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Wright's First Bloomberg Interview as Secretary: Lower Production Costs, Loan Review and Fusion

February 12, 2025 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:17:30

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

What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright, confirmed the prior week, gave an early interview to Bloomberg’s Alix Steel and Scarlet Fu, published February 12, 2025. Asked what oil price the administration wants, Wright said lower is better and that supply and demand set prices; the department’s lever, in his telling, is reducing the cost of producing a barrel so producers can sustain lower prices at the same profitability, by removing barriers the prior administration imposed. He cited uncertainty as the biggest investment obstacle — producers unsure they can get product to market — pointing to six New England states without reliable natural gas supply and to the LNG export pause alarming buyers in India, as he described the situation.

Wright said U.S. crude production could grow meaningfully over five to ten years if infrastructure can be built, and natural gas production dramatically in the next two to three years, as he estimated both. On coal, he said it has been the largest source of global electricity for nearly a hundred years and will be for decades, that a U.S. coal renaissance is unlikely, and that the realistic short-term goal is to stop the closure of coal plants, which he said made electricity more expensive and the grid less stable. He said energy security means affordable, reliable, secure energy from any technology, with a role for solar where it makes sense, but held up Germany, which he said spent half a trillion dollars and more than doubled electricity prices, as the path to avoid, as he stated those figures.

On the Energy Department’s loan portfolio inherited from the prior administration, Wright said he was reviewing from day one what loans are out, their terms and each project’s status, that he would follow the law for projects underway, and that uncommitted funds would be deployed toward the President’s agenda of affordable, reliable, secure energy. He cited the Ivanpah solar plant as a loss of over a billion taxpayer dollars producing no power today, as he characterized it. On the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which the President vowed to refill “right to the top,” Wright declined specifics but said the reserve is strategic, not an electoral tool. He closed by predicting that positive energy from fusion machines would be seen during his tenure at the department, with commercial fusion perhaps not far behind, and calling nuclear the technology most able to grow the pie of significant energy contributors.

Why it matters

The first long interview of Wright’s tenure sets the metrics by which his department asked to be judged — producer cost curves, infrastructure certainty, lawful stewardship of inherited loans, and a fusion prediction made by a secretary who studied fusion at MIT, as he noted it.

Scoreboard watch

Wright predicted the United States would see positive energy liberated from fusion machines during his tenure as Energy Secretary. The open-ended prediction is recorded here as he stated it; no verdict is recorded.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright joins Bloomberg’s Alix Steel and Scarlet Fu - February 11th, 2025”, 2025-02-12 (official upload, embedded above; published 2025-02-12). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.