Secretary Wright Delivers Opening Remarks to the IAEA for the ATLAS Launch - August 26, 2026

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for traveling here for this event. I know many of you came from overseas on longer trips, but this is a very exciting day and a very exciting venture. We're trying to marry together advances in energy technology with shipping. Energy, shipping, trade, transport, these are central to the quality of life in our world. They're central to the quality of life in our world today, and they always have been. If you look back at history, just the broad sweep of human history, to me the simplest metric is life expectancy, global life expectancy at birth. It's far back in time before agriculture. Of course, we don't have great data. There's a range of estimates, but they center around 30 years. 20,000 years ago, maybe average life expectancy at birth was 30 years. 200 years ago, we had a lot better data, a lot larger population, a lot different society, but if we looked broadly at estimates of global life expectancy at birth, 200 years ago, about 30 years. Maybe a little more. Some would argue a little less, but not meaningfully different than where we were 20,000 years ago. The world had changed a lot, but the lot in life of the average person had not. Today, global life expectancy at birth is over 70 years. Just absolutely transformative. Now, history changes throughout the whole course, but it's hard to not observe that the greatest correlation between this growth in human life expectancy is growth in energy consumption. We brought modern energy into the world. The world throughout all of time ran dominantly on wood for thermal energy and humans and draft animals for mechanical energy. The arrival of modern energy first in the form of coal, then oil, then natural gas, and then all what I call the derivative energy sources that are only possible because of coal, oil, and gas, like geothermal power, hydropower, nuclear power, wind, solar, energy storage, all of these are enabled by hydrocarbons. But that change in the human condition came from a change in the energy system. And I would say the last 10 or 20 years, parts of the world, not most of the world, but parts of the world have gotten off track. Energy has become a political thing. This sounds good. This is in fashion. We're going to change our energy system to this. And we have seen for the first time in human history, a number of countries, even states in the United States, that made energy prices massively more expensive and that actually produce less energy today than they did 10 years ago. That did not exist without war, famine, or disaster in human history, but we've seen it creep into energy policy, particularly in the wealthy world around. I was thrilled when President Trump invited me to become the energy secretary with a simple mission. We're going to do math. We're going to see what energy forms or systems are best for the human condition, what's going to make our citizens able to pay their bills easier, grow their job opportunities, increase the economic and national security of the United States, and our friends and allies abroad. So I have continued my lifelong mission on energy in the Trump administration to better energize our world. I can say another thing that is tracked nicely with human progress, and that's trade. The invention of technologies and innovations, if you look back in history, these things happen faster when people trade and engage. This society or tribe was good at this, and then they interacted with this tribe, and when they put innovations from those two tribes together, you see faster human progress. The interaction in trade of peoples over long distances has been a major driver, a major driver of human progress. So how awesome is it that here we are, here we are bringing together energy and trade in one conference to see a vision of where this might go? That's not an easy vision. That's got regulatory challenges, technology challenges, investment challenges coming together across the different nations. How are we going to regulate nuclear power both as a propulsion source or as an electric generating or process heat generating source on a ship? That's why we're all here. This is a challenge, but of course we can solve it. A few thoughts on shipping. If I look at shipping, of course, 3,000 years ago, the Phoenicians had an incredibly successful society in trade all across the Mediterranean. They brought us the alphabet. That is the basis of the Greek and Roman and at least the European languages' alphabets. Phoenicians were awesome innovators and entrepreneurs. And we got steamships, ships, large scale ships and transport became dominated by coal. We switched to oil maybe 100 years ago, dominantly switched to oil. First fuel oil, bunker oil, sort of the bottom of the barrel in refinery. We said we want a cleaner, more energy dense, more dependable fuel. We've ultimately switched to ultra low sulfur diesel fuel as the dominant propulsion system for shipping today. Although there's migration there too. Natural gas is cheaper and burns yet cleaner. So we're seeing shipping move to natural gas. And just like our energy evolution, what's the next step? What's the next step in that road? Nuclear. And even more energy dense, even greater power that can be delivered longer time between refueling. Imagine shipping where refueling is maybe it's every few years. It's not every voyage. It's not in that. Maybe we can have additional power and we can ship faster. Same number of ships can bring more goods. We can lower the cost of trade and transport between nations. I should stop talking because I get too excited. But I think it's a great vision. It's a great vision that we all have. And I thank everyone for coming together. It won't happen overnight. But if you look at nuclear in this country, you know, we first developed power to light light bulbs at our Idaho National Lab in 1951, before most everyone in this room was