Table of Contents
America's new Secretary of the Interior just laid out the most ambitious energy agenda in decades, and it's not what you might expect.
Key Takeaways
- America faces an existential threat not from climate change, but from losing the AI arms race to China due to electricity shortages
- The Department of Interior controls America's balance sheet—500 million surface acres and 700 million subsurface acres with terrible returns
- Technology has completely transformed traditional energy industries, with 50% productivity gains in recent shale developments
- China controls 85% of critical mineral refining while America imports 100% of some essential materials from adversaries
- The new administration operates at "Trump 47 speed"—everything treated like a Manhattan Project with extreme urgency
- Mining will be America's next big opportunity, combining technology with abundant federal lands for cleaner extraction
- AI could revolutionize government efficiency, potentially cutting permitting times from years to weeks
- Freedom cities on federal land could eliminate regulatory bottlenecks through rapid 30-day permitting processes
- Natural gas serves as the bridge to nuclear power while providing immediate solutions for AI data center needs
- Entrepreneurs working on energy, mining, or permitting solutions are being actively recruited by the administration
From Governor to Interior Secretary: America's Balance Sheet Problem
Doug Burgum's journey from North Dakota governor to Secretary of the Interior wasn't your typical political career move. After building and selling a company to Microsoft, running a venture firm, and investing in companies like Atlassian, he got into public service for one simple reason: impact.
"Having been an entrepreneur, built companies, had success, you were thinking, hey, how do I give back?" Burgum explains. But when he discovered North Dakota was spending a billion dollars annually on K-12 education, he realized giving time might have bigger leverage than giving money.
Now he's running what he calls "the largest balance sheet in the world" if it were a standalone company. The Department of Interior controls almost 500 million acres of surface land, 700 million acres of subsurface rights, and 2.5 billion acres offshore. "Saudi Aramco, no one would come close to it. But the returns are just horrible."
That's the challenge he's taking on—turning America's vast natural resources into actual economic returns while powering the next wave of technological innovation. And the urgency couldn't be higher.
The AI Electricity Crisis: An Existential Threat
Here's something that might surprise you: according to Burgum, the biggest existential threat America faces isn't climate change. It's losing the AI arms race to China because we don't have enough electricity.
"The existential threat was Iran getting a nuclear weapon and losing the AI arms race to China. Those are the two top order bits in terms of priorities. And on the AI arms race, it's a race for who can generate the most electricity."
President Trump declared a national energy emergency on day one, and it wasn't about gas prices. "We don't have enough electricity and we're going to lose the AI arms race with China."
The numbers are staggering. The top five tech companies alone are spending $300 billion in capital expenditure, much of it going toward AI infrastructure and power generation. "The tech industry will spend more on power generation than the power generation industry because the power generation industry in the US is largely regulated, slow-moving, crawling along."
What makes this particularly urgent is that AI data centers aren't just another type of computing load. As Burgum puts it: "In AI, we're manufacturing intelligence and whoever manufactures the most intelligence is going to win because it's a general tool that can change every job, every company, every industry."
The challenge gets more complex when you consider pricing dynamics. For AI companies, electricity might represent only 5% of costs because the margins are so high. "There might be a willingness to pay more for a kilowatt of electricity than ever before in history because it's worth more. A kilowatt is worth more today than it ever has been. And it's worth more than a family that wants to just cook dinner or heat their home."
That's why energy abundance isn't just an economic strategy—it's national security policy. We need enough electricity for both AI development and regular consumers without forcing impossible trade-offs.
The Technology Revolution in Traditional Energy
One of the most fascinating parts of Burgum's perspective is how dramatically technology has transformed what we think of as "traditional" energy industries. The shale revolution isn't just about finding more oil—it's about precision engineering that would make any tech company proud.
Take North Dakota's Bakken formation, which has produced 5 billion barrels of oil from what was previously an unknown energy region. "It's 30 feet thick, 10,000 feet underground. The Bakken, that's a 30-foot layer of shale. And everybody that works there, they go down two miles, they turn a corner, and then they stay in a 30-foot strip for two miles."
The precision is mind-blowing. Burgum describes watching a 25-year-old petroleum engineer in a drill shack—no oil in sight, wearing a white lab coat in one of the cleanest industrial environments you could imagine. "I said, 'How do you stay in a 30-foot strip for two miles?' And he said, 'Sir, if your house was 2 miles down underground and two miles over, I could drill the lock out on the front door.'"
The productivity gains are extraordinary. In Burgum's last year as governor, 75% of drilling permits were for three-mile-long horizontal wells, representing a 50% increase in productive shale area for the same drilling rig. "What industry do you folks know that just had a 50% increase in productivity?"
This isn't limited to oil and gas. Similar technological breakthroughs are happening across energy sectors. "Over $8 billion of venture capital has gone into the next-generation small modular nuclear." Technology is transforming geothermal, nuclear, and even traditional mining operations.
The key insight is that energy abundance depends as much on innovation as it does on natural resources. America's advantage isn't just what's underground—it's our ability to extract and use it more efficiently than anyone else.
Mining: America's Next Big Opportunity
While everyone focuses on oil and gas, Burgum sees mining as potentially America's biggest opportunity. Right now, we're dangerously dependent on adversaries for critical materials that power everything from smartphones to military equipment.
"China's controlling 85% of the refining of the rare earth minerals and the critical minerals. They're collecting those minerals from all over the world because they've invested in mines all over the world and they have a horrific track record."
China is the world's largest CO2 emitter, does mining without reclamation, and enables child labor abuses in Africa. Meanwhile, America imports 100% of some critical minerals from these same supply chains. "As this tension keeps developing right now, they're announcing that they're going to stop export controls on one thing after another. They're creating shortages."
