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Secretary Wright Touts Airlifted Mini Nuclear Reactor and Venezuela Oil Opening on America's Newsroom

February 17, 2026 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:05:03

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

What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright joined America’s Newsroom on February 17, 2026, from Paris, according to the Department of Energy video, after the U.S. military partnered with the Energy Department to airlift a miniature nuclear reactor from a base in California to a base in Utah, as the program described the flight.

Wright called it next-generation technology: 5 megawatts of capability, enough to power 5,000 homes, flying in the belly of a C-17, as he stated the figures. He said the reactor would be assembled and running in 10 or 12 weeks or so, without promising a specific date, and that with regulatory reform and partnerships with private industry, nuclear power is coming back strongly in America, as he put it. Asked about electric bills, he said more energy drives prices down — more supply means lower prices, more opportunity and higher wages — contrasting four years of the prior administration trying to shut energy down, as he described it.

On Venezuela, where Wright had traveled about a week earlier, President Trump was shown saying U.S. oil companies were going in and Venezuela would get a big part of the money, rating the relationship a 10, as the clip carried it. Asked whether Venezuela is uninvestable, as Exxon’s CEO had suggested at the White House, Wright said absolutely not: after 26 years of communist rule, nationalized property and no rule of law, the CEO’s take was reasonable for the country as it was days after the change, but new investment is happening today, as he stated it, which he said would benefit American consumers with more energy and lower prices and transform Venezuela and the hemisphere, as he put it.

Why it matters

The interview pairs two administration energy showcases — a flyable small reactor at home and a reopened Venezuela oil sector abroad — under Wright’s argument that more energy lowers prices.

Scoreboard watch

The expectation as stated by Secretary Wright on February 17, 2026: the airlifted 5-megawatt reactor assembled and running in roughly 10 to 12 weeks. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no verdict is published from this page.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Joins America’s Newsroom on Fox News - February 17, 2026”, 2026-02-17 (official upload, embedded above; published 2026-02-17). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.