Secretary Wright Delivers Remarks at the ARC Conference - June 26, 2026

So ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, by Zoom, Secretary Chris Wright. Thank you so much for those words. I can hear you all very well. And of course I remember that great first time I was there at ARC, at the very first one, in person. The great people that were there, the beautiful presentations, and this just celebration of human ingenuity, this celebration of abundance and progress, that have certainly been central to my life. And I see my friend and colleague, Matt Ridley, sitting down on the stage there. God bless everyone that started ARC and what you're doing. It matters. In my world, I spent my whole life in energy. Energy is life. The transformation to the modern world, life expectancy globally going from 30 years to over 70 years, the biggest causal driver of that was the massive expansion of available energy humans could use to change our world and change our life opportunities. Energy is the economy. I say it's by far the most important sector of the economy because all other industries depend on energy. If you destroy your energy system, ultimately you destroy everything. Energy is national security. If you're dependent upon hostile powers or during conflicts for your energy supply, you're at great risk. And I think the continent of Europe felt that in the Russian invasion of Ukraine four years ago to enormous consequences, not just economic consequences, but life consequences. In fact, looking at the public health data for that winter, the first winter after the war started in Ukraine, there was roughly 60,000 additional deaths that winter than there is in a typical winter across the EU. Always more people die in the winter than die in the summer because cold is a vastly larger killer than heat is. But an additional 60,000 deaths because that dependence on Russian gas and as that got curtailed drove up heating prices so much that people could afford to heat their homes less. So they did. And the mortality impacts of that are devastating. Energy is just massively important. In the United States, President Trump gave me that call, Philippa, the day after you and I spoke, to say we need to grow American energy production. We need to drive down energy prices in the United States. We need to become energy dominant. In Europe, people misunderstand that. That doesn't mean we want to dominate everyone. It means we want to be all in and massively successful at growing our energy production so that we can reindustrialize our country, lower energy prices in the United States, and have massive energy resources left over to export to our friends and allies abroad so that they can cut their dependence on hostile powers or unreliable suppliers of energy. I've also been very outspoken, of course, in the years about, I think, the absolutely tragic social, economic, and national security mistake that the United Kingdom and Germany and too many other countries have made. They've made this, they say, in the name of climate change. But, of course, they haven't done anything meaningful whatsoever in the area of global greenhouse gas emissions. They've just deindustrialized their nations to the enormous economic detriment to their citizens, to their allies like the United States. Do we want to see all the United Kingdom, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution? Do we want to see all that industrial might, technology, innovation, and focus go overseas, be outsourced to China and elsewhere in Asia? A number of that industry came to the United States as well. We didn't win from that. Certainly, the Brits didn't win from that. Germans didn't win from these deindustrialization activities. And to give a few numbers to understand, they were irrelevant for climate change as well. If you look at the energy system today in the United Kingdom, 75 percent of total primary energy consumption in the United Kingdom comes from two energy sources, oil and natural gas. Natural gas is your biggest source of primary energy, and oil is second. But together, they dominate the British energy system. All of the money that's been expended to build wind turbines and, of course, solar panels in a cloudy northern country just makes no sense at all. And what did it do? They got an increasing share of your electricity production. But, of course, the total pie of electricity production in the United Kingdom has shrunk dramatically. This is just in contrast to global progress. You've shrunk your electricity production somewhere between 30 and 40 percent. That is ahistorical. Germany's done the same thing with the same result that 75 percent of German energy comes from oil and natural gas. So it's still dominated by hydrocarbons, just as it was when it started. But the whole pie of energy consumption has shrunk, which means industry is left and your citizens are relatively poorer because they spend more of their income to pay energy bills. And as you've seen politically, they become unhappy about this. There simply is no winners, no winners at all in that game. Globally, the world has spent $10 trillion on wind, solar, batteries and transmission lines to hook up remote capacity and intermittent generation sources. And together, they just got to 3.0 percent of global energy. And everywhere their penetration is large, you have high electricity prices. Is there any net positive addition to the global energy system from this $10 trillion? I think it would be hard to argue that there has been. We see the same thing in the United States. California's done, has gone down this same pathway. It's just made energy expensive. It's pushed industry outside of California. This incredibly wealthy state I lived in now has the highest adjusted poverty rate in the nation. There's not winners from this, which meant that President Trump's agenda to embrace energy, we want to grow energy