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Wright at GasTech 2025: Doubling U.S. Energy Exports in Five Years and AI as Manhattan Project 2

September 11, 2025 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:09:32

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What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright sat for an Energy Connects studio interview at GasTech 2025 in Milan, posted September 11, 2025, according to the Department of Energy’s recording. Wright said the United States went in under twenty years from the world’s largest energy importer to its largest exporter, and plans to double exports in the next five years, with permitting capacity to double them again after that, as he laid out the trajectory. He said natural gas has been the fastest-growing energy source on the planet over the last fifteen years — more than twice as much new energy as wind, solar and batteries combined — and will likely remain the hot fuel for decades.

On meeting AI-driven demand, Wright said the next three to five years of U.S. supply growth will be dominated by natural gas expansions, while the administration works to, in his word, unsmother nuclear power by rebuilding its supply chain and driving down costs after decades of regulatory stifling. On permitting, he said environmental and safety reviews with community involvement are critical but can be done in a timely fashion — several months, not several years — and that the multi-year NEPA process had become lawfare rather than added environmental benefit, as he characterized the reform case.

Wright repeated his description of AI as Manhattan Project 2, arguing the United States and its European and Asian allies must maintain a large lead over China, and that the binding constraint is energy: China has rapidly grown generating capacity while U.S. capacity barely grew for twenty years. On climate, he rejected net zero by 2050 as unrealistic, said hydrocarbons supplied 85 percent of energy last year, the same share as fifty years ago, and described his preferred pathway as a drive toward ever more affordable, reliable and cleaner energy, including a future in which nuclear energy could be used to assemble hydrocarbons from atmospheric carbon dioxide, as he sketched the long-term vision.

Why it matters

Wright’s export-doubling pledge and months-not-years permitting standard, delivered to an international industry audience in Milan, are the commitments U.S. LNG buyers and allies will hold the administration to as AI demand competes for the same molecules.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Joins Energy Connects at GasTech 2025 - September 11, 2025”, 2025-09-11 (official upload, embedded above; published 2025-09-11). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.