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The Department of Energy is also celebrating 100 days of American energy, what it's calling victories, including in manufacturing and innovation. Joining us now is U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Secretary Wright, thank you for your time and joining us here on Bloomberg Technology. There is one question that Americans that watch this show have for you, which is how have you changed policy in that period of time for energy in a way that supports U.S. manufacturers?
- Oh, well, here I am at a plant in Griffin, Georgia, about 40 miles southeast of Atlanta, that makes low-cost, tankless, non-condensing hot water heaters. A little too technical there. These are low-cost heaters. Over a million Americans today take showers and wash their hands from water heated
from a device made in this plant just in the last three years. And of course, millions more are interested in this technology because it's very low cost. And
And this was going to be illegal. On December 26th, the Biden administration passed a rule through the Department of Energy, my predecessor, that would have made the manufacture of these devices illegal. Hundreds of people here in Georgia would have lost their jobs and millions of Americans wouldn't have had a low cost choice to put into their house, their apartment, their, you know, wherever it is they want hot water, their restaurant, their business.
And so we're thrilled to see this factory humming along and excited workers that they have a future and their products have a future. Secretary Wright, 50 miles away from where you're standing, Rivian is building an electric vehicle plant in Georgia. Rivian had secured a $6.6 billion loan.
from the Department of Energy agreed under the prior administration. What is your assessment of that loan? Will it proceed? And are you reviewing the issuance of those funds? So we will review the issuance of all the funds, loans and grants from the Department of the Energy. To give you one reason for the serious concern we have,
About 80% of the loan money and the grant money put out by the Biden administration, 80% went out after President Trump was elected and before his inauguration day. If they had great, rock-solid, make American lives better opportunities, wouldn't they have done that in the previous two and a half years? But instead, so much of the money was rushed out the door after election day and before inauguration.
So we've got a lot of reasons to be worried and suspicious about that. We're stewards of the American taxpayers' money, and the goal of the Department of Energy is to improve our energy system, to make energy more affordable, reliable, and secure. Everything that serves that agenda, we will...
carry through. So we want to carry out the president's agenda, follow the rule of law. And so some of these loans will go forward. Some of them, it's too late to change courses. A lot of them won't go forward. But that's a very careful review process that we've just put in place and just got the team to execute on. Secretary Wright, it's not just the company's manufacturing. If you think about the infrastructure,
Particularly from the utilities point of view, there is a lot of concern about storage capability. Tesla is the leader in energy storage, right? But the frank reality is that for the energy storage products, it relies on prismatic LFP cells that are 100% manufactured in China by CATL.
If there is a need to build out storage product at the commercial scale, are you evaluating any exemptions in the context of tariffs or any work with Tesla so that they can get moving on building out energy storage infrastructure in this country?
Well, look, I won't talk on specific things right here, but we are looking very careful at everything we can do to reshore the manufacturing of critical systems like the ones you've talked about here in the United States. We've just become way too dependent on China for things that are in our defense systems, that are in our electric grids, that are in our automobiles, that are in our space systems. We need to bring that kind of manufacturing, those technologies and those materials back into the United States.
it is a high priority of the Trump administration. - Secretary Wright, you spend a lot of time talking to executives, as does the president. I just want you to re-hear what the Nvidia CEO said on the Hill just this week. Take a listen. - In order for this industry to thrive, we need to build these systems, of course, but we also need a progressive growth and industry-oriented energy policy, which this president has really put his weight behind. I really appreciate that.
Without energy, we can't possibly have new growth industries. An industry-focused energy policy for AI, Secretary Wright. What does that industry policy look like?
That means getting the barriers out of the way of energy production. The Biden administration spent four years in sort of an all-of-government approach to impede the production of hydrocarbons in the United States. I'm for all energy sources, but hydrocarbons are over 80% of U.S. energy when I was born, and they are today. So if you stand in the way of our main energy system, guess what? You get higher prices. We grew our electricity production only 2%.
20% price rise. So to achieve Nvidia's and America's dream to win the AI race, we've got to produce a lot more electricity, a lot more energy of all sorts in the United States. And all the government needs to do is get out of the way. A little bit of common sense. There's American businesses, American capital, American technologies ready to roar.
And President Trump's goal is to unleash that American energy, that American capital, and let American energy production grow. Secretary Wright, though, is there a potential that you're accidentally getting in the way because of geopolitics and trade issues? Because the energy lack of, in many ways, is an infrastructure and supply chain issue. You don't have the turbines to be able to bring the energy at the infrastructure rate that the CEOs want to see. There's not enough equipment. Is there enough
time to pivot to make that in the U.S.? Oh, I've spoken to the turbine manufacturers, and they are in huge demand right now. But GE Vernova made 27 of them last year. They'll make 80 of them next year. So, look, Americans are ingenious. And with a little bit of regulatory common sense, they can ramp up their capacity rapidly. So, no, I'm quite excited about how much new energy production capacity we'll see in the
under construction today and a lot more will be under construction by the end of this year. I think we will ramp it up in time, but you're right, it's gonna be a race. It's gonna be a race, but we must lead in AI and that means we must rapidly grow our energy production, but we're up for the job. - Secretary Wright, how reliant will the AI boom in this country be on fossil fuels? And while we have you, what is the plan for the SPR, please?
Well, fossil-- natural gas is by far the biggest source of electricity in the United States, followed by nuclear and coal.
So that's what's going to power the AI race. It's slow to build coal plants and nuclear plants are very slow. We want to change that. But in the short term, the main source of additional electricity that will power AI arms race is going to be expanded natural gas electricity production. That'll be the workhorse of winning the AI race. But a lot of solar is getting built, transmission, energy storage, all of the above that works, that'll add to it.
Your last question, sorry, repeat it again. The status of the SPR, please.
The SPR was half drained for the 2022 midterm elections. So we are filling it slowly right now, but we're going to try to get money through Congress to fill up more rapidly. But unfortunately, you can only fill it at a much slower pace than you can drain it. So it will take us years to fill it back, but we will entirely fill it because it's a strategic reserve. You got to have that because you never know what's coming.
We appreciate your time. Outside, of course, we're in America Corporation, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
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