production so we have more of it, we have lower costs, we can bring industry and power and economic growth back to our country. That's the goal we should all have. If you want prosperous, thriving people, that's what you want. And last historical point, 50 years, over the last 50 years, global economic growth has averaged 3.0 percent compound annual growth rate. Energy consumption over those same 50 years has averaged 1.6 percent compound annual growth rate. Because of course, humans are ingenious. Every year we make our, we become more efficient users of energy, which means we get more economic value, more enhancements in our life quality out of each unit of energy. That doesn't shrink demand for energy, it just makes each unit of energy even more valuable. So the economy has grown at 3 percent, energy consumption has grown at 1.6 percent, and the difference between those two numbers is the increasing efficiency. That's the progress, that's the future, and the one billion people that live wonderful lives like us, we want to live even more wonderful lives. And the other seven billion people want to live lives like us, the only route to there is massively. I'll stop there and turn it over to my friend. Secretary Wright, thank you very much. Thank you for your plain speaking and thank you for your insights there. It's hot in London today, Chris. You are speaking from a country that has air-conditioned football stadiums. I am speaking to you from a continent where air conditioning is a sin against Gaia, and from a country where the energy secretary, your equivalent here, Mr Miliband, has banned or will ban or will severely restrict North Sea oil, shale gas, petrol and diesel cars, gas heating, underfloor heating, tumble dryers, towel rails, fertilizer, air travel and cattle. How does Europe escape from what Bjorn Lemberg just called the mentality of austerity to the mentality of abundance? Yes, I often call it a climate cult. And, Matt, I must say I am optimistic that Europe will escape it. In my first 15-18 months in the office, I have travelled to Europe many times and had very candid dialogues, only a few of them in public, many of them behind the scenes. Most all of the major European countries are well aware of the energy mistake they made and are trying to figure out how they are going to pivot without politically burying themselves. The German energy minister has been very outspoken on this. When I first met her, she said we're going to build 20 gigawatts of gas. Next time I saw her, it was 30 gigawatts. Then it was 35 gigawatts. They can't push all their industry out. They can't continually drive prices up. People are upset about it. The political cost has come too high. In fact, there are different degrees of, as I say, this starting to recognize reality. The United Kingdom so far has been notable in no hopeful signs yet. The Brits were the leaders in beginning the Industrial Revolution. The land of Shakespeare and Isaac Newton and James Watt is not going to wither away and drive off the cliff. I am shocked how far, how close you've gotten, how far it has gone. But I am firmly convinced in the next several years, and of course, it will not be driven by a change of minds. It will be driven by a change of humans, a change of the actual minds and leadership in the United Kingdom. But I believe this historically incredibly important and beautiful nation will pivot, will reverse course. In Germany, they're already talking about it. In Greece, the first oil and gas well will be drilled in 50 years. Israel, long dependent from energy elsewhere, is now a major, not only gas consumer in its own country, it's an exporter to its neighbors. All of the central European nations, as I've gone through there and given a time for choosing speeches, they want to embrace energy expansion, energy abundance, all the things you're talking about there at heart. I think you will be leaders in a vanguard. The pivot is coming. It will come to the United Kingdom as well. But the louder we can speak and the more articulate we can speak, the sooner it can come and the less we can reduce the damage suffered. Ten years ago, you and I tried to persuade the British government to embrace shale gas. If we had succeeded, Britain could have been self-sufficient in gas now, couldn't it? And that would have made enormous difference to not only economic prosperity, but our cultural and military security. Without a doubt, Matt, there would be an industrial renaissance well underway in the United Kingdom, where the original industrial revolution began in the midlands of England. Electricity prices would be lower. You would produce probably twice the electricity you produce today because you would be growing, as any country with abundant energy resources are. Incomes would be massively higher. Blue-collar workers that grew up in different places than you and I grew up would have abundant job opportunities. Britain would be a dynamic society and a major influence on the world in technology and innovation and artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing. All the things the Brits should be doing. Just a shale gas revolution in UK would have driven all of those changes. I'm highly confident in that. Can I turn to nuclear, Chris? Britain is currently spending 700 million pounds trying to keep a small fish out of its next nuclear power station. How do we get the cost of nuclear regulation down? And can you tell me some results from your competition for SMR reactors? I believe there are 48 designs in the competition, and I think you're going to announce the results next week on July the 4th, are you not? Yeah, let me give you a little color on that, Matt. So yes, if we look at, I talked 15 years ago, the globe got a little over 80% of its primary energy from oil, gas and coal. Today, it gets a little over 80% of its energy from oil, gas and coal. And both 50 years ago and