Wyoming Baseload Energy is Trump’s Secret Weapon in AI War Against China
By U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis
President Donald Trump’s artificial intelligence (AI) initiative officially launched in July with a bold and declarative message – America will lead the AI revolution or we will cede our future to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Those in Washington, D.C. don’t understand the technological war won’t be won or lost in Silicon Valley boardrooms or Washington, D.C. conference rooms but in the coal mines and power generation sites of Wyoming.
Simply put, Wyoming energy is the key to winning this war.
The AI revolution is about raw computational power at an unprecedented scale.
Training a recent AI model consumed over 50 gigawatt-hours – enough electricity to power 5,000 homes for a year.
Today’s AI training clusters draw 100-plus megawatts continuously, running 24 hours, seven days a week, for months. This requires a lot of energy.
During my travels across Wyoming, countless folks have approached me about AI and data centers coming to our state. I tell them the truth – if we don’t power American AI with Wyoming energy, China will build their AI dominance on their coal instead.
We can either build out our energy to power America’s future and get paid for it or watch China use their energy to beat us.
While Democrats have spent decades forcing America to chase wind and solar fantasies, China has been building energy infrastructure using coal, natural gas and nuclear power – the exact same reliable baseload energy sources Wyoming has more of than anyone else.
The Chinese are not sabotaging their own technological capabilities with green energy nonsense. We shouldn’t either.
Thank God we have Trump back in the White House. His administration has spent months knocking down the regulatory roadblocks former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden used to strangle Wyoming’s coal, oil, natural gas and uranium industries.
Wyoming sits on top of the baseload energy arsenal Trump knows we need to crush China’s AI ambitions.
The numbers tell Wyoming’s story. We produce more coal than any other state. Our natural gas reserves could fuel America’s energy needs for decades. Our uranium deposits could power reliable nuclear plants around the clock. In fact, Wyoming produces 12 times more energy than we consume.
Just last month, I visited the Kemmerer coal mine and sat down with miners there.
These are hardworking Americans who’ve been told for years by Democrats their jobs don’t matter, they should “learn to code” or find work in the solar panel industry.
It was insulting then, and it’s insulting now.
But when I talked with those miners about Trump’s policies and the energy needed, their faces lit up. For the first time in years, they’re hearing from an administration who actually respects what they do.
The AI technological arms race isn’t coming. It’s here, and it’s moving fast. America’s victory depends entirely on the reliable, affordable and abundant power Wyoming can provide at the scale this challenge demands.
The CCP is betting everything on a simple wager – America’s environmental extremists will successfully cripple our energy sector, while China builds technological superiority on mountains of coal and rivers of oil.
They’re counting on us to choose left-wing climate ideology over national survival.
I refuse to let this happen.
It’s time to recognize Trump is absolutely right about energy dominance. We must unleash Wyoming energy to power America’s victory in the most important competition of our lifetime.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis is Wyoming’s junior U.S. senator, elected in 2020. This opinion column was originally published by Cowboy State Daily on Sept. 23.
