Frack, frack, frack, and drill. Baby

drill.

>> He's all in on bringing common sense

back to energy. More energy is better

than less energy.

>> The US oil industry has become more

productive than ever.

>> The long talked about nuclear

renaissance is finally going to happen.

Unleash American energy, American

entrepreneurship, American innovation.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the

United States Secretary of Energy, Chris

Wright.

>> There he is. Good to see you.

>> Round two.

>> Let's go.

>> Awesome. Good to see you.

>> Well, thanks for um putting up with us

again. I know that the last time was

such a joy for you.

>> That is a joy.

>> It was a joy. Uh for those of you who

missed it, uh Jay Cal decided to turn

our uh very short panel into a debate

about batteries. Uh and solar well the

solar he's like just throw some

batteries on the solar and then it works

great. What do you mean?

>> Like okay but thank you for being here.

>> Yesterday we were talking about the

panel and Chimov said, "Why are we

talking about nuclear? It's not even

real. We shouldn't be doing this." Which

I think

>> No, no, let me be clear. Nuclear is

small. It's interesting, but it's the

pimple on the dog's ass.

>> And so I just want to give you a

statistic and and get you to respond to

the future state of nuclear in this

country. It's I think about 4,000 bucks

a kilogram for enriched uranium to go

into a nuclear power plant. To have a

gigawatt nuclear power plant is only

burning 3 to 4 million bucks. Oh, sorry.

It's only burning about four uh yeah, 3

to 4 million of electricity per day for

12,000 bucks of fuel of uranium fuel. So

the the incredible production capacity

of of nuclear is like unmatched with any

other energy source. Why does it take so

long? And why does it then cost billions

of dollars? And you know for when when I

can turn 12,000 bucks of fuel into $4

million of electricity, what's going on

in the structural challenges with

scalability of nuclear, particularly in

the United States? And um why is it not

a real path to kind of scalable energy

production in this country for us right

now? I mean it would it will be in the

long run for the reason you just said

the greatest energy density. That's the

key thing. If you can get a lot out of a

little that's got that's got running

room. But nuclear involves something

people can't see and they can't

understand and therefore it's easy to

scare people about. So nuclear really

has been a victim of fear in our world.

It's the safest form of energy

production we've ever seen for amount of

energy it's produced and the amount of

negative impacts. But people think it's

the scariest and the most dangerous. So

if you make it very long, very

bureaucratic to permit things, if you

make it so that uh therefore you've got

to so overdesign and so overengineer

everything, it's so hard to permit

enrichment. So you make everything

expensive and you make everything move

slow and then you have other energy

sources that turn on and off and you pay

people a lot to build those things. That

also erodess the economics of nuclear of

something that's reliable. So we meaning

the government has killed nuclear over

the last four generations and the goal

of the Trump administration is to

reverse that strangulation of nuclear

and let it fly again but you're right

it'll take some time but sorry let me

just make one what is China doing

differently

there I hate to say it but just more

rational you know China is they're

worried about if nuclear accident

happens and it injures people makes them

sick then they're going to look bad

that's going to kill them, but their

their their design criterion are just

for human safety, not for getting the

environmental groups off them or or

doubling down cuz someone else will be

mad at them. So, they're just pragmatic.

They're building reactors faster and

therefore cheaper. And they got 20 plus

under construction right now.

>> Chris, let's break down the the

challenge as the world needs an infinite

amount of electrons and an infinite

amount of heat.

>> Fair.

>> Yes. uh why don't you just ground people

on where we get those things today and

you know like what percentage comes from

coal what percentage comes from that gas

what percentage comes from nuclear

globally just so that we can maybe

figure out where we need to go and how

do we get this more of this stuff now

>> yeah so so in 1973 and I use that year

because that's the yam kapour war that's

when oil prices tripled later in the

decade they doubled again in the Iranian

revolution so we said we got to get off

oil and gas. So in 1973, oil, gas, and

coal provided 85% of global energy. And

last year, 2024, 85% of global energy.

So they and they've continued to grow. O

over that uh 50 years, natural gas has

grown 3% compound annual growth rate.