today, the fourth largest energy source is wood, which was the main energy source throughout all of human history. That's where we exist today. All the other stuff you hear about is important, but it's much smaller slices. Nuclear is the fifth largest energy source. It got to over 6% of global energy. Today, it's a little less than 5%. Not that it shrunk, just the pie has grown and nuclear has not grown with it. We are committed to launching a nuclear renaissance in the United States. In fact, I just had a press conference an hour ago here announcing a loan program where we're going to order long lead time advanced parts for 10 large scale 1.1 gigawatt nuclear reactors to be built by multiple energy companies in the United States. They'll have long term offtake agreements from hyperscalers building data centers or other industrial activities. That's on the large scale end. We're also pushing very fast on these next generation small modular reactors. President Trump last spring, people thought was a foolish pronouncement. He said we're going to have three small modular reactors go critical before July 4th of next year. 40 years of not much happening in nuclear. President Trump leaned in. I can go through the things we've done to unleash it, but the net result has been we've already had two of these reactors go critical in the United States, one from a company called Antares and another one from a company called Valor Atomics. The Valor Atomics, a five megawatt reactor, we flew in the back of a C-17 airplane from where it was constructed in L.A. to Utah, which is where it is running. So a little bit of symbolism. I mean, you build something in California, you fly it out. You actually want to operate it or do anything with it. We expect to have a third reactor critical by July 4th. All of these are next generation technologies, the first non light water reactors to go critical in the United States in over 40 years. But if you set your mind to it, say we're going to get rid of the nonsense. We're just going to focus on safety and innovation. Let private capital flow. We've reformed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as I say, to focus on safety, safety and safety instead of bureaucracy, safety and bureaucracy. You get better safety results and, of course, much faster action because you're only focusing on what really matters. And I'm thrilled. Nuclear energy will will thrive again in the United States. Countries around the world, of course, are very interested in American nuclear technologies. It'll become a big export industry for the United States. But we want to better energize the world, Americans and all of our friends around the world. I must state again, there's nothing I would love more than a well energized, dynamic, thriving United Kingdom. That was part of building the modern world to what it is today. Last question, Chris. Climate. In the United States, even the Democrats have stopped talking about climate as an electoral issue. Bill Gates and NPR have dismantled their climate teams. The IPCC has dropped their most extreme scenarios, the RCP 8.5. The chances of three degrees of warming is now down to 9%, according to even the IPCC. Storms, droughts and floods are showing no upward trend. Has the battle for common sense on climate been won over there or will it come back the moment Donald Trump leaves office? Well, I will say we are winning. We haven't won fully yet, but we're winning by leaning in. I engage everyone I can in a climate dialogue, Democratic senators, governors, representatives, by just bringing facts and data, because the people that are very passionate about climate in the United States and in the United Kingdom, in general, know almost nothing about climate change. For them, this is just a reason to justify big government and pick winners and losers and be fashionable at Chardonnay parties. So by engaging them and making the cost of saying foolish things a little bit higher, if they know someone knows something about climate change on the other side, they change the topic. And so we're just trying to do that in large scale. But I would say that at least half of our Democratic governors get it now. Oh, OK. So it's an issue. It's just not a very big issue. And we've been hanging ourselves by these policies. I'm like, exactly. You don't have to say everything you said before was false. Just put it in proper perspective. What you care about is economic growth and dynamism. The only way you're going to lower greenhouse gas emissions is with technologies that effectively compete. Nobody's going to make their energy bills more expensive and impoverish themselves. Well, maybe no one except for the United Kingdom, Germany and California and a few exceptions. But by doing that, you're demonstrating to the world, don't follow that pathway. You know, understand climate change for what it is, a slow moving phenomenon that ultimately will be addressed by better technologies. Biggest needle mover by far today is natural gas. What could be the next biggest needle mover is nuclear, because it's not just in the electricity sector, which people often confuse as the whole energy system. It's just one slice of the energy system. The most important part of the energy system is manufacturing and the high temperature process needed to make materials. That's the world's biggest use of energy. And it's most important use of energy. Today, we only get it from burning wood, coal, oil or gas. And in the future, we're going to get processed heat and electricity from nuclear. This could grow massively. But it's about, I would say energy is about humans. It's about math and humans. If you focus on people and you focus on math, you get a very different energy system. You get the trajectory we're headed in the United States and the trajectory I think increasingly the world will follow. It's about humans. Thank you, Secretary Wright.