President Trump's Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, joins Glenn Beck to discuss Trump's plan to lower your electricity bill. While he says it can't happen every night, he assures Glenn's listeners that Trump is asking for updates on this "every single day." Plus, he reveals how the administration plans to cut red tape, use nuclear energy, and stop the immature closure of coal plants to boost American energy.
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Okay. We have Chris -- Chris Wright on. US Energy Secretary. We are concerned about our energy, and thank God, Donald Trump. Can you imagine how bad this would be, if Joe Biden's policies would have continued? Thank God we're doing a lot of really good things. But I wanted to get a sense from Chris, on where we are, and what he thinks of what's happening in Maryland, and the warning, that Goldman is giving this week?
Chris, welcome to the program.
CHRIS: Thanks for having me on, Glenn. Yeah. You hit the hot topic, right away.
GLENN: Okay. So I would assume that you agree with what Goldman said?
CHRIS: Oh. Absolutely. In fact, we've released a report from the department, just a few weeks ago. And if you had continued the Biden policies, which are to permit and subsidize energy sources that might be there. Might not. They generally aren't there at peak demand.
If we had continued those policies, they would have shut down another hundred gigawatts of firm production capacity, that's there when you need it. And they have permits to improve and planned to add -- add 22 gigawatts of that. Check out 100, add 22.
So a net loss of 78 gigawatts, to an electricity grid that's already tight, that already delivers blackouts and peak demand. They were on a trajectory to increase blackouts by 100 fold, by the end of the first Paris term, if she had won that election.
It is just -- we were driving over a cliff, and they were hitting the accelerator to go faster. It's ridiculous.
GLENN: What really bothered me was the policy that when they shut these plants down, we would actually pay the power companies, to shut these down, if they dismantled the coal power plants. They actually could get subsidy. If they made sure, there was no going back into that.
Which I found terrifying, and horribly irresponsible.
CHRIS: Glenn, it's just crazy. An environmentalist melted down a few weeks ago, when I used my authority at the Department of Energy, to stop the closure of a one and a half gigawatt coal plant in southwestern Michigan.
Oh, you're going to post tax -- costs on the -- we don't know that coal plant. It's slated to close.
Two days later, there was a blackout in my zone, the Midwestern independent system operator. Two days later, that plant was running at full capacity. It would have been massively worse. Crisis would have been massively higher.
You just talked about Baltimore. We also stopped the closure of a very old power plant in Baltimore, but a critical power plant that keeps the lights on at peak demand, that's also running at full capacity as we speak today and has for much of the last few weeks.
Oh, no. We don't need it. We're going to close it. It -- it's just when politics gets in the middle of energy, it truly impacts people's lives.
At least the blackouts. Rising costs. You know, we had 30 percent rise in power prices during just four years of President Joe Biden.
And now we're going to launch the AI race against China? And we are going to have our lights going off, without data centers, without new industry in our country?
Just thank God, the American people, overwhelmingly elected President Trump. We brought common sense back. We're swimming seven days a week, to try to fix the train wreck they left us. So it's exciting. It's more stressful than I would like. But I can assure you, we're headed in the right direction now.
GLENN: So what really bothers me, is how dangerous nuclear power is, and how we can't use that.
Even though, that solves the global warming thing. We've never been able to have that. We have to reduce our power usage. You know, go back to the good old days in, I don't know, medieval times. And -- but now that AI is here. Now that the big tech companies step up and say, no, no, no. We -- we have to have power for AI. Now all of those rules are out the window.
Which -- which bothers me so much, because it is -- it's as if the left and the power structures, don't really care about the average person. And them having power.
They care about these big corporations, and -- and AI being able to have compute power.
But not the average person. And it's -- it's -- it's disgusting.
It's really disgusting.
CHRIS: I -- I think that's right, Glenn.
It also shows that they never really cared about incremental changes in greenhouse gas emissions. The climate change thing is mostly a classroom for power. We're going to decide the way the world works. And make rules for you.
Because you stupid rubes out there in America, you can't make your own decisions.
We must make them for you. But yet, they were never about a rational approach to reduce greenhouse gases.
They don't even know that much about greenhouse gas emissions.
You said, they hated nuclear then. Now they see we're on a train wreck. They don't want to admit their climate alarmism was wrong. And wildly exaggerated.
Now, nuclear power is okay.
Because we need. We need these data centers, these big companies need power. It's not just -- it's not just those crazy routes in Middle America, like you and I.
GLENN: So, you know, in your report, you said, you know, we will increase blackouts by 100 times in the next five years, if we don't keep more base load power online.
How rapidly are we going to see these nuclear power plants, et cetera, et cetera, being built?
And is it only to serve those server farms, or are we going to redo the American power grid, itself?