Coal 2%, oil 1%. Oil is the most

expensive and most flexible. Coal is

cheapest if you don't have

infrastructure. Natural gas can be the

cheapest if you have infrastructure. So

it's growing the fastest. Natural gas is

the fastest growing energy source. So

that's 85% from hydrocarbons, 4% from

nuclear. Used to be six in the year 2000

and today 3% a little less than 3% of

total energy comes from uh wind, solar

and batteries. Hydro's in there,

geothermal in there. The the biggest

component I didn't mention is

traditional biomass burning wood. That

is twice the total global energy of

wind, solar, and batteries combined.

>> 2 billion people still cook their daily

meals and heat their homes burning wood

indoors. 2 to three million easily

preventable deaths a year to switch out

that wood burning and liberation of

women with just a simple propane stove.

There was a chart that um got a lot of

distribution

on X over the weekend which was just the

rise in electricity prices in the United

States and um can you sort of explain

you know why that's happening and how we

get around it so that it doesn't sort of

trigger inflation and other kind of like

pernicious things that we don't want to

see.

>> It is a huge challenge. It's a

meaningful part of the reason why

President Trump got elected. Energy is

just the it's the sector of the economy

that enables everything else. If you get

energy wrong, everything hurts. And

particularly for lowincome people. So

look, the backbone of our electricity

grid has been coal and hydro. Those are

the two electricity sources we started

with. Then oil got added. We used to get

a lot of electricity from oil. very

little today except in Puerto Rico or

Hawaii because oil's flexible and you

can transport it more easily. Uh today,

so today the back I mean the backbone of

our electricity grid has been coal,

hydro,

natural gas, um and nuclear. Today

natural gas is 43% of our electricity.

Nuclear is about 20%. Coal was over 50,

but now it's only about 15 or 16%.

Together they're 80% of US. Actually,

when you put in hydro, they're about 83%

of US electricity. And for a 100 years,

we had a declining inflationadjusted

price of electricity. It's just an

infrastructure for our country. It

boomed in this 60s and 70s as people got

air conditioning for the first time.

Drove up electricity demand a lot. Uh

then about Obama administration really

launched it. But this sort of

overroought and I think irrational

fear of climate change did it wasn't a a

rational let's look at the math on the

trade-offs. It was just sort of a a

reason politicians could do things. So

we started to spend a huge amount of

money to subsidize the building of what

are called zerocarbon. Of course they're

nothing of the sort, but they are lower

carbon electricity sources, wind and

solar. They're all made out of

hydrocarbons, made with hydrocarbons,

maintained and installed with

hydrocarbons, but that I call them

derivative energy production sources

that than them. But think about that. If

you add on to the electricity grid a

bunch of sources that sometimes provide

electricity and sometimes don't, what's

the value of that? Like, are there any

customers for electricity? You turn on

your light switch and it'll turn on when

the wind starts blowing or the sun comes

from out of the cloud and then and then

in the middle of the football game, you

know, the sun went behind a cloud and

the football game will turn off. You

know, you're in the middle of a surgery

and those things go off. So, of course,

there's no customers for that. But if

you put them on a grid that has these

sort of reliable dispatchable resources,

what do they have to do now? They have

to turn up and down as the wind uh blows

or the sun shines. So all you you peak

demand for electricity is what a grid is

designed for. Right? When it's really

cold in a winter evening when everyone

comes home to work, if electricity goes

out and stays out that night, thousands

of people will die. Texas had 200 plus

deaths just a few years ago with it with

with an electricity outage. So you have

to design the grid to heat at peak

demand. So at peak demand in the

wintertime is in the evening and it's

cold and it's cold because a high

pressure system an air mass has come

down from the north and sits there. So

there's no wind during a high pressure

system and it's it's in the evening so

there's no sun. So you're not getting

any electricity for wind or solar at

inauguration day back east at peak

demand. We get 2 to 3% from wind, solar

and batteries. The traditional grid has

to supply everything and that's at peak

demand. So if you have traditional

sources that can supply at peak demand,

of course they can supply at every other

time as well.

>> Is that is that why the utilities keep

raising the prices? It's just the

complexity of servicing all of this and

building all of this

>> because you you're adding new sources on

and you have to build new transmission

lines and you've got to operate the

traditional sources in a more

complicated fashion. And when the wind

blows, what happens when the wind blows?

