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Wright Discusses Natural Gas, Emissions, and Nuclear Power with CNBC (Part 2)

February 7, 2025 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:03:56

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

CNBC aired the second part of its February 7, 2025 interview with Energy Secretary Chris Wright, in which Sullivan asked how the United States can produce more energy in the most environmentally responsible way possible. Wright responded, as he stated it, that the perceived conflict is more imagined than real.

Wright said, as he stated it, that the world has invested perhaps four trillion dollars over the past ten to twenty years mostly in wind, solar, batteries, and transmission systems — which he called the greatest misallocation in world history — yet those sources supply a little less than 3 percent of global energy, all in the electricity sector, and that everywhere their share reached high levels, electricity became more expensive and grids less stable.

Wright said, as he stated it, that the only way to change global greenhouse gas emissions is with affordable, reliable, and secure energy technologies that improve people’s lives with lower emissions — the biggest of which today, as he put it, is natural gas. He said the United States has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions more than the next seven countries combined, mostly through market forces as natural gas outcompeted coal at equal or lower cost while burning cleaner. The segment’s hosts also raised the planned restart of older nuclear reactors such as Three Mile Island as a topic from the interview.

Why it matters

The appearance is part of the administration’s energy agenda — expanding supply, grid capacity, and permitting — and its claims about prices, projects, and markets are the record against which its energy promises will be measured.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright joins CNBC’s Brian Sullivan (Part 2) - February 7th, 2025”, 2025-02-07 (official upload, embedded above; published 2025-02-07). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.