Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Here's the latest, President Trump tasing an energy deal with
Speaker 2: China after both countries reach a tariff and rare Earth
Speaker 2: agreement joining US now. I am so pleased to say,
Speaker 2: is US Energy Secretary Chris right from Toronto where he
Speaker 2: is in the G seven meetings with other world leaders
Speaker 2: talking about energy and what can be done to build
Speaker 2: out US Energy Secretary, thank you so much for being
Speaker 2: with us. I want to start with this deal that
Speaker 2: President Trump was hinting at with China, talking about Alaska oil.
Speaker 2: What details can you provide us with? What contours of
Speaker 2: this transaction do you expect to come to light.
Speaker 1: Look that China is by far the world's largest importer
Speaker 1: of oil and importer of natural gas. The US is
Speaker 1: by far the world's largest exporter of natural gas and
Speaker 1: by far the world's largest producer of oil. So there's
Speaker 1: so much space for mutually beneficial deal between the US
Speaker 1: and China. Alaska was mentioned in that deal Dialogue's enormous
Speaker 1: reserves on the Alaskan slope. They've been strangled by the
Speaker 1: Biden administration and Alaskan production has been in decline, but
Speaker 1: lots of room for that production to grow lots of
Speaker 1: room to bring natural gas from the north slope of
Speaker 1: Alaska and bring that to all of our allies along
Speaker 1: the East Asian Rim, or frankly anywhere in the world.
Speaker 1: But President Trump is just a master negotiator. He finds
Speaker 1: out what is it that's critical to the Chinese, what
Speaker 1: is it that's critical to the United States, and finds
Speaker 1: that sweet spot of a deal that works for both countries.
Speaker 3: Could potentially the United States fill a gap if China
Speaker 3: decides to buy less energy from Russia, especially since the
Speaker 3: US government sanctioned Royceneft and Luke Oil.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Absolutely, today the US produces fifty percent more oil
Speaker 1: than Russia or Saudi Arabia, and it just puts not
Speaker 1: just the United States, but the world in a better position.
Speaker 1: Can we squish out half of Russian oil exports and
Speaker 1: still have a roughly balanced oil market? Absolutely we can.
Speaker 1: Have you been in.
Speaker 3: Touch as well with your counterparts in South Korea? The
Speaker 3: President coming back on this strip, talked about the tariff
Speaker 3: right in South Korea and the plan for them to
Speaker 3: buy oil and gas in vast quantities part of that
Speaker 3: trade deal.
Speaker 1: Yes, you know, I've been in dialogues with the Korean
Speaker 1: staff since I arrived in the office. You know, Korea
Speaker 1: is a great industrial nation, also short on energy resources
Speaker 1: but long on other assets. So yeah, lots of room
Speaker 1: for United States to grow our role in supplying natural gas, oil,
Speaker 1: and frankly nuclear technology to South Korea.
Speaker 3: I bring this up because it sounds like, are you
Speaker 3: preparing some sort of trip to the Asia Pacific if
Speaker 3: you have to meet with your Chinese counterparts and your
Speaker 3: South Korean counterparts for the United States to send more
Speaker 3: energy to that part of the world.
Speaker 1: Oh, I go wherever the President tells me. But yes,
Speaker 1: I would be going to Asian in a few weeks,
Speaker 1: and heck, I may be going sooner than that. You know,
Speaker 1: I'll get debriefed from all the dialogues and all what
Speaker 1: must be done promptly in the follow up. Could be
Speaker 1: heading there very shortly, but I don't know about that
Speaker 1: right now. But of course Asia is the center of
Speaker 1: the world economy after the United States, So yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a critical alliance, is critical partnerships and critical oil demand sources.
Speaker 2: Mister Secretary, I feel like we should have a map
Speaker 2: here of all the places where you've got trips planned
Speaker 2: because I suspect that you're going to be heading to
Speaker 2: Greece soon too, and the old idea of how much
Speaker 2: the US is exporting in terms of energy to the
Speaker 2: European region, especially as they reduce reliance on Russia. Can
Speaker 2: you tell us anything about how that relationship is developing.
Speaker 1: Actually, it's been great dialogues. I think the European nations.
Speaker 1: The war in Ukraine really crystallized. Yes, it wasn't a
Speaker 1: good idea to have all of our key energy supply
Speaker 1: coming from Russia, largest supplier of oil to them, largest
Speaker 1: supplier of natural gas to them, largest supplier of coal
Speaker 1: to Europe, and the United States has slid in to
Speaker 1: display Russia as the largest supplier of natural gas to Europe.
Speaker 1: We can do the same thing with oil, and I
Speaker 1: think we're today the second largest supplier of coal to Europe.
Speaker 1: So I think there's mutual agreement on on both sides. There.
Speaker 1: Certainly there's some regulations in Europe cs Triple D, which
Speaker 1: is just a way overreach in the regulatory regime that's
Speaker 1: going to make it sticky to ramp up energy movement
Speaker 1: as fast as we'd like. But we're in constant dialogue
Speaker 1: to fix those problems. I'm excited about the future relationship
Speaker 1: between the European nations and the United States. It's always
Speaker 1: been good, but I think it's going to grow a lot,
Speaker 1: Mister Secretary.