Nuclear power plants operate relatively

steady. Coal plants you can turn up and

down but slowly. So when the wind starts

to blow, natural gas turns down a little

bit. You generate a little less

electricity to balance out the increased

wind power. The government pays that

wind power producer 4 cents a kilowatt

hour in a subsidy to pay it. That's

straight from the federal government to

the provider of that wind power. the

utility pays something for that wind

power. The the avoided cost is when you

burn a little bit less natural gas. If

you're in Texas, that's 2 cents for 1

kilowatt hours worth of gas. If you're

in New England, that could be 3 or 4

cents of avoided cost. That's less than

the government subsidy to produce that,

let alone the utility or in my former

home state of Colorado where they they

they have additional subsidies and

mandates that we must get our

electricity or some percent of our

electricity from these other sources.

But if you're not dispatchable, you're

not adding to the peak capacity of a

grid, you're just a parasite. Parasites

are expensive.

>> Let me um ask you a little bit about

China. 2024 they've installed two to

three times the amount of solar than

America did per capita. They also have

33 nuclear power plants under

construction, 200 planned. Your

administration, David included, you keep

talking about clean, beautiful coal. You

keep dissing solar and batteries and

wind and deriding it like you just did.

What does chi and you keep talking about

nack gas and clean beautiful coal. What

does China understand that you don't?

Okay, that

so great. And tell me how beautiful and

clean the coal is and how terrible and

ugly these windmills are. Please explain

to us what we're missing. Well, of

course, coal has been the biggest source

of global electricity for 125 years.

That's as long as we have good data. And

it will be for decades more. So, I know

you don't like it, but it's not going

away. It's by far and away the biggest

source of electricity in China. And they

built a hundred coal plants last year.

They built capacity more than almost

every country in the world has new

capacity. So they do build a lot of wind

and solar. It's still a very small

percent of their energy just like it is

here. But they have an awesome industry

of exporting those products around the

world. They're over they're over 80% of

the solar. No, they don't export much

coal at all. Actually, they export

solar. All of they're 80% of the solar

supply chain. And think about this. Is

that why you guys are down on it? That

we would have to buy the solar panels

from them because it seems like you're

looking backwards and China's looking

forward. That's where the disconnect is

coming for me.

>> But but there's no there there's no

there solar and batteries. So Elon Musk

has it completely wrong.

>> He he has a wildly exaggerated view of

where solar and batteries will go. Um

and I'd if we could make a bet 50 years

out, I'll I'll make a bet solar never

gets to 10% of global energy. Solar has

a future and and so after 30 years of

subsidies, maybe it should fly on its

own as a as an energy source. It has

roles. There's remote power that in in

the United Arab Emirates, they're

building a firmed 1 gawatt solar, 8

gawatts of panels and a ton of

batteries. They've got great sun

resources. They have lowcost labor. They

can build things there. Solar has a

role, but we've had this inflated role

that somehow the world is going to run

on solar panels. There's no math that

shows that'll ever happen. And China

doesn't believe it for a moment. But

think of

>> why are they installing three times as

many as us per capita then? And why do

they why are they so effective at

installing nuclear power plants? Like

this is what I I don't know if you're

gaslighting us, no pun intended. Like

and this is just like a Trump magazine

where we have to diss natural sources,

but do you really want to dig coal out

and burn it and pollute the the

environment that we're giving to our

kids? I want energy to better human

lives. Um, and the cost and reliability

of electricity and energy sources. The

the other thing we should say,

electricity delivers 20% of global

energy. Wrap the panel in a wrap the

whole planet in a solar panel. You got

20% of energy delivered. Where's the

other 80% going to come from? It's

processed heat. It's transportation

fuels to run jets, to run ships. That's

not going to come from solar ever.

