In his speech today at S&P Global’s CERA Week conference, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, a self-declared “energy realist,” laid out the Trump administration’s approach to the sector.

His speech described how the administration will “end the Biden administration’s quasi-religious policies on climate change” and focus on satisfying the surging demand for more energy with less explicit or mandated preferences for clean technologies.

“Natural gas today supplies 25% of global primary energy and has been the fastest growing source of energy over the last 15 years,” he said. “Wind and solar, the darlings of the past administration and much of the world today, supplies roughly 3% of global primary energy.”

The Trump administration intends to be “much more scientific and mathematically literate” when looking at how best to satisfy surging energy demand and that the only interest group they would be concerned with is the American people, Wright said.

Denying claims that he is a climate change denier or a climate skeptic, Wright said that the administration would treat climate change for what it is: “a side effect of building the modern world,” and lifting the world’s citizens out of poverty.

“Over 20% of Americans struggle to pay their energy bills,” he added, accusing the Biden administration, and the wider left in wealthy Western nations of “recklessly” having pursued policies that were certain to drive up electricity prices.

Aims of the administration
“Our goal is to re-industrialize America, not de-industrialize America,” Wright said while criticizing previous US administrations, and Europe, for outsourcing too much manufacturing to Asia. “No more all-of-government approach to making energy more expensive and less reliable and making it nearly impossible to build large-scale things in our country.”

“We are unabashedly pursuing a policy of more energy production and infrastructure, not less,” the secretary said, pointing to President Trump’s ending of the pause on LNG export permits.

“Today, I can announce our fourth action in this regard, approving the Delfin offshore Louisiana export terminal. “Today, I can announce our fourth action in this regard, approving the Delfin offshore Louisiana export terminal. This is in addition to previous actions on the Commonwealth and Golden Pass LNG projects and our actions to enable the bunkering of LNG for powering tanker ships,” he said.

“We are working to launch the long-awaited American nuclear renaissance. Fission and fusion. The same goes for next-generation geothermal energy,” he said.

“We are also reversing the destructive mandates forcing everyone to buy EVs that have been wreaking havoc on our auto industry.”

Wright also highlighted the importance of AI and America’s national security interest in remaining an AI leader in the global technology race.

“AI is an energy-intensive manufacturing industry. It takes massive amounts of energy to generate intelligence … Over the last four years American electricity prices rose by over 20%,” he added, as he laid out the administration’s intention for a 180-degree pivot “to enable the needed growth in electricity supply without saddling customers with ever-rising electricity prices.”

“Success will require significant regulatory changes, massive private capital deployment and innovative partnerships,” Wright said.