Speaker 2: A lot of people come on the show talk about
Speaker 2: their concerns about higher energy prices in the United States.
Speaker 2: They talk about artificial intelligence, the power demands, the inability
Speaker 2: to really provide the energy that would be required to
Speaker 2: expand at the pace that a lot of AI giants
Speaker 2: are talking about.
Speaker 1: How do you plan to mitigate that?
Speaker 2: Is there a level at which power prices get so
Speaker 2: expensive that Theited States will reduce some of the exports
Speaker 2: to the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: Well, they are actually different factors that control them. Like
Speaker 1: our large exports of natural gas today are actually still
Speaker 1: relatively modest compared to the amount of gas we produce,
Speaker 1: and we can easily produce vastly more natural gas today.
Speaker 1: So power prices. The problem isn't the price of natural gas.
Speaker 1: The problem is the infrastructure, you know, generation facilities, transmission lines.
Speaker 1: The Biden administration for four years forced the closure of
Speaker 1: a lot of coal plants, a few gas plants, prevented
Speaker 1: the building of new coal and natural gas power plants.
Speaker 1: They said, they built a lot of unreliable, intermittent electricity
Speaker 1: that's spread all over the country that takes more transmission assets.
Speaker 1: All of that goes into the rate base and has
Speaker 1: pushed up prices. Frankly, it's part of the reason why
Speaker 1: President Trump got elected. So we're having to reverse all
Speaker 1: those things. Stop the closure of coal plants, make it
Speaker 1: easier to build new natural gas plants, make new sources
Speaker 1: that want to come on be successful commercially, not dependent
Speaker 1: upon subsidies, and not require massive new transmission investments that
Speaker 1: all just go on to the rate payers. So we're
Speaker 1: doing a lot of things at FIRK. We had a
Speaker 1: big announcement last Thursday. I probably can't go into here,
Speaker 1: but specifically aimed at artificial intelligence, how we can speed
Speaker 1: new firm generation without driving up the price of electricity.
Speaker 1: I share the American consumers' worries about the recent rises
Speaker 1: and price of electricity over the last four years, and
Speaker 1: I'm working seven days a week to stop those price
Speaker 1: rises and enable the United States to lead in artificial intelligence.
Speaker 3: We've seen one of the most significant significant announcements from
Speaker 3: this administration when it comes to nuclear The government is
Speaker 3: planning this partnership eighty billion dollars for nuclear reactors with
Speaker 3: a Canadian company, Westinghouse. Who will develop them? And where
Speaker 3: can you give us more details about this?
Speaker 1: Oh? I would call Westinghouse an American company. It's a
Speaker 1: legacy American company and its majority owned by the Americans.
Speaker 1: It has a Canadian partner in Chemico, but it's an
Speaker 1: American company. This is a plan to partner across the
Speaker 1: country at a few different locations to build. As you
Speaker 1: saw in the announcement, they gave dollar amounts, but a
Speaker 1: large amount of power. Think of order ten gigawatts of
Speaker 1: new electric generating production capacity, and to do it in
Speaker 1: a way that's efficient. So instead of one here and
Speaker 1: one starting a few years later, we want to stage
Speaker 1: in the construction of these plants to most efficiently use
Speaker 1: construction workers, assemblers, fabrication so that we lower the cost
Speaker 1: of nuclear generation, restand up the supply chain in the
Speaker 1: United States. This is quite an exciting project and more
Speaker 1: details will come out as we fill in. As we
Speaker 1: fill in those dots. But the President Trump promised to
Speaker 1: relaunch nuclear energy, unleash a nuclear renaissance in the United States.
Speaker 1: This is a big part of that.
Speaker 3: Effort, and just I wanted to get your take on
Speaker 3: a reversal we've seen from Bill Gates, someone who's long
Speaker 3: talked about climate change, he's sort of pivoting his stance,
Speaker 3: and according to his staff, you recently met with him,
Speaker 3: did you have a hand in how now he's talking
Speaker 3: about energy.
Speaker 1: I've had multiple great dialogues with Bill Gates over the
Speaker 1: last year, at multiple times and at some length. Of course,
Speaker 1: he's a very thoughtful, successful entrepreneur, and climate change is
Speaker 1: a real thing. It's a real challenge. It's just not
Speaker 1: remotely close to the world's top challenge. And the problem
Speaker 1: is by putting it the top challenge, the ineffective things
Speaker 1: governments have done have raised the price of energy, lowered
Speaker 1: the reliability of the energy system, and they've stood in
Speaker 1: the way of efforts to combat hunger, food insecurity, energy security, education,
Speaker 1: and all the other global challenges. So, yeah, Bill and
Speaker 1: I have had great dialogues. He's done fabulous stuff and
Speaker 1: public health around the world, and I'm thrilled to see
Speaker 1: him talk in a more candid way about this issue.
Speaker 2: US Energy Secretary Chris Right, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: your time fun up there in Toronto,