>> Let me ask like the maybe we can just

get and and I'll I'll follow up on

Jason's question. One of the challenges

with natural gas which is actually

methane is that as a greenhouse gas

methane is roughly call it 80 times more

heat capacitive than CO2. So one of the

push backs on that gas historically has

been if there's even 1% leakage in the

supply lines. It's worse than coal or

oil or some other sort of hydrocarbon

based fuel source. Even though if you

have no leakage it's better. It has

probably what half or something of the

footprint. But but importantly, what's

the administration's view on putting

carbon into the atmosphere as a cost to

society? And I and I I don't ask that in

an antagonistic way. just just like cuz

I met with a foreign minister from a

European nation the other day a couple

weeks ago and the whole delegation this

was a big topic like what is the

difference between our point of view

which they have no carbon in the

atmosphere spend all the money to keep

that from happening and our point of

view and I just asked for like a like

help level set a little bit on what's

the point of view on where carbon goes

in the atmosphere over time and how

important it is to to mitigate that. So,

like everything else, it's about looking

at the facts and the numbers and the

data. It's we don't want to be cute like

China. We And of course, I I think you

misunderstand China's plan for wind and

solar, but we want to look at the facts.

How big of a deal is climate change

today? It is a real physical phenomenon.

We've raised atmospheric CO2

concentration by 50%. Um, from it from

burning hydrocarbons, from developing a

modern world. It's a real thing. It

absorbs infrared radiation. It's

contributed to some warming. But if you

look at the math and the economics of

it, it's just not even close to top 10

problem in the world today. If you look

at the Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change economics projections to

the end of this century, they nobody

knows what the world's going to look

like in the end of the century. But

think of the Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change. These are the people

that are dedicating their lives to work

on climate change. Their estimates range

from 0.2 2 to maybe 34%

reduction in per capita income at the

end of this century. So that's in 75

years we might lose a couple months, we

might lose a year of economic growth in

75 years. That's a bummer. It's not

nothing. But compared to 2 to 3 million

people dying simply because they don't

have a clean cooking stove and and of

course the the the political movement

that's too focused on climate change has

been against lending or bringing any

capital to the developing world so that

they can live longer healthier lives.

They can get clean cooking stoves. They

can get industry. So the administration

is humans first. The the previous

administration climate change was first.

Energy was a subset of climate change.

Human lives were a subset of energy. For

for this administration, it's the

opposite. Humans first. Energy is the

great enabler of human quality of life.

And climate change should play the

appropriate role if it does.

>> Hold on. Let me just bring in for a

second here because I I think maybe to

level set this. It felt like

obviously, you know, Al Gore and the

climate change movement were completely

wrong. We're not sitting in 3 ft of

water right now. It It was overblown.

But you agree that it exists. I've never

heard we should be concerned about,

>> but I just call Boston strikes. Chimoth,

you

>> you are invested heavily in solar. You

were just talking this weekend about

your

>> batteries

>> and batteries and solar. So when is what

we're hearing here just politics and

like one group went too far left, this

group is going too far and then you

actually believe

>> I believe I I agree with Chris. Let me

let me give you my framework. First of

all,

>> energy in my opinion is not a climate

change issue. No,

>> energy is a national security issue. So

the reason why and everybody cherry

picks a chart. Let me show this little

nuclear chart going up and to the right

for China. Wake up people. China has no

access to natural resources. The reason

they do everything, the real accurate

chart, if you want to be on top of this

issue, is what are they investing in?

They're investing in every form of

energy production. Why? Because if push

comes to shove in the future, China

cannot be reliant on anybody for energy.

It is the same in the United States.

Okay? So, that's number one. That's why

they're investing in everything. So,

it's it's inaccurate to cherrypick the

thing that helps you reinforce your

bias. This is why I find nuclear such a

kind of a dead-end conversation boring.

The real conversation is the strategic

gameplay of what's happening on the

field. That's number one. Number two, in

the United States, my fundamental belief

is that the utilities are broken because

no matter how cheap you make the making

of the energy, and I really don't care

how you make it, you have to spend an

inordinate amount of money transmitting

it and distributing it. And all of that

indirection is what the average consumer

pays. So if you are smart, eventually

you will say to yourself, I'll just make

it myself.

>> Yes. And that doesn't have to compete

with Chris's vision because what Chris

has to do is enable the broader

framework for industry, for

manufacturing, for transportation.

We can't do that. My belief is that the

largest utility in the United States

will be a distributed utility of

homeowners

>> having solar compliment with Chris

>> and that means solar and batteries at

home because you're obviously not

putting

>> Yes, because you're not going to put a

nuclear reactor in your daughter's bed.

Who's going to do that? So, let's stop

having this.

>> Nobody's going to do that.

