other nation. 

That hasn’t happened by chance, conservative clean energy leaders have catalyzed innovation policies:

Did I mention that conservatives in Congress led and supported all these victories?

Where is ClearPath today?
The last decade has resulted in significant growth for the ClearPath family – both in size and impact. We’ve seen an 800% personnel increase and expanded our policy portfolio from primarily a nuclear and CCUS advocacy organization to 11 different policy areas. While we remain steadfast in our core technologies, we have added exciting new areas to our portfolio, such as tackling industrial emissions and agriculture and how we can deploy cleaner energy internationally.

In Washington, people and politics drive policy, and policy refines our heavily regulated energy system. 

Recent polling conducted by Engagious and Echelon Insights shows 88% of voters believe climate change is happening, 74% want their Member of Congress to focus on clean energy, and 60% of voters believe innovation rather than regulation is the best way to reduce emissions.The leadership driving this seachange is remarkable, and here are just some of the federal lawmakers who are meeting the demand of their constituents and have championed clean energy policy over the last decade.

What’s next?

10 years into this dream, we have covered a lot of ground, but we still have quite the journey ahead. Many of the right policies are in place, but we need to get America building again. We need to get advanced nuclear reactors built, we need to capture carbon directly from the air, and we need to decarbonize heavy industry. Energy demand will double over the next decade, and one of the most important efforts everyone needs to get behind is updating our outdated permitting processes. Because if we continue to invest in novel technologies, and ensure that the projects currently under development are successful, then the U.S. will continue to lead the world in adopting clean energy solutions.

I mentioned that in Washington, D.C., people are policy, so when discussing ClearPath’s future, I must recognize how the organization is searching for the next generation of clean energy champions. ClearPath’s Conservative Climate Leadership Program (CCLP) actively recruits individuals passionate about climate and clean energy policy who want to work on Capitol Hill and drive innovative technologies to reduce global energy emissions.

We all hear a lot of talk about a clean energy future, and we know that success means putting cleaner, more affordable, and more reliable energy on the grid. 

If there is one thing you can count on ClearPath doing for the next 10 years: supporting America’s free-market advantage. When American energy works, we all win…

Onward!

Geothermal Innovation Investments Could Help Meet Electricity Demand

Rapid electricity demand growth is no joke. It’s happening much faster than grid planners anticipated and some estimates show a need to double the U.S. grid by 2050. On top of that demand, most large utilities and producers have commitments to make it all clean. Wind developments are hitting headwinds, solar manufacturers have supply chain challenges, some environmental groups are pulling out all stops to make it harder for coal and gas, and there are still some who aren’t yet sold on clean, reliable nuclear energy.

Could geothermal be a big part of the solution that everyone can get behind? We think so. 

New firm, flexible clean energy generation is heating up. Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), cutting-edge new generation technologies, could play a major role in achieving the dual goals — increased demand, all clean. The Department of Energy has made its first three awards of $60 million, for the bipartisan geothermal demonstration program Congress has pushed for years to catalyze EGS:

The DOE is expected to also make at least one more initial award for a project east of the Mississippi River, per Congressional direction.

Why it matters: Geothermal is one of the few technologies, including nuclear and fossil generation + carbon capture, that can provide valuable firm, flexible clean power to the grid. Geothermal currently produces more than four gigawatts of power to the U.S. grid, and a recent DOE analysis shows it has the potential to provide upwards of 90 gigawatts by 2050 – enough to power the equivalent of more than 65 million U.S. homes.  

How did it happen? These announcements have been years in the making, originating in bipartisan legislation dating back to the 116th Congress. In late 2019, the top Republican and Democrat at the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, Frank Lucas (R-OK) and the late Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) teamed up on the Advanced Geothermal Research and Development Act to further geothermal innovation. 

At the same time, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and then-Ranking Member Joe Manchin (D-WV) navigated the Advanced Geothermal Innovation Leadership Act through the Senate, with language explicitly calling out a geothermal energy demonstration “earthshot.” Those bills were ultimately reconciled, and key policies, including greenlighting these demonstration programs, were signed into law as part of President Trump’s Energy Act of 2020 in the final days of his first term. 

Fast forward a year later, a bipartisan group of policymakers worked to include energy innovation funding in the bipartisan infrastructure bill (Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act – IIJA) and the DOE’s geothermal program received an injection of more than $84 million. Now in 2024, the DOE is moving forward on the innovation effort envisioned nearly five years ago.

