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Wright on CNBC: Billions in Loan Financing to Upgrade 15 Constellation Reactors for 1.1 Gigawatts

October 27, 2026 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:08:33

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

What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright joined CNBC’s Power Lunch from an Exelon nuclear plant in Illinois on October 27, 2026, according to the Department of Energy’s recording. Wright said the financing deal is with Constellation Energy, the country’s largest nuclear plant operator, and covers upgrades to 15 reactors at eight locations. He said the plant behind him would gain another 150 megawatts of output and that the total loan would deliver 1.1 gigawatts of new power capacity from existing plants, putting downward pressure on rates and supporting manufacturing and jobs in the areas the plants serve, as he described the agreement.

Wright said the Illinois plant behind him had been days away from closing a little over five years earlier, and he credited the Trump administration’s energy-addition approach with reviving nuclear power. He said three power plants were being restarted, plants across the country were being upgraded, and announcements about construction of new reactors would come soon, calling the nuclear renaissance real.

On Iran, Wright said Iran had done everything it could to disrupt energy markets in the Arabian Gulf and the Red Sea, and he expressed hope that reports of Iran’s leadership seeking a meeting signaled a change in policy. He said the U.S. military had worked every day since the conflict began to keep products moving out of the region and that those efforts would ramp up further if fighting reaccelerated.

On Russian diesel, Wright said there is a global diesel shortage and that the administration had put in place a temporary six-month suspension of sanctions on Russian diesel only — not on Russian oil or other products — as an incentive for Russia to reduce the conflict and end the war. He said Russia is short of diesel itself and cannot currently export it, so a single ship should be read as a carrot tied to changed behavior. He closed by saying U.S. LNG exports grew substantially this year and would grow significantly next year to help Europe move off Russian gas, while cautioning that European gas storage was below where it should be heading into winter.

Why it matters

The Constellation uprate loan is the financing template for the administration’s nuclear strategy: extracting more power from the existing fleet first, while new reactor construction is still being organized, and it lands alongside a time-limited Russian diesel sanctions experiment worth tracking.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: Wright described a temporary six-month suspension of sanctions limited to Russian diesel, announced in late October 2026 — a dated policy window flagged for the scoreboard editors, with no verdict entered here.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Joins CNBC - October 27, 2026”, 2026-10-27 (official upload, embedded above; published 2026-10-27). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.