U.S. energy secretary Chris Wright launched a scathing attack on renewables and reaffirmed the Trump administration’s support for oil and natural gas exploration, at a major industry summit on Monday.
Speaking at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston, U.S., Wright said renewables cannot replace fossil fuels deployed for power generation in the country with natural gas accounting for nearly 45% of all American power generated last year.
“There is simply no physical way that wind, solar and batteries could replace the myriad uses of natural gas. In particular, wind power had a singularly poor record of driving up prices,” Wright said.
He added that the Trump administration supports anything that adds to “affordable, reliable, and secure energy” for American consumers.
To that end, he described oil and gas as critical for the U.S. as well as the global economy’s rising energy demands prompted by the rise of AI and datacenters.
Scathing Of Biden’s Energy Policy
With his boss President Donald Trump positioning himself as a champion of fossil fuels, Wright launched into the previous Biden administration’s energy policies and its overt focus on climate change as “myopic.”
“The Trump administration will end the Biden administration’s irrational, quasi-religious policies on climate change that imposed endless sacrifices on our citizens,” Wright said.
“We will treat climate change for what it is — a global physical phenomenon that is a side effect of building the modern world,” Wright said. The energy secretary called Biden’s policies “economically destructive to our businesses and politically polarizing.”
“The cure was far more destructive than the disease,” he said. “The Trump administration will treat climate change for what it is, a global physical phenomenon that is a side effect of building the modern world.”
A Permit Approval
Following his remarks, Wright approved an extension of Delfin LNG’s exports of liquefied natural gas to major markets in Asia and Europe, at a media conference at the event.
In optics similar to the president’s preferred way of signing executive orders since he took office in January, Wright signed and then held up a copy of the extension to members of the media.
“The president’s “drill baby, drill” call also involves “build baby, build” when it comes to new energy infrastructure that is critically needed for our security of supply,” he said. “We’ve gotten a little bit done, we’re hoping to pick up the pace.”
Delfin LNG’s approval is the latest in a series of approvals the Trump administration has granted after Biden paused LNG export permit approvals for about a year to study their “economic and environmental impacts.”
Pressed again on why he considered wind power to be particularly problematic, Wright responded: “Wind has been singled out because it’s had a singularly poor record of driving up prices.
“In fact, It’s incredibly high prices, incredibly huge investment and a large footprint on the local communities, so it’s been very unpopular for people that live near offshore wind turbines.”
However, Wright denied that the Trump administration was giving up on renewables in their entirety. The administration is in favor of rapidly growing role of solar and will be moving forward on battery storage, he concluded.