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Wright Addresses NREL Employees, Apr. 3, 2025

April 3, 2025 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:12:25

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

What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright addressed employees of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in the Department of Energy’s upload of the April 3, 2025 all-hands session. The laboratory’s host introduced Wright as the 17th Secretary of Energy, a Colorado native and self-described energy nerd whose career — MIT-trained, founder of Liberty Energy — matched the lab’s own culture, and noted the room was ticketed and restricted because so many employees wanted to attend, with the rest watching online.

Wright told the workforce he was honored to be in his hometown — he grew up in Colorado, climbing in Clear Creek Canyon and Eldorado Canyon — and that he had spent his adult life working in energy because, as he put it, energy is the basic infrastructure that enables everything humans do and the reason modern life differs so completely from that of all our ancestors. The address is the new secretary’s direct introduction of himself and his energy philosophy to the renewable-energy laboratory’s staff, delivered in person at the lab.

Why it matters

NREL is the department’s renewable-energy flagship, and Wright — an oil-and-gas entrepreneur now running it — chose an in-person all-hands in his home state to make his case to its workforce directly: the labs as the engine of the energy mission, addressed by a secretary arguing for energy in every form.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Addresses NREL Employees - April 3rd, 2025” (official upload, embedded above; address as delivered by Secretary Wright).