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Wright Discusses Nuclear Fuel Licensing and Energy Capacity on Fox Business

August 7, 2025 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:10:26

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What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright joined Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business on August 7, 2025 — day 200 of President Trump’s second term, as noted in the segment — according to the Department of Energy. Wright said the department had announced the first licensing for a Tennessee-based company to scale up from bench scale to producing commercial fuel for nuclear reactors, under the DOE authorization process for advanced fuel lines, as he stated it. He described it as private capital and private investment, with the company having met safety requirements, under a regulatory regime he called too slow and cumbersome, as he stated it.

On capacity, Wright estimated the United States needs 100 gigawatts of new capacity in the next five years, against prior plans he said would have shut down almost 100 gigawatts of coal and gas in the same period, as he stated the figures. He discussed a utility settlement adding about 1.3 gigawatts of gas-fired power primarily for data centers plus extending a coal plant’s life — about two gigawatts incremental against the prior trajectory — as he stated it. Natural gas, he said, is the biggest source of U.S. electricity and will grow rapidly by business choice, with nuclear as another reliable supply and coal closures stopped, as he stated it.

Wright defended the Energy Department’s climate report, saying it exposes what is actually in IPCC reports rather than hyperbolic summaries — citing a greener planet from carbon dioxide, increased crop productivity, falling extreme-weather deaths, and declining insured losses, as he stated them. He also said the United States is replacing Russia as Europe’s biggest imported oil and gas source and that Asian dialogues are earlier, as he stated it.

Why it matters

The interview sets Wright’s stated capacity arithmetic — plus 100 gigawatts needed against a prior minus-100 trajectory, as he stated it — and records the Tennessee fuel licensing as the nuclear relaunch’s first concrete authorization in this set.

Scoreboard watch

Wright stated the U.S. needs 100 gigawatts of new capacity within five years, as he stated the figure — checkable against subsequent capacity additions reported by the Energy Department and EIA.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Joins Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business — August 7, 2025”, 2025-08-07 (official upload, embedded above; published 2025-08-07). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.