CHRIS: It will be across the grid. So it is an exciting development, Glenn.
But it's the government. It's this overweening, fear-mongering government that actually smothered and killed nuclear industry, for most of the last four decades. So since it's been my mothered for so long, it will take time to get that ball really moving. We will have an already closed nuclear power plant, back open in Michigan. Later this year, January. Hopefully, at the latest.
You know, there's some developments that will happen in the next few months.
But most of it, will take a few years.
Really, what's going to feed the data centers that are going to be built, and the reindustrialization of our country.
And keep the lights on, and our air-conditioning on in the summertime.
Most of that is going to come from stopping the closure of the coal plant.
GLENN: Right.
CHRIS: That the Biden administration and Obama administration wanted to shrink our ability to generate electricity.
And it's going to come from the expansion and rapid construction of new natural gas burning power plants. Natural gas is, by far, the biggest source of electricity.
It's by far the lowest cost -- source of new electricity. So we are doing everything we can, to permit, allow the construction of natural gas plants as fast as possible, and removing these ridiculous requirements.
That, well, if you spend a billion dollars to build a new power plant, within six or seven or eight years, you're going to have to capture all the carbon dioxide emissions, and eject them underground. No matter how much it costs. No matter how much it burdens our power sector.
The direction they were in, just didn't care about American people, or American business.
GLENN: How long before we see these things? I mean, you know, China is building at the speed of at least one coal power plant, a week. They are building nuclear power plants. They are on an energy surge right now.
They know what's coming.
How -- how -- when should we see this actually starting to happen? And how long before power prices come down?
CHRIS: Oh, man. That is -- that is the big question. President Trump asked me that, every single day. Every single day. Let's get oil prices down. Let's get gas prices down. Let's get electricity prices down. And it takes a while to build infrastructure.
Fortunately, quickly, we can stop the closure of coal plants and still have lots of lifetime left. We've already done that.
That's why we don't have much worse blackouts, already today. We do have new gas plants coming on this year, a lot more coming on next year. We will have nuclear plants on, later this term. We will have a whole bunch of them under construction. But yet, to turn the giant, you know, aircraft carrier that is the electricity grid, that's going to take a few years. But hopefully, we can watch the huge rise in prices.
We can build the capacity so that the United States can keep our lead on artificial intelligence over China.
We get behind China, and they control AI, our national security is at risk.
GLENN: Yeah. I know.
CHRIS: The whole administration is seven days a week, working on this effort.
I see dramatically fewer blackouts this summer, than you would have, had the election gone the other way.
And I think we will be in a little better situation next summer. And somewhere in between there, this winter. We're rapidly swimming the right way.
I wish, I could say power prices are going down 20 percent next year. But it's simply not possible to do that, in 12 months. But I will tell you, President Trump is seven days a week doing everything he can, towards that goal.
GLENN: What regions are the worst in the country?
As far as stability and prices?
CHRIS: The Midwest.
You know, the -- the -- where that Michigan coal plant was kept open.
Where that nuclear power plant will reopen later that year. The Midwest Independent System Operator, that's our tightest region.
The southeast and PJM, where Washington, DC, is in the mid-Atlantic states.
They're rapidly getting tighter as well. Everything in the inner connection cue that was new to come on, is a wind or solar project.
But when it's dark out, and when it's really hot, and you're in a high-pressure system.
And the wind doesn't blow. Those things don't help to meet demand. They just provide electricity -- well, you don't know when. But at some points in time, that's not very helpful for an electricity grid. But we're going to stop the closure of the firm capacity.
And we are doing everything we can. We are permitting and approving plants, every week. New construction, new plants, that will be built. And that be here to provide relief to Americans in the next 12 to 24 months.
GLENN: And the most stable region?
CHRIS: The -- the most stable region is actually Texas. Which is by far the biggest electricity grid. They produce more than twice as much electricity as California. And just -- just a little bit less nonsense in Texas.
They still went crazy on the wind stuff. They still have more expensive, and less stable grid than they had ten years ago.
GLENN: Yeah. They do.
CHRIS: But they also have the mindset and the regulatory regime to fix their problem. Texas is rapidly growing its firm capacity, and they will stay out of this crisis, probably a little faster than the more Biden-influenced rest of the country.
GLENN: Hmm. I can't thank you enough for everything you guys are doing. I'm -- I'm amazed at -- at how rapidly you guys have turned things around.
I'm just -- I'm thrilled at the work, you all are doing.
And, Chris, you really are leading us in energy.
And I really appreciate that. Thank you.
CHRIS: Appreciate you, Glenn. Appreciate all your viewers. We're doing everything we can.
We think about the American people. That's the only agenda we have.
GLENN: Thank you so much, Chris.
That's our US Energy Secretary, Chris Wright.
