Chris Wright

Built World

In office since February 2025

Seventy percent of America's power lines and transformers are over 25 years old, and nearly a third of transmission infrastructure has passed its useful life. Now electricity demand is rising at its fastest pace in decades, driven by data centers powering artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, and reshored manufacturing. The Department of Energy just committed $1.9 billion to a program called SPARK that funds a deceptively simple fix: swapping old wires on existing towers for advanced conductors that can carry up to double the electricity, without the decade-long permitting fights required for new power lines.

Updated Mar 12

Rule Changes

Leading nuclear energy expansion

The Department of Energy has quietly rewritten its nuclear safety rules, removing over 750 pages of requirements—including the decades-old ALARA standard that kept radiation exposure 'as low as reasonably achievable.' The changes, shared only with regulated companies and not the public, aim to clear the path for experimental reactors to achieve criticality by July 4, 2026—a timeline nuclear experts call 'a pretty big understatement' in terms of its aggressiveness. In August 2025, Aalo Atomics broke ground on the nation's first experimental reactor under the new rules at Idaho National Laboratory, though DOE Secretary Chris Wright later acknowledged only one or two reactors might meet the July deadline.

Updated Jan 31

Rule Changes

Leading Trump administration's nuclear expansion push

The United States has cancelled more nuclear reactors than any other country has ever built. Of 253 reactors ordered between 1953 and 2008, only 27% are still operating—48% were cancelled outright, 11% shut down early. The last reactor ordered before a 34-year gap was in 1978, one year before Three Mile Island.

Updated Jan 30

Built World

In office since February 2025

The United States performed less than 1% of global uranium enrichment when the Department of Energy announced $2.7 billion in contracts to three companies on January 21, 2026. Russia controls 44% of global enrichment capacity and supplied roughly a quarter of American reactor fuel until Congress banned imports in 2024. The last U.S.-owned enrichment facility shut down in 2013.

Updated Jan 24

Rule Changes

Leading administration efforts to accelerate data center grid connections

For decades, American households have paid roughly the same share of electricity costs regardless of which industries were expanding. AI data centers have broken that arrangement. In 2025, regions with concentrated data center activity saw wholesale electricity prices rise as much as 267% over five years, with the PJM grid operator—serving 65 million people across 13 states—projecting $100 billion in extra consumer costs through 2033 unless something changes.

Updated Jan 13

New Capabilities

Leading Genesis Mission implementation

The White House mobilized America's 17 national laboratories and tech's biggest players—OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA—for what officials call the AI equivalent of the Manhattan Project. The Genesis Mission aims to double US research productivity in a decade by connecting supercomputers, quantum systems, and AI into one discovery platform. Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced 24 corporate partners at a January 11 summit, each signing up to cement American technological dominance. Days later, OpenAI and SoftBank committed $1 billion to a 1.2-gigawatt Texas data center, while NVIDIA's Jensen Huang unveiled hardware promising AI tokens at one-tenth the cost.

Updated Jan 13

Built World

Cancelled an Israel visit amid the deal’s October 2025 stall

A day after Israel approved the Leviathan-to-Egypt export permit, Egypt’s State Information Service publicly stepped in to reframe the agreement as a strictly commercial arrangement concluded by private energy companies—an attempt to firewall the gas lifeline from Gaza-war politics.

Updated Dec 20, 2025