President Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025 marked a decisive shift in energy policy for the US, with climate ambition deprioritised in favour of speed, reliability and national security. The administration's approach has revealed many contradictions: with record demand growth colliding with trade barriers, fossil fuel support rubbing up against entrenched clean energy economics, and rig count down but oil production up.

Join us as we unpack the impact of Trump 2.0 so far on US nuclear, renewables, battery storage and thermal power and provide a full progress report on the President’s “drill, baby, drill” campaign.

This episode features insights from the World Nuclear Association’s Henry Preston, Bloom Energy's policy head James Roth, Boston University professor of environmental science Robert Kaufmann, and GlobalData energy analysts Rehaan Shiledar and Paul Hasselbrink.

Jackie Park is the co-host of Energy Technology: Industry Insights and editor-in-chief of GlobalData's energy titles.

Eve Thomas is the co-host of this podcast and associate editor of GlobalData's oil and gas titles.

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(00:00) Intro

(01:10) Data centres

(01:53) Tariffs

(02:52) Renewables: solar and wind

(05:29) Energy storage

(06:53) Nuclear power

(09:02) Thermal power

(10:44) "Drill, baby, drill"

(11:53) Deregulation

(12:59) Rig count and drilling trends

(14:08) Oil production contradictions

(15:10) Tariff impact on oil and gas

(17:02) Summary of O&G under Trump

Links to resources from this episode:

• How Trump’s second term changed the US energy and power landscape
• Licence-heavy; tariff-light: Trump’s two-pronged approach so far
• A year on from ‘drill, baby, drill’, why are there fewer oil rigs in the US?
• GlobalData energy intelligence: datasets and analysis