The Exchanges

Q got several hundred that they're in construction on. There's clearly technology available today. Uranium is not hard to get. We have a lot of it. Thorium is not hard to get. We have an incredible amount of thorium. Those are the two fuel sources. Why can't we move faster with nuclear? What's the holdback? And why is the US so different than China in being able to scale up nuclear?

A A big difference is again, back to the regulatory environment. I mean, the, the regulatory environment on nuclear, uh, has been so burdensome, uh, in terms of adding to the cost and the timeframe and bring it on that. And then when that cost was put onto a utility and then utility felt they had to put that back on the rate, on the, on their, on the, uh, the rate payers, their consumer customers, uh, there was in some ways a revolt and it wasn't safety related. It was like, oh, you want nuclear, but now my electricity is going to cost twice as much. I'm not for that. So we have to be able to get that regulatory regime down and allow them to go faster. And of course on the SMRs, once that design gets approved, we should be able to have essentially like a manufacturing where we've, we've, we regulate the design, the design is proven and prove out. As long as the manufacturing plant is producing that same design, then we don't have to do this stick built, show up, you know, you work for a week, the inspector shows up, Oh, this is off by, you know, one millimeter. You got to redo it. I mean, some of that is where you end up with the doubling of cost. I mean, you can't, I mean, some of the projects that have just been completed, you know, that took, you know, close to two decades on nuclear and then had doubled the cost and doubled the time.

AI assessment note: “A big difference is again, back to the regulatory environment.”

Q At the end of the day, if you can't monetize it, it's not worth much. So how do you think about the target you're going after? Is it a trillion? And then when do you develop and deliver a plan to the American people that says, guys, here's our target. Here's when we're going to get there. Do you think about it that way?

A We don't have a target yet because we don't even know what the base unused resource is. I mean, we're trying to get our hands around, you know, what is our timber worth? What is our oil and gas? And that goes back to the core mission of the U.S. Geologic Survey. Its original core mission was to map. So when we say it's, you know, it's, it's map, baby, map. Uh, because then that can tell you, you know, where you're supposed to mine, baby mine, where you're supposed to drill, baby drill, but getting back to the mapping and working with the private sector, who's outstripped, who's outstripped. I mean, ground penetrating radar, uh, is, you know, a new advancement, uh, that's, you know, more accurate than seismic and less intrusive, and we need to really understand what America's balance sheet is, and some of that's going to take some work for us to get out there and really survey it, and, and then when we have that, that's public domain Publish that information and that'll help the private sector steer where they should put their resources to help develop this.

AI assessment note: “We don't have a target yet because we don't even know what the base”

Q so far. The cost is so high. What can the Energy Dominance Council, what's, what, what are you guys doing in your roles To make gen four reactors, because everyone's like, go back to the AP 1000, these old Westinghouse designs from like 50 years ago, and build that for nuclear. Why can't we build for the future? What can we do to create the incentive to make this work?

A I was going to say, I mean, the one thing that's already happened, if people are interested in nuclear, which doesn't help us in the near term race that we're in, the near term race, as Chris said, is going to be won by us, uh, getting natural gas power online and stop shutting stuff down. But President Trump signed four executive orders on nuclear about six weeks ago, uh, and there's been a flood of capital, fresh capital coming in. We've got a bunch of venture capital going towards, you know, over, over close to a dozen different, uh, SMR startups. Uh, there's a lot of interest going on in that field. Chris's work with the National Labs redirecting that. Uh, I mean, nuclear's got a future, but it's, it's not the thing we need in the next 24 months. Right now, that's got to keep moving ahead. President Trump's exact words helped that, but we've got to get focused on getting more power right now.

AI assessment note: “nuclear's got a future, but it's, it's not the thing we need in the next 24 months.”

Q go back because this is, in 35 years in this country, we only added .6 terawatts of electricity production capacity to the grid. What's gone on in this country that's made it so hard for us to operate more efficiently in terms of adding new energy capacity to the grid? Is it regulatory only, or are there capital, social, and other reasons that this has become a challenge for us?

