US Council set up to advise President Trump on energy dominance
The National Energy Dominance Council will advise on how the USA can produce more energy - with a remit that includes advising the president on the reopening of closed power plants, and bringing small modular reactors online.
According to an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on 14 February, the Council, which is to be chaired by Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum with Secretary of Energy Chris Wright serving as its vice-chair, will, among other things, advise the president on "how best to exercise his authority to produce more energy to make America energy dominant …improving the processes for permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, transportation, and export of all forms of American energy, including critical minerals … provide to the President a recommended National Energy Dominance Strategy to produce more energy".
The council's members will also include some fifteen high-level representatives including the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of Transportation. It will also include "the heads of such other executive departments and agencies (agencies) as the President may, from time to time, designate".
Its remit also includes "facilitating the reopening of closed power plants; and bringing Small Modular Nuclear Reactors online".
Nixing Net Zero
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on X that delivering on commitments to "unleash US energy dominance and reduce inflation" would require action across the government: "Looking forward to working with the National Energy Dominance Council to cut red tape, increase energy production and lower costs for all Americans."
Speaking to a conference held by the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship on 17 February, Wright said he had a nine-point plan to achieve that, in which nothing is off the table - but called for energy access for all and described the pursuit of net zero ambitions as a "colossal failure". The world "simply runs on hydrocarbons - and for most of their uses, we don't have replacements", he said.
"We're going to focus on energy addition, not energy subtraction," he said, citing the USA's resumption of LNG exports. The focus will be on how to "stir the growth of energy production across the board", he said, adding that "maybe the biggest focus" will be on nuclear, which he described as "an energy-dense, reliable technology that's just been stifled the last several decades".
He then criticised countries that are pursuing net zero goals, calling it a "terrible" goal "unachievable by any practical means".
"And electricity is just one sector of energy. The most important and largest use of energy is manufacturing … Today, the biggest source of energy within that sector is high temperature process heat," he said, adding that such heat could be provided by nuclear.
Wright is the former CEO of Colorado-headquartered Liberty Energy, recognised as a technology leader in the fracking industry, which he founded in 2011. He also sat on the Board of Directors of next-generation small modular nuclear reactor company Oklo Inc, but stepped down from both those positions on his confirmation as Secretary of Energy.
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