What’s next: Permitting reform – Unlocking the commercial scale-up of new geothermal. It is not enough to just prove the technology. Policymakers should get the government out of the way of its takeoff.  
Research from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) estimates that each final geothermal well on public land invokes NEPA as much as six times, with each Environmental Assessment taking 10 months. This adds up to an average development timeline of eight years.

There has been an uptick of interest on Capitol Hill to pick up and keep pace. The House Natural Resources Committee recently approved bipartisan legislation from Rep. Michelle Steele (R-CA) and Suzie Lee (D-NV). Other legislation, like Rep. Young Kim (R-CA)’s HEATS Act, Rep. John Curtis (R-UT)’s GEO Act and Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-ID)’s CLEAN Act, all make similar reforms. There is also a cadre of Republican and Democratic Senators eyeing a new bill in the coming months. 

Permitting reform remains a hot topic on Capitol Hill – a bipartisan deal could leverage the work energy entrepreneurs like Fervo, Chevron and Mazama are doing, and accelerate geothermal’s contributions to a cleaner and more reliable electricity grid.

Growing The Domestic Energy Sector Supply Chain And Manufacturing Base

House Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations

Below is my testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations, entitled “Growing The Domestic Energy Sector Supply Chain And Manufacturing Base: Are Federal Efforts Working” on May 23, 2023.

Watch Jeremy’s Opening Remarks
Read Jeremy’s Full Testimony as Seen Below

Good morning Chairman Griffith, Ranking Member Castor, and members of the committee. My name is Jeremy Harrell, and I am the Chief Strategy Officer of ClearPath, a 501(c)(3) organization that develops and advances policies that accelerate innovations to reduce and remove global energy emissions.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today and for holding this important hearing. The United States faces intense global competition. Adversaries like China and Russia are deploying hundreds of billions of dollars around the world to advance their geostrategic interests in order to dominate the energy sector and connected supply chains.

China and Russia have spent decades investing in the dominant position they now hold in the mining – and perhaps more importantly – in the processing of critical materials. China is responsible for the processing of 90 percent of rare earth elements and 60 to 70 percent of lithium and cobalt, often with poor labor practices and disregard for the environmental impact.1 Similarly for uranium, some projections suggest that by 2030 China and Russia will control roughly 63 percent of global enrichment capacity. Meanwhile, in the U.S. it can take up to a decade just to permit a mine. America is on its heels. From project finance to government permitting, the project development cycle must move faster to have any chance of regaining the supply chains underpinning our energy industrial base and become resource independent.

Large-scale energy innovation often needs to bring together private and public investment in order to scale up deployment and bring down costs. This model worked for solar, wind, natural gas and other clean energy technologies. For example, Texas entrepreneur George Mitchell figured out how to break up shale rocks to release the natural gas stuck inside. This process, called hydraulic fracturing, initially got off the ground with support from the Department of Energy (DOE), which cost-shared R&D and demonstrations in the 1970s and 1990s, as well as tax credits from the 1980s to early 2000s.

Fortunately, the past few years has yielded targeted federal energy innovation policy that, if implemented right, could help bring resource production back to America and help build the next success story similar to American shale gas.

The Energy Act of 2020 (EACT), signed into law by President Trump at the end of the 116th Congress, modernized and refocused the DOE’s research and development programs on some of the most pressing technology challenges identified by the International Energy Agency (IEA) as essential to global energy and climate objectives — scaling up clean energy technologies like advanced nuclear, long-duration energy storage, carbon capture, and enhanced geothermal. Subsequently, the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) invested $62 billion into next-generation technologies, power grid improvement, energy efficiency, and more at the DOE. Importantly, nearly half of that total was slated for the very energy-related research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) programs authorized in the EACT and the relevant infrastructure needed for their broader adoption.

The bipartisan IIJA targeted federal energy research investment, focusing RD&D programs around some of the biggest opportunities to advance U.S. energy security, technological leadership, and global emissions reductions. The DOE is now launching the most aggressive commercial-scale technology demonstration programs in history, with clear permanence and cost goals, to scale up clean energy technologies like the Long-Duration Storage Shot, the Hydrogen Shot, and the Enhanced Geothermal Shot. For example, the storage initiative launched in July of 2021 is oriented around reducing the cost of grid-scale energy storage by 90 percent for systems that deliver 10+ hours of duration within the decade. That specific goal may sound familiar – it mimics the bipartisan authorization from the Better Energy Storage Technologies Act (BEST) enacted in the 116th Congress.

