Insights from Rick Perry, Secretary of energy, United States at BNEF 2018
Rick Perry, Secretary of Energy in his brief talk and later in discussion with Ethan Zindler, Head of Americas, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) shares his thoughts about the current administration’s energy focus at the BNEF Conference 2018 on April 9, 2018. Interesting excerpts from this session:
About Industry Achievements This Year
This year I am proud to tell that we have an even better story to tell…..the US has continued the spectacular energy progress……This year, crude oil production hit the highest level in US history. We are producing more than 10 million barrels each day. From 2005 to 2017 while our economy grew we led the world in reducing carbon emissions by 14%. I think it is all because we chose Innovation over Regulation….Investments of upto 1.8 billiion dollars will empower our national labs to regain our leadership roles in high performance computing, driving scientific discovery, medical and industrial advances and national defense.
About Exporting Natural Gas
We are a net exporter of natural gas….The geopolitical impact of exporting American energy to our friends around the world is enormous. We are freeing our friends from dependence on unfriendly nations who for far too long have used energy as a weapon. We are giving them the choice to buy American.
On Energy Security
As we look to our energy future, we must remember one thing — Energy security involves not just producing energy but delivering it. And so we must tend to our own energy infrastructure in three ways
- We must protect it from threats by bad actors as well as nature. .. we are seeking to stand up a new office of cyber security.
- To ensure that our grid is not only reliable, but it is also resilient.
- We must maintain and expand that infrastructure including our pipelines to meet the energy demand.
On NAFTA:
We need to get a deal done… now, after 25 years, is it time to renegotiate a deal? Absolutely….. the world has changed.
On how to maintain a maintain Free Market in energy industry:
In the power generation business, it [free market] is nonsense. The reality is government affects it every day. We set regulations, we set rules. The fact is we do not have a free market in that industry and I am not sure you want one. You want our military run free market? No. Without power there is no national security.
