WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump mentioned on Saturday that oil and gasoline trade govt Chris Wright, a staunch defender of fossil gasoline use, could be his decide to steer the Division of Power.

Wright is the founder and CEO of Liberty Power, an oilfield companies agency based mostly in Denver. He’s anticipated to assist Trump’s plan to maximise manufacturing of oil and gasoline and to hunt methods to spice up technology of electrical energy, demand for which is rising for the primary time in a long time.

He’s additionally more likely to share Trump’s opposition to world cooperation on combating local weather change. Wright has referred to as local weather change activists alarmist and has likened efforts by Democrats to fight world warming to Soviet-style communism.

“There isn’t a local weather disaster, and we’re not within the midst of an power transition, both,” Wright mentioned in a video posted to his LinkedIn profile final 12 months.

Wright, who doesn’t have any political expertise, has written extensively on the necessity for extra fossil gasoline manufacturing to raise individuals out of poverty.

He has stood out amongst oil and gasoline executives for his freewheeling type, and describes himself as a tech nerd.

Wright made a media splash in 2019 when he drank fracking fluid on digital camera to exhibit it was not harmful.

U.S. oil output hit the best stage any nation has ever produced beneath Biden, and it’s unsure how a lot Wright and the incoming administration may increase that.

Most drilling choices are pushed by personal corporations engaged on land not owned by the federal authorities.

The Division of Power handles U.S. power diplomacy, administers the Strategic Petroleum Reserve – which Trump has mentioned he needs to replenish – and runs grant and mortgage packages to advance power applied sciences, such because the Mortgage Packages Workplace.

The secretary additionally oversees the getting old U.S. nuclear weapons advanced, nuclear power waste disposal, and 17 nationwide labs.

If confirmed by the Senate, Wright will change Jennifer Granholm, a supporter of electrical automobiles, rising power sources like geothermal energy and a backer of carbon-free wind, photo voltaic and nuclear power.

Wright may also probably be concerned in allowing of electrical energy transmission and the growth of nuclear energy, an power supply that’s fashionable with each Republicans and Democrats however which is dear and complex to allow.

Energy demand in the USA is surging for the primary time in twenty years amid progress in synthetic intelligence, electrical automobiles and cryptocurrencies.