These initiatives present opportunities but also many significant challenges that this Committee is rightly using its oversight authority to explore.

The bipartisan Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act of 2022 was also constructed specifically to go on offense versus China on technological innovation. The package directed $280 billion in investment over the next 10 years, with the majority for scientific R&D and commercialization. Approximately $53 billion is for semiconductor manufacturing, R&D, and workforce development, with another $24 billion worth of tax credits for chip production. The law also added significant new DOE technology transfer authorities, comprehensively reauthorized the DOE Office of Science and established a first-of-a-kind, low-emissions steel manufacturing research program that aims to make American steel production the cleanest and cheapest in the world.

The U.S. has a national security imperative to take on China and Russia in technological innovation and energy exports. A cohesive strategy that syncs our country’s robust research, development and demonstration (RD&D), the American entrepreneurial spirit, targeted free market incentives, and proactive trade policies can leverage the United States’ advantage as one of the most carbon efficient economies in the world. Three examples where the U.S. is leading are natural gas, steel and minerals mining. A life cycle analysis conducted by the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory on U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports shows that American LNG can be up to 30 percent cleaner than Russian natural gas. While Chinese steel is the third most emitting in the world, American steel is among the cleanest in the world, with the second lowest CO2-intensity of any country. Emissions from mining support services in China, including many minerals required for deploying clean energy at scale, are over 5 times higher than if those activities were conducted in the United States.

Our nation should double down on the public and private sector momentum to produce more and innovate faster, securing a clean, affordable, resilient energy future reasserting global technology and resources leadership, and furthering global emission reductions.

But simply throwing federal taxpayer resources at the problem is not going to achieve that ambitious goal. For the United States to lead globally while creating jobs in new industries here at home, the United States must maximize public and private sector efforts by taking the following actions:

  1. Strengthen direct investment and foster private investment in U.S. supply chain: The bipartisan Energy Act of 2020, the IIJA, the CHIPS and Science Act, and federal tax incentives must more effectively bolster the U.S. clean energy supply chain and commercialize key technologies. The successful implementation of these programs is critical to ensuring that U.S. companies can demonstrate and deploy their technologies and be able to compete on the world stage. That difficult task means identifying projects that can be delivered on time and on budget, while ensuring the maximum benefit of investment goes to American companies and the industries where the U.S. has a leading edge. To assist with accountability and oversight, ClearPath has developed an interactive dashboard to follow progress across the major demonstration programs led by the DOE from the initial program development stages all the way through to final award selections.
  2. Modernize Permitting: The single largest impediment to private sector investment is regulatory unpredictability. Unnecessary regulatory hurdles that slow down the deployment of innovative technology and necessary infrastructure, including the critical mineral supply chain, threaten the United States’ ability to significantly reduce our emissions and provide low-cost options to the rest of the world on an ambitious timescale. Right now, developers can only build new energy infrastructure as fast as federal, state, and local governments can permit them – and it simply is not fast enough. Reform must flip the permitting paradigm from one that favors stopping a project to one that expedites the approval process for projects that bring net benefits and comply with the legal requirements meant to ensure clean water and clean air. U.S. leadership requires a system that promotes good outcomes – both economic and environmental – so that the country can build at the pace and scale required to meet America’s energy demand and compete with our adversaries.
  3. Foster Global Market Opportunities for American Technologies: The economic opportunity for the U.S. is remarkable. A recent report from Boston Consulting Group estimated the Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM) for six key clean energy technologies (clean steel, hydrogen, long-duration energy storage, geothermal, direct air capture, and new nuclear) to be roughly $16.5 trillion through 2050. Getting our domestic policies right, including in many cases getting the government out of the way, will allow us to scale up our clean technologies and drive down costs to meet the energy demands of the developing world with more price-competitive exports of American solutions. At the same time, the U.S. needs to create better trade and financing frameworks to support our exporters. Our country must prioritize market access abroad through removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers, and better leverage agencies like the U.S. Export-Import Bank and International Development Finance Corporation to compete more effectively against our non-market rivals (e.g. Chinese state-owned enterprises).