>> Greenberg is an investment in a small

modular nuclear gen 4 and it's going to

go in my daughter's

>> When you put it under your daughter's

bed, call me.

>> Okay. And and JK, let let me let me come

back on that. I'm not anti- solar. I

worked

>> You sound that way constantly.

>> I just talked the numbers of it. I

worked in solar energy. I bought

thousands of solar energy panels to

power instruments remotely. I've

supported money to bring them to Africa

to charge cell phones and bring lights.

I'm for all energy sources that better

human lives. But I'm for I'm for math.

I'm for looking at numbers.

>> And by the way, as a person that's

that's in the solar and storage

business, I also like the math. The math

before was perturbed. It was uneconomic.

You have a lot of people, homeowners,

that are going to suffer because they

have all of these solar projects that

they put on their homes by the shadiest

of companies that were subsidized by

these things. So, as a competitor in the

market, the first thing I applauded was,

get these stupid subsidies away. Let the

best companies compete. Yes.

>> Let us win.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh, Secretary, let me

>> Exactly.

>> Uh, let me just change the topic for a

minute. The Department of Energy, in

addition to being responsible for

progressing energy production in the

United States and our infrastructure, is

also the facilitator, the administrator

of all of our national labs. And these

labs do some of the most important pure

research in the world. We have the

world's first cyclron up at Lawrence

Berkeley Lab where I used to work for a

few years. I've worked at a DOE lab. Um,

we have obviously at Al Lawrence

Liverour, Los Alamos. I mean there

there's there's labs all over the

country that are doing pure research

that create fundamental breakthroughs

that ultimately lead to industrial

success for America.

This administration's published out of

the OM massive budget cuts to some of

this research. How do you address that

topic as the uh secretary of energy? How

do you facilitate conversation with the

White House and how do you view the

importance of this research in the

United States?

>> Yeah. So the 17 national labs we have

across the country, most of them created

soon after World War II. Their original

use was the Manhattan Project. Win World

War II and develop an atomic bomb before

Nazi Germany. The greatest group science

ever done. Simply phenomenal. I love the

17 national labs around our country. I

am passionate about their value for our

country, for their value for the human

spirit. what it means to try to probe to

understand what's fundamental about

nature. What is dark matter? How do

nutrinos really behave? We don't have

commercial applications for those in the

next 5 or 10 years. I I take that back.

We do have a nutrino application, but I

don't believe you have to have immediate

commercial applications for the science

to be worth doing at our labs. They are

gems. They are places of scientific

discovery. Tons of innovations we use

today. MRI machines. Those came out of

work done at our national labs. So yes,

I came to Washington what we were

collecting a dollar in taxes and

spending a $140 for every dollar in

taxes. That is a train wreck. I am

passionate about shrinking government

expenditures in the in the one big

beautiful bill. We cut over $500 billion

of subsidies for energy technologies. I

wanted to cut the full 1 trillion. all

of them. Um, not successful in that, but

but the much smaller amount of money

around $10 billion we spend every year

for these 17 national labs, I've been a

passionate defender to to to stop cuts

to that and I think I will succeed at

that. I will succeed at that. These are

critically important.

>> Chris, and you have members in Congress

that support you and in in that

representation. AB:

>> Absolutely. And and of course across the

administration, you come in, you want to

cut everything. I get it. All I'm doing

is in my little narrow area of science,

technology, and nuclear weapons is

saying, "Let's be smart and thoughtful

about what we should cut and what we

should grow."

>> Chris, very narrow question.

>> Sax,

>> sorry, Sax, go ahead.

>> So, let's talk about AI data centers for

a second. So, we know that there's this

huge infrastructure investment

happening. I think it's been estimated

that we're going to need, I don't know,

at least dozens of of gigawatts of new

energy to power these data centers just

over the next several years. How are we

going to do that? Where is that going to

come from? How do you avoid the increase

in residential rates because of that?

>> A huge challenge. And and David, this

problem is going to keep getting worse.

We we saw retail electricity rises

prices prices rose 25% during the Biden

administration. Wholesale electricity

prices rose far more than that, over

50%. So we we we have done great damage

to our electricity grid. In the dialogue

we we were just having, not that I don't

like those technologies, I don't like

expensive electricity. Um it's a

challenge in the the fastest growing

energy source in the world and the

fastest solution we have to power data

centers is natural gas. Just by far the

cheapest uh fastest of course we have

supply chain issues with turbines there

but people are ramping up capacity to

build those. There's simpler things we

can do. There's environmental

regulations that peaker gas turbines.

