Energy Secretary Rick Perry is set to ramp up his shuttle diplomacy this summer, as he and his deputies fan out to advance U.S. interests from the heart of Europe to the shores of Japan.
Being busy is “a good thing,” Perry said in an interview with the Washington Examiner.
Perry, 69, has been in his job for just over two years, and in the past year it’s been harder to follow his whereabouts, as he is so often out of the country. Energy export promotion has become a major part of his role, as the U.S. has become the largest energy producer in the world.
The Trump administration’s all-of-the-above energy strategy is “the reason we stay on the road so much,” Perry said. James Schlesinger, the very first energy secretary under President Jimmy Carter, “probably didn’t have much to do,” Perry said. “There wasn’t a lot of U.S. [natural] gas to be sold. There wasn’t a lot of U.S. energy to be promoted.”
In the coming weeks, the secretary will promote U.S. energy abroad in a variety of places, advancing the president’s efforts to displace Russian natural gas in Europe, weaning Iraq off of Iranian natural gas imports amid sanctions, and launching a campaign to boost small nuclear reactors in countries such as Poland.
Perry says getting foreign countries interested in U.S.-made, small modular reactors will rise to the No. 2 priority, behind only the administration’s efforts to promote natural gas exports.
“The biggest area of opportunity, I think, notwithstanding what we’re seeing with our shale gas revolution and what that’s doing to the energy, environment, and the world in a positive way, is also small modular reactors,” Perry said.
Perry is hearing from utility CEOs who say the smaller reactors, if deployed in large numbers, would provide zero-emissions power and serve as a more resilient power source that is easier to connect to the grid. Smaller, distributed power plants don’t need as many transmission lines, which can be difficult to permit and vulnerable to both cyber and physical attacks. Perry plans to begin discussions this summer with Poland and with other European governments to cooperate on these reactor ventures.
Perry is back in the states after leading the U.S. delegation to the Three Seas Initiative summit in Slovenia last week. He will join the president of Poland in Houston, Texas, later this week at the Cheniere natural gas export terminal. Poland signed an agreement last year to begin importing natural gas from the facility.
Deputy Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette and Undersecretary of Energy Mark Menezes will also be stepping up promotion of U.S. energy on the global stage. Brouillette is jetting off to Japan to represent the U.S. at the G-20 energy ministerial in mid-June, ahead of the main G-20 summit taking place at the end of the month. The focus will be on exporting more natural gas to Asia. The Energy Department is working on a report that will address permitting hurdles for moving more natural gas exports through the West Coast. Perry said the report will be coming out sometime between July and August.
Later this week, Menezes will be in Africa to meet with International Energy Agency Director Fatih Birol at a conference on expanding energy cooperation with Africa. Energy cooperation between the U.S. and Africa is expected to increase following the restoration of a quorum at the U.S. Export-Import Bank a month ago.
Perry has been talking to Birol on new reporting coming out of the international agency on the natural gas potential in Texas’ Permian Basin shale region. Preliminary data suggests Texas alone could surpass all natural gas production in Russia. “I can’t overstate the importance of that from the geopolitics of the world,” Perry said.
Perry explained that the volume of natural gas being put into the global market is decreasing prices for a multitude of consumers, including those in the European Union. To ease Europe off of natural gas, Perry said, the administration plans to coordinate with Qatar, the largest natural gas exporter in the world.
Perry said he has no problem with working with Qatar, a competitor to the U.S. in energy markets, because the goal is to increase the diversity of supply in Europe.
“I hope no one ever says, ‘It’s American gas or nobody,’” Perry added. “I just think you need to have multiple routes, multiple suppliers, and frankly multiple types of fuels.”
Multiple fuels would also include using fossil fuels more cleanly by capturing the carbon dioxide emitted by burning them, he said. The administration also wants to do more on renewable energy. “The administration is doing some very worthy, progressive things dealing with renewables,” Perry said, noting a recent effort to support geothermal energy.
The U.S. will also be working with the Saudis and Qataris on weaning Iraq off of natural gas from Iran. Iraq is a key U.S. ally in the region, but, for a variety of reasons, it has become dependent on Iranian gas as the primary fuel for its electric grid.
Perry said the Saudis and others in the region are working on a way to switch supplies. Iraq has a waiver to continue importing gas from Iran despite U.S. sanctions against the country.
Critics say more of Perry’s time should be directed toward renewables and less to fossil fuels. Perry adamantly disagrees with environmentalists who say the best course of action is to keep the natural gas in the ground.
“I think we have a moral responsibility to people, for instance, in Africa, that have never had one electron of power come to their village, to get that electricity,” he said.