Further, the following three American industries serve as examples where U.S. government policies, investor interest, and the regulatory environment are incongruent with what is needed for the U.S. to lead globally.

Carbon Capture

China continues to dominate global coal power development, both at home and abroad. Chinese coal power plant construction and new project announcements accelerated dramatically in 2022, with new permits reaching the highest level since 2015. Many of those projects received expedited permitting and broke ground in a few months. This resulted in six times as many coal plants starting construction in China than the rest of the world combined for a total of 106 GW; the equivalent of two large coal power plants per week. While China recently committed to stop financing new overseas coal financing, over the last 10 years, its Belt and Road Initiative financed over 100 gigawatts of coal in at least 27 countries.

Policymakers have a choice – bet that the Chinese and their partners shut down their coal-fired power plants at the expense of economic growth; or develop, demonstrate, and deploy affordable U.S.-based emissions control technologies abroad as we have previously done for acid rain and aerosols. That’s where carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies come in.

CCUS is on the rise, with 35 projects in operation and over 250 million metric tons of CO2/yr of capture capacity currently in development worldwide by 2030. 40 percent of the capacity in development over that timeline is in the U.S., which is currently the global leader on CCUS technology. While the over 100 million metric tons of capacity announced in the U.S. is significant, it is only scratching the surface of this country’s potential. A recent report from the DOE estimates that getting CCUS technologies on track for climate targets in the U.S. would require capacity to capture 400 to 1,800 million tons of CO2 per year by 2050. This level of development would represent $100 billion of investment by 2030 and $600 billion by 2050. On a global level, reaching net-zero by 2050 likely requires at least 4-7 gigatons of CO2 captured per year, meaning that we currently only have one-half of one percent of the CCUS capacity needed today.

Current and Proposed U.S. Carbon Capture Infrastructure

Sources include ClearPath analysis, CATF US Carbon Capture Map, Rextag CO2 Pipelines, and EPA’s Class VI Well Tables as of March 2023

CCUS technologies allow us to mitigate emissions and also support American jobs. Right now, the U.S. truly has the lead on other countries through a combination of engineering expertise, technical leadership, and recently enacted public policy like the 45Q carbon capture utilization and storage tax credit and the Department of Energy’s Carbon Capture Demonstration Projects Program. Going forward, the U.S. needs to find ways to parlay this leadership edge into the potential to export our expertise to support the development of carbon capture technologies in other countries. The services associated with carbon capture can be significantly higher than the physical investment of the technology itself, meaning we will create jobs at home that lead to lower emissions abroad.

Despite our head start, a lot needs to be done to ensure that the massive CCUS scale up in the U.S. occurs. The U.S. is woefully behind on the carbon dioxide transportation and storage infrastructure necessary to give confidence to private sector investors that they will be able to receive a meaningful return on their investment within a reasonable time. A dramatic increase in the number of required Class VI carbon dioxide storage wells, as well as the ability to build out carbon dioxide transportation pipeline systems, is essential. The U.S. currently only has 3 permitted Class VI wells for carbon storage, when we likely need over 600 or more wells to meet long term climate targets.

Beyond that, the U.S. only has 5000 miles of carbon dioxide pipeline. While this is more than anywhere else in the world, it is concentrated in a few geographic regions and is insufficient to meet the needs of a larger scale carbon capture build out. The proposed Heartland Greenway pipeline and Midwest Carbon Express projects, centered around connecting Midwest producers to permitted CO2 storage sites in Illinois and western North Dakota respectively, are two prime examples.

Without addressing these infrastructure challenges, it’s not possible to see the level of buildout that is needed in the long run. To make this happen, the American supply chain needs significant permitting reform, as well as improvements in the ability of both the EPA and states to authorize pipelines and storage wells. Combining these types of reforms with targeted public-private investments like the DOE Carbon Capture Demonstration Program and the 45Q tax credit is the recipe to ensure U.S. competitiveness, not unrealistic mandates as proposed in new EPA regulations on May 11, 2023. Seizing the moment will deliver energy security, a resilient and reliable U.S. grid, and continue to position the U.S. as the leading supplier of technology for global emissions reductions.

Nuclear Energy

The demand for carbon-free technologies that further energy security has never been higher, and the effects of the war in Ukraine on international energy markets are lasting. This makes the expansion of reliable, secure and affordable nuclear power more important than ever.

