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Wright Delivers Opening Remarks at the Launch of the ATLAS Initiative with the IAEA, Aug. 26, 2026

August 26, 2026 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:17:42

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

What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright delivered the opening remarks at the launch of the ATLAS initiative, in the Department of Energy’s upload of the August 26, 2026 event. Wright framed the initiative as an attempt to “marry together advances in energy technology with shipping,” arguing that energy, shipping, trade, and transport are central to quality of life, and tracing the rise in global life expectancy from about 30 years to over 70 alongside the growth of modern energy consumption, as he presented it.

In the launch’s joint segment, Wright said the initiative joins the nuclear sector with the International Maritime Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency, and that four next-generation reactors had gone critical by the July 4 deadline the President set, with a fifth since then and seven or eight expected in total by the end of the year, as he stated them. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said more than 500 participants from over 30 countries had gathered, that a statement had been agreed by more than 20 of the participating countries, and that technical work on norms would begin in the fall with the IMO in London, as he stated them. A United States statement read at the ministerial described ATLAS as deepening international partnership “to accelerate the safe and secure deployment of peaceful nuclear applications at sea.”

Why it matters

ATLAS is Wright’s nuclear renaissance taken to sea: nuclear-powered shipping and floating nuclear power plants as the next deployment frontier, launched with the two international bodies whose rules would govern it — and with the United States, by Wright’s account, holding the technology lead.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: the ATLAS initiative launch, August 26, 2026 — a new U.S.–IAEA–IMO track on nuclear applications at sea, with the reactor-criticality counts stated at the event. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Delivers Opening Remarks to the IAEA for the ATLAS Launch” (official upload, embedded above); U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright & IAEA Director General on Launch of ATLAS Initiative” (official upload of the same launch event; remarks as delivered by Secretary Wright and Director General Grossi).