Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced at Oak Ridge National Laboratory on Friday that his department will move to promote the development of nuclear energy there, primarily with the intent to fuel advancements in artificial intelligence technologies.
“We’re at a critical time again right now where another technology of simply immense import is hitting critical mass and is going to change our world in the next several years,” Wright said at Friday’s news conference.
Wright compared this work to the Manhattan Project, in which Oak Ridge’s uranium enrichment facility at Y-12 was instrumental in developing the atomic bomb during World War II.
“We’re at the start of Manhattan Project 2. It is critical, just like Manhattan Project 1, that the United States wins this race,” he said.
The Manhattan Project was initiated in 1941 after U.S. officials learned German scientists had theorized they could split the atom, which could allow the Nazis to develop an atomic bomb. Now, Wright said China is the adversary with which the U.S. is competing.
“China has huge resources,” he said. “They are massively focused on artificial intelligence. … If we don’t unleash American innovation and American entrepreneurs and American construction and bold moves, we will lose Manhattan Project 2.”
Wright was joined by U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty and U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, both Republicans representing Tennessee, along with OpenAI cofounder and president Greg Brockman. All four stressed the important role Oak Ridge will play in what they bill as “next-generation nuclear,” including nuclear energy reactors.
“[President Trump] wants to see us at the cutting edge, not only of AI, but of the energy supply to make that possible,” Hagerty said. “The development that we’re seeing in the nuclear space is a huge base load for what we need in President Trump’s all-of-the-above energy strategy.”
Oak Ridge has been the focus of “new nuclear” in recent years, in both the public and private sectors, spurred largely by the DOE’s commitment to clean and restore land used by the Manhattan Project. In November, Kairos Power announced plans to build an experimental nuclear power plant on the former site of the K-25 gaseous diffusion plant and has already broken ground. Meanwhile, the DOE announced last year it will turn 920 acres of land over to Orano USA for the construction of a 750,000-square-foot uranium enrichment complex, to be completed by 2030.
“What we need to do is grow American electricity production dramatically, not just for AI, but for reshoring of manufacturing,” Wright said. “But what the American government has to do is help enable the industry to run fast and hard, not put barriers in the way.”
Wright is the founder and former CEO of Liberty Energy, an oil and gas company that specializes in fracking. In 2023, he claimed there is no climate crisis, and repeated that Friday.
“We haven’t seen an increase in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes, floods, drought, storms,” Wright said Friday. “If we’re against energy, if we’re against innovation and risk taking, we (won’t) win the AI arms race.”
According to a 2023 report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, increasing weather and climate extreme events caused by human-fueled climate change have exposed millions of people to life-threatening situations globally.
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