A Well, the, the regulatory, uh, attack was a whole of government, so it did attack the formation of capital. I mean, you came up with regulatory rules that made it impossible for, for baseload power, uh, from fossil fuels, even, you know, get a permit. Well, if you can't get a permit, then you can't get the access to capital. You can't get access to insurance. Uh, and then you had, you know, protests and social media and everybody going online saying, oh, we've got to exit from all this. And this same phenomena happened in Germany. Uh, it's, I think it's very clear right now that a lot of that, A lot of what I call the social media driven, uh, concerns were part of, you know, psyops operations from places like Russia. I mean, it was Russia's great advantage to get Germany to shut down nuclear, to shut down all their coal production. And hey, we have a solution. Just buy all your natural gas from us. So Germany spent a half a trillion dollars, five hundred billion dollars on the quote, air quotes, transition to, to green energy. They were transitioning to wind and solar. Half a trillion, five hundred billion dollars. They today produce 20% less electricity, and that electricity cost three times as much as it did before they began the transition. And now we have the war, you know, with Russia and Ukraine. What are they doing? They were scrambling to try to reopen coal plants. They…

AI assessment note: “the regulatory attack was a whole of government, so it did attack the formation of capital”

Q And what about in your role administering the EPA, looking out for environmental standards, protecting our environment, protecting our communities, There were toxic Superfund sites. What's the thinking from your point of view on making sure that we're doing this in a clean way and how important that is in this calculus?

A Well, Lee Zeldin, uh, our EPA Administrator, is, is also a key part of the Energy Dominance Council, as is about half of the Cabinet. I mean, we've got, you know, Howard Lutnig, Scott Besant, uh, Brooke Rollins, you know, from Ag with U.S. Forest Service. There's literally about half the Cabinet. Uh, Transportation, Sean Duffy's on there. Uh, everybody's, you know, part of this team of trying to solve this larger complex thing. But I would say that the one thing we forget about when we often there's these national discussions, which is that every state also has a regulatory environment. And in my time as governor, one thing I learned was that there was, I had, I never met a bureaucrat from DC that cared more about the land, the water, the soil health or the air in our state than the people that lived there and the people that worked for our own DEQ. And so when people say, oh, we're, you know, we're reducing headcount at the EPA, the world's going to fall apart. No, we have two issues with regulation. One is, is the overreach, which is, you know, people going beyond the law on their original charter and regulating things, you know, regulate when they're supposed to be regulating water, and I need, and a water permit should be about turbidity and temperature, and is the fish in this area going to be affected, as opposed to, Oh, we're not giving this permit because we're worried …

AI assessment note: “a water permit should be about turbidity and temperature”

Q In electricity production capacity, and if everything gets automated, factories are automated, AI becomes the great accelerant of the global economy, China is hugely advantaged relative to where we sit today. What do we need to do about it?

A Well, this is the, if you were to ask me what's the thing that keeps me awake at night, uh, this is, this is the issue. And it's so thrilling and refreshing that you understand the scale, the magnitude and the importance of this, uh, the AI arms race, which is really driven by access to electricity. And China last year brought on 94 and a half gigawatts of coal powered electricity. One gigawatt is Denver. So they brought on 94 Denver's just last year. That's more than all we have today for all of California and all of New York is less than 94. So they added a New York and a California worth of electricity last year just from coal. They're still getting 60% of their base load from coal, and people, people may, they stop listening when they hear the word coal, but coal, from an electricity standpoint, thermal coal, uh, is fantastic base load. Uh, it has, you know, all the characteristics to allow you to maintain amperage and voltage, To keep a system going. And I think we just saw in Spain, you know, they were celebrating on April 12th of this past month that they'd shut down their last coal plant. And then a week after that, they were celebrating the fact that they had their first day of a hundred percent renewables on their system. And then the next week, uh, they were global news story because people were trapped in subways, uh, all airline flights canceled, uh, hospitals were…

AI assessment note: “this is the issue. And it's so thrilling and refreshing that you understand”

Q to the moon, fighting World War II in Europe, a Manhattan Project style set of solutions are needed to address this. What is This council that you're leading, the National Energy Dominance Council doing, what are kind of the top three things that you think unlock the energy potential in the United States and meet the demand curve that's kind of tidal waving its way across this country right now?