The solution isn't just about finding new mines—it's about applying American technology and environmental standards to create a completely different kind of mining industry. "There's an opportunity for the application of technology to do it cleaner, smarter, safer, healthier here in the United States than any place else."
Burgum points to an interesting synergy opportunity. Many critical minerals exist in tiny concentrations within coal and other materials. "They call them rare earth because it's parts per million. You cannot afford to go after the gallium and the germanium in the wonderful, clean, beautiful lignite coal in a place like North Dakota or Wyoming. You can't go after it unless you're actually doing the thermal mining."
But if you're already extracting coal for thermal power generation, suddenly it becomes economical for entrepreneurs to extract the critical minerals as a secondary process. "Same with uranium. Even in that uranium slag, there's a bunch of critical minerals."
The land availability is massive. "80% of Nevada is federal land. 60% of Utah. We have Alaska, and then hey, toss in Greenland. There's critical minerals all over the place."
The first step is mapping. "The US Geologic Survey has been underfunded, understaffed, shifted in the wrong direction. We got to get back to mapping these hundreds of millions of acres we have." Burgum recommends reading "The Map That Changed the World" about how geological mapping led to Britain's century of dominance as a world power.
Government at the Speed of Business
Perhaps the most striking aspect of Burgum's approach is the urgency he brings to government operations. After decades of slow-moving bureaucracy, he's operating at what he calls "Trump 47 speed."
"There's the speed of government and then there's the speed of business and then there's the speed of the dynamic tech industry. Those are all faster. And then there's the speed of Trump 47. And that's faster than anybody else is moving right now."
When Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright say building an 800-mile pipeline will take 10 years, Trump asks "Why not two years?" And he's not joking. "Everything is for us right now is like a Manhattan project."
This isn't just about cutting red tape—it's about fundamentally rethinking how government operates. Burgum has personal experience with this from his time as governor. Two and a half years ago, right after the legislative session ended, he brought his cabinet together with AI experts and posed a question: Did everyone get the budgets and headcount they wanted? No.
"Well, hey, well, how about a free assistant for every one of your team members in your agency that speaks 27 languages, can do research reports, all that." That was two and a half years ago, when AI capabilities were far more limited than today.
The implications for permitting reform are enormous. "Part of the way we get the permitting process from years or decades in some cases in mining, how do we get that down to months or weeks? AI is going to be part of the solution."
For entrepreneurs building in this space, the message is clear: "If you have a project that's being held up because you don't have a permit at the state or federal level, call us. We're the SWAT team. The president of the United States expects us to fix your problem so that you can build what you need to build."
Freedom Cities and the Future of American Innovation
One of the most intriguing policy concepts Burgum discussed is the idea of "freedom cities" or "Trump freedom zones"—areas on federal land where regulatory bottlenecks get eliminated through rapid permitting.
The concept builds on opportunity zones but takes a fundamentally different approach. Instead of tax incentives, the primary benefit would be deregulation. "If you could come in and it's like you come here and you're going to get every permit you need to do something in the next 30 days."
Burgum believes this would create "a waterfall of capital flowing to those areas because the market signal around regulation is the highest cost that anybody that's trying to build something."
This connects to his broader philosophy about American dynamism. "We got to get back to build, baby, build in this country as opposed to bury you in red tape, which is the current situation."
The concept recognizes that America's competitive advantage isn't just natural resources or even technology—it's our ability to move fast and build things. When entrepreneurs can focus on solving problems instead of navigating bureaucracy, innovation accelerates dramatically.
The Entrepreneur's Moment
For founders and entrepreneurs, Burgum's message is unambiguous: this is your moment. "Right now again the opportunities across all forms of energy, the opportunities are amazing. Then you throw AI, you apply AI to the mapping issue, you apply AI to biotech, you apply AI to all this stuff."
He's particularly interested in entrepreneurs working on several key areas:
Energy and Power Generation: Especially solutions that can provide reliable baseload power for AI data centers. Natural gas will be the near-term bridge, but nuclear innovations and other reliable sources are desperately needed.
Mining and Critical Minerals: Technology that enables cleaner, more efficient extraction of materials America currently imports from adversaries. This includes everything from extraction techniques to processing and refining capabilities.
Permitting and Regulatory Technology: Solutions that can accelerate government processes from years to weeks. "If you're working on a startup that accelerates permitting reform, I'm interested in visiting with you."
Mapping and Geological Survey: Non-intrusive ground-penetrating radar and other technologies that can help map America's vast underground resources more effectively.
The administration isn't just talking about supporting these industries—they're actively working on specific projects. "We're not writing papers. We're building projects."
What's particularly compelling about this moment is the convergence of multiple trends. AI is creating unprecedented demand for electricity and computing infrastructure. Geopolitical tensions are forcing America to rebuild domestic supply chains for critical materials. And new technologies are making previously uneconomical extraction methods viable.
Burgum's background as both an entrepreneur and government leader gives him a unique perspective on what's possible when business principles meet government resources. "There's nothing more fun and nothing more rewarding than having an opportunity to solve a problem, create amazing jobs, give back to your communities."
The scale of the opportunity is matched by the urgency of the challenge. America's technological leadership depends on maintaining advantages in both digital and physical infrastructure. That means not just building better software, but ensuring we have the energy and materials to power the hardware that runs it.
For entrepreneurs willing to tackle these fundamental challenges, the support infrastructure is unprecedented. The administration is treating energy and mining development like a national emergency, cutting through regulatory barriers and providing direct access to decision-makers.
This isn't just about policy—it's about recognizing that America's next chapter of technological leadership will be built on a foundation of abundant, reliable energy and domestic control of critical materials. The entrepreneurs who help build that foundation will be powering America's next big things.