They're only allowed to run a certain

number of hour I mean hours in a year.

Oh that's what they're permitted for. We

can get we have a natural gas generator.

We can burn more gas and generate more

electricity cheaply and we're not going

to do it because because we had some

climate rags that limited that. We can

fix problems like that. We There's also

a bunch of backup generators not just at

data centers but elsewhere around the

world that can't sell electricity into

the grid. They don't have air permits to

be regular providers. When we don't need

more electrons, that's we need more

electrons. We only need more electrons a

few hours a year at peak demand. We have

slack capacity 98% of the time. Huge

amount in our grid. So what we need is

how from existing assets can you hit

that peak capacity. We're going to

change some regulations. So all those

backup generators when we hit those peak

hours, we're going to turn on those

diesel generators and those natural gas

generators. No, the climate isn't going

to collapse because we ran diesel

generators for a few hours, but it's

going to allow us to have gigawatts more

of firm electric generating capacity on

the grid we have today. Chris, can you

explain to us how much flexibility can

you have on federal lands for just you

and the Trump administration and maybe

subsequent administrations who are in

charge to control this without the

involvement of state and local actors

and all of these other third party

organizations to slow these things down?

So, if it is the case that you want to

build a nuclear reactor, is it possible

to just do it with federal approval? Is

there any way on federal land or some

other way where you can find an avenue

to do this without all these other folks

gumming up the system and slowing things

down?

>> We will have new next generation small

modular reactors critical next year. Our

goal is by July 4th and I think we will

beat that. But

>> you'll have an operational

uh small modular by July next year.

>> By July of next year, it will not be

selling electricity into the grid. It

will be running on federal land other at

the Idaho National Laboratory. It'll be

demonstrating it can sell electricity.

It will be permitted by DOE, but we're

working handinhand hand with NRC as

well. So, we will see commercial

reactors break ground uh actually many

before then. But nuclear is going to

move at a faster pace than it has

before. But back to David's question, 17

national labs have a ton of land on

them. We sent out an RFP. Who wants to

build data centers on our lab on our lab

land? We'll permit them quickly. We'll

help you get energy. 300 responses to

that. Every large data center developer,

everyone will partner with us to build

data centers quickly on land. We have

infrastructure. We have because we must

win the AI race. We have the capital. We

have the people. And that means it will

not impact consumers electrical costs.

That's the key piece.

>> What an amazing transition from the

Manhattan project to operating data

centers on the Department of Energy

Labs. examples. But let me let me let me

ask one more question cuz this has come

up. Every time we go to DC, we hear

Doge. Is Doge dead? There's a

conversation that happens. Can you tell

us a little bit about Doge and the

Department of Energy? Is it still

around? And if so, what are the team

members working on and and what are the

what's the impact you're seeing? Oh,

>> we have a fantastic crew of teammates.

Some of them came as part of the

original Doge program. So, it's just

been rebranded. But this idea of getting

smart technical and financial patriots

who are leaving their jobs and leaving

their careers to come work with us, that

is as strong and thriving as ever. I I

and the country have benefited

enormously from the you could call them

Doge alum that are at the DOE today that

are that are looking through our labs

that are working with us in every

process, everything we're doing. How

could it be better? I am I am I'm

touched by the patriotism of people that

are walking away mid-career or taking a

a a hiatus mid-career like David Sachs.

But David's a perfect example of that.

So many people are doing that because

they believe in this country. They

believe about bringing common sense

back. And again, people think I'm this

crazy guy who denies climate change. Of

course, nothing of the sort. I've been

I've been writing and talking about

climate change for 20 years. I just want

it treated rationally as a trade-off.

Everything in life as a trade-off. That

is the attitude that pervades doze, that

pervades all these people coming to

Washington who had never been in

Washington before. I'm an entrepreneur

my whole life. I I never politics.

>> We appreciate you engaging the dialogue

and uh you're a true bestie in the

all-in sense of the word. Ladies and

gentlemen, give it up for Chris Wright.

>> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Great. Great job. Great

job.

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