The International Energy Agency said that the world needs to double the amount of today’s nuclear energy capacity in order to reach net-zero in 2050. That equates to roughly 25 new 1,000-megawatt reactors per year, every year from 2030 to 2050. While this seems daunting, at least eight U.S.-based companies have publicly announced international partnerships to explore deployment in more than 10 countries, and even more are in the works. In addition, more than 52 countries are projected to have markets for advanced nuclear power in the coming decades, representing a potential ~$380 billion per year market opportunity for the American supply chain.

This increase in global nuclear energy demand has coincided with unprecedented momentum in U.S. industry. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has publicly stated it anticipates at least 13 applications for advanced reactors by 2027. Additionally, American electrical utilities are projecting a need for nearly 90,000 MW of new nuclear power by 2050, essentially doubling the U.S. nuclear energy capacity in the next 30 years.

The nuclear provisions in the EACT and IIJA, as well as the other financial programs like the Loan Programs Office (LPO), can further attract private investment to the sector and accelerate technological innovation that position the American industry to capitalize on a competitive advantage: our abundance of innovative new technologies the global market demands. Today, almost 15 percent of active loan applications at LPO are for nuclear projects. All of these programs prepare the U.S. to be a competitive player in the international market. Concurrently, as we look to develop these new nuclear energy technologies, strong support for the existing fleet is important to energy security today and for the workforce and supply chain of the future.

A robust fuel supply chain and competitive financing will require coordination with our allies. Nevertheless, the market is not uncontested. In fact, over the past two decades, the U.S. and like-minded countries have lost market leadership in this space. Between 2017 and 2022, Russian and Chinese reactor designs captured 87 percent of all new reactor construction globally through their non-market, state-owned enterprises.

Reliance on the Russian nuclear fuel supply chain is particularly troubling. This year, Russia will supply almost 25 percent of our nation’s enriched uranium. While the U.S. and our allies have sanctioned and significantly reduced consumption of Russian oil and gas post-Ukraine evasion, the Russian nuclear industry has largely dodged sanctions due to the Russian bottleneck in the uranium supply chain. Uranium is a global commodity and when looking at the global uranium supply chain, 38 percent of conversion capacity and 46 percent of enrichment capacity are controlled by Russia. Securing the nuclear fuel supply chain will require domestic and allied capabilities to both source and process uranium.

With the growing global market for nuclear energy, the U.S. must seize this moment and prove itself as a competitive alternative to Russian and Chinese energy exports. Key strategic allies like Poland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom are hoping to partner with American vendors rather than those competitors. Romania is a great example. Against a backdrop of growing mistrust of Chinese investments in Europe in 2020, the Romanian government broke a financing agreement with the China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN). Since then, Romania has penned a roughly $9 billion deal to build two new reactors in Cernavoda with a $3 billion loan being provided by the U.S. Export Import Bank.

New and Forthcoming Nuclear Reactors Worldwide

The challenge ahead is project delivery. Recently enacted federal policies, like the clean electricity tax credit, NRC modernization legislation, and new public-private partnerships with the DOE, boost the confidence of investors and end-users needed to commercially scale up reactors domestically and internationally.

To go from building a handful of American reactors to building hundreds of reactors, a few critical barriers to lift off must be addressed.

First, the nuclear fuel supply chain must be secured for both the existing fleet and our next generation of reactors. Industry, the DOE, and Congress must work together to enable a private-industry-led, domestic High-Assay Low Enriched Uranium (HALEU) supply chain. HALEU is essential to the success of many advanced reactor projects, including the two recipients of the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP). Today, Russia is the only source of large volumes of HALEU. Concurrently, the U.S. and its allies must also ensure its demand for Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) for our current fleet and future light water reactors can be met without any reliance on Russia. Ensuring fuel security is paramount to American nuclear expansion.

Second, regulatory modernization is critically important as it is the necessary step between the development of these new designs and commercialization. If America is not proactive with licensing the next generation of designs, the U.S. could fail to meet its clean energy needs and continue to lose ground to China and Russia on innovation. While the NRC is working to modernize, attract new talent, and further its technical understanding of new technologies – efforts that I commend them for – the Commission admits it will still struggle to review these new applications in a timely manner. Understandably so – 13 new applications in the next five years is unprecedented. To lead, the NRC must be structured and incentivized to license the next generation of new reactors differently than they have licensed traditional reactors. The review process can be more efficient, effective and not unduly burdensome without any reduction in safety.