A Well, I'd say that the good news is that we have a president of the United States that understands this, and that's why on day one in office he declared an energy emergency. Some folks that aren't Familiar with what you've just described, uh, this awareness that we were facing a crisis, uh, we're, you know, questioning whether we had an energy emergency, but as you've just described, we have a huge one relative to our grid, grid stability. We don't have enough power to win the AI arms race and the AI arms race means without that, we lose the defense battle because it's not just robotics in manufacturing. You know, if we're going to have a golden dome, if we're going to have any, you know, ability to defend ourselves from Hypersonics or, you know, protect our fleet, uh, around the ocean, not to have them all wiped out in the first hour of a conflict. We have to have AI, uh, both targeting and a defense standpoint. So you can't separate defense from AI anymore either. So this is, it's mission critical. So with that, with that energy emergency, then we have to pull out all stops. So back to NEDC, uh, which by the way, for those that are easy to remember, it's like ACDC. It's NEDC, and then we could even have a little lightning bolt in the logo.

AI assessment note: “we don't have enough power to win the AI arms race”

Q And then there was, Can I say this? Some rumors that you might have been in the running for vice president, but you obviously stayed close with the president and, and his staff and found your way into this role. How did that process go for you? How did you end up in this role?

A Well, I, it's a, I love what I'm doing and I love the role, uh, because of course as a Western, uh, Western governor. Uh, we have all the things that interior has as governor of North Dakota, which is a jam packed fun job. Uh, you've got your chairman of the land board and just being governor. Well then, you know, dealing with land and minerals and all the leasing and all the issues with the energy industry. You're also the, uh, head of the water commission. Uh, interior has the bureau of reclamation, which is the second largest hydroelectric producer in the country and manages, you know, the miracle of irrigation that theater Roosevelt came up with. We wouldn't have agriculture in Arizona or California without that. Uh, and then Bureau of Indian Affairs is part of Interior, uh, and that's a, uh, something I had a lot of experience with and all the challenges that we face in terms of healthcare and education on the tribal areas. So across the whole realm of Interior, uh, uh, everything that I had in North Dakota is part of my job today except one thing, uh, and that's offshore oil production because, uh, North Dakota, as you would know, is the center of North America. So if you're afraid of sharks, You should move to North Dakota because it literally is the furthest place in North America from any ocean, so we had no offshore, but, uh, today, earlier today, I had a chance to ge…

AI assessment note: “I love what I'm doing and I love the role, uh, because of course”

Q So going back to your deregulatory action, can you do that in the seat that you're in? Who can take that deregulatory action? Do you need Congress to get involved?

A I've got a great partner, Chris Wright, incredibly talented, arguably the most qualified Secretary of Energy we've ever had leading that effort because the Department of Energy has got most of the responsibility related to nuclear because they also are in charge of our nuclear stockpile. I mean, for the military. I mean, DOE has got direct defense responsibilities, and, and as part of that, uh, we've also got the 15 national labs, and there's been great work that's happening in Los Alamos and Scandia. I mean, uh, you know, you go around the whole country, and we've got an incredibly talented group of people, and, and research dollars have been flowing, but we've got to get some of that commercialized and out to the public. So, but again, think of it literally as a Manhattan Project. These were the, these were the places where we did the Manhattan Project. When you think of Los Alamos and others. So we've got to mobilize these government agencies to help us on the current, the current crisis we're facing, which is this energy emergency.

AI assessment note: “I've got a great partner, Chris Wright, incredibly talented”