And lastly, the U.S. government and industry must work together to aggressively promote orders for our cutting-edge technologies abroad. Recent actions by countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia have shown that advanced nuclear deployment is highly desired. Nations want clean, reliable, and secure energy. The U.S. and its allies should be the ones to establish these new, 100-year international partnerships in place of our adversaries. The U.S. government must develop a robust and effective interagency strategy to proactively build and enhance relationships with partner nations, as well as create competitive financing and technology packages to offset the growing influence of Russia and China.

There are many new American nuclear projects in the pipeline today, and the robust U.S. supply chain that supports it and existing nuclear operations employs nearly half a million Americans. On average, a person working in the nuclear energy industry makes a higher median wage than any other energy industry and twice the national median wage. Concurrently, there is a 30 billion dollar crossover benefit to our national security between the civilian nuclear industry and the U.S. military, focused on shared research infrastructure, workforce, and supply chain diversity. Fostering the growth of the domestic supply chain and going on offense in the global marketplace could yield tens of thousands of more high-paying, stable jobs as the industry grows.

Critical Minerals

It is difficult to overstate China’s dominance and America’s dependence on foreign supply chains when it comes to critical minerals. According to the 2023 U.S. Geological Survey’s Mineral Commodities Summary, the United States was 100 percent net import reliant for 12 of the 50 individually listed critical minerals and more than 50 percent net import reliant for an additional 31 critical mineral commodities; meanwhile, China was the leading producer for 30 of the 50 critical minerals. Rising demand for minerals will place major stress on global supply chains and undermine the United States’ ability to deploy more clean energy.

In a recent report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that by 2040, demand for energy-related minerals like lithium, cobalt, graphite, and nickel could grow by 20-40 times.

Regardless of where the minerals are mined, China exerts dominant control over the refining process for each of these critical minerals. According to the IEA, the production of critical minerals used for clean energy technologies is highly concentrated geographically, raising concerns about security of supplies. The Democratic Republic of Congo supplies 70 percent of cobalt today; China supplies 60 percent of rare earth elements; and Indonesia supplies 40 percent of nickel.

Perhaps even more concerning is the fact that the processing of these minerals is even more concentrated. China is responsible for a large majority of the refining of rare earth elements and has demonstrated a willingness to leverage its influence to pursue political objectives. The concentration of mineral supply chains creates risks of disruption from political or environmental events, poor transparency and traceability, and sacrifices the expertise necessary for value-adding innovation and jobs.

While the current Administration has convened a Minerals Security Partnership, along with other regional and multilateral clean energy dialogues with friendly nations such as Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea and others to address these challenges, both the public and private sector need to do more, faster to ensure reliable and responsible clean technology supply chains.

Absent a clear, predictable, and streamlined process, the U.S. will continue to rely on critical minerals sourced from overseas. These include countries that pose national security risks or those that lack basic environmental and human rights protections. The choice should be clear: producing American resources here at home creates jobs, promotes innovation, increases energy security, and leads to better global environmental outcomes.

Yet, the U.S. struggles to permit projects to unlock these critical minerals. Recent data from Goldman Sachs shows that regulatory approvals for mines have fallen to the lowest level in a decade. This should be the exact opposite because of the substantial demand growth for electric vehicles and other renewable applications. While the Administration has announced awardee selections with a combined total of nearly $5 billion for critical minerals demonstration projects funded by the IIJA or through the Loan Programs Office, there remains one glaring omission in the critical minerals supply chain: only one of these selected projects address our inability to extract new materials domestically.

The House has rightly put permitting reform front and center this year, passing with bipartisan support its signature energy package, the Lower Energy Costs Act, as H.R.1. Provisions in the bill recognize the current system undercuts America’s ability to deploy domestically abundant resources and compete on the world stage. There is real opportunity for this Congress to work on a bipartisan basis to modernize the permitting process and solve this problem.

Conclusion

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today. ClearPath is eager to assist the Committee in developing innovative policy solutions to ensure a robust domestic energy supply chain in order to ensure a clean, reliable, and affordable domestic energy sector.

We applaud the Committee for taking on this important task to help ensure U.S. leadership of these efforts, including target investments and permit reform here at home that advance innovative technologies to provide clean, reliable, and necessary energy to our nation and the world.