born. We had a surge of development in the United States of about 100 nuclear reactors built, really launched and built over two or three decades. And we had a pause. I think the world again, as it as it often does, kind of kind of lost its way a little bit. Maybe our nuclear industry wasn't perfect. People lost confidence and the industry just stagnated for several decades. In the United States, nuclear went from nonexistent to 20% of all our electric generating relatively quickly. And where is it today? Just under 20%. We haven't moved for several decades. But in the Trump administration, and for the innovators across our country, we said we're going to revitalize nuclear. We're going to look at different technologies, inherent safety. We're going to let the marketplace, not a top-down government control, drive innovation. We set bold goals last spring. And we have not just achieved those goals, but exceeded those goals. Goals on small reactors, goals on reactors in space, reactors in remote locations, mid-sized reactors, revitalizing large reactors. We are all in in driving a nuclear renaissance in the United States. And other countries in the world are working aggressively on nuclear innovation as well. So let's marry that progress and innovation with shipping and trade and bringing all of our nations together and lead to a better world. I'll stop my opening remarks there. And on behalf of the United States of America, I'll read our delegation statement as we kick off. I can't wait to hear everyone's statements from the different countries. We all have different visions or perspective on this. That's exactly what we need to find the right technologies, the right regulatory regime, the right path forward. That's going to take the nations of the world and coordinate it and centralize by the International Atomic Energy Agency. That is the agency of credibility and safety that will work as a coordinating body to make sure that we don't make the mistakes in the past in nuclear energy, that we build public trust and they celebrate this next generation of where we're going. Because I look as an energy guy, if you look at energy produced per deaths or per human impacts, the safest form of energy we have on planet Earth by a fair margin is nuclear energy. I am highly, highly confident it will be the safest form of transport energy and safest form of delivering electricity to countries that don't have nuclear power yet but may get it from nuclear ships offshore, at least at the start. All the tools are there for massive success. But it's up to us. So I want to thank Director General Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Association. I want to thank those from the International Maritime Organization that are here. We need the people, we need the nations of the world, the citizens of the world, and our agencies in shipping and nuclear to drive a successful future here. I am highly confident it will be achieved. But it will take time, it will take work, and we start today. So to read this statement for the United States of America, I'm excited to join you today at the Atlas Ministerial as we deepen our international partnership to accelerate the safe and secure deployment of peaceful nuclear applications at sea. This initiative is yet another dimension of President Trump's efforts to lead the United States into the golden era of nuclear energy. Last May, when he signed four executive orders on nuclear power, he directed the administration and the U.S. nuclear sector to modernize regulations and increase process efficiencies, streamline advanced reactor testing, deploy reactors for national security, and rebuild the nuclear industrial base. The United States continues to invest in research, demonstration, and commercialization pathways, and is achieving results at a pace not seen in generations. Across our government, departments and agencies are working on all fronts to drive these efforts forward, including through the Department of Energy's Launchpad, the State Department's FIRST program, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's efforts to help ensure that the deployment of nuclear reactors is done responsibly. These efforts improve the readiness of the entire nuclear ecosystem to support maritime applications. Because of that, we share a responsibility to make sure these developments in peaceful nuclear applications at sea move forward under the highest standards of safety, security, and safeguards. This is why Atlas matters. It is a crucial international forum where we can shape the principles and expectations that will guide the development and operation of civil nuclear-powered ships and floating nuclear power plants. The United States approaches Atlas with several priorities for the development of peaceful nuclear applications at sea via the proposed Atlas project groups. First, on safeguards, we support effective and efficient approaches that allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to meet its objectives throughout the full lifecycle of a civil nuclear-powered ship or floating nuclear power plant. Regulators, the IAEA, designers, and operators working together from the start will be essential to make this successful. As more states explore these technologies, it will also be important for any state taking on safeguards responsibility to have a strong regulatory system and the capacity to meet its obligations. Second, on nuclear security, every state should carry responsibility for the material and activities under its jurisdiction, including in its territorial waters. That principle does not change at sea, but fulfilling these responsibilities will involve maintaining capable authorities, clear lines of communication, and practical cooperation during transit or operation. Existing instruments, including the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and its amendment, remain central to this effort, and we encourage all states that have not joined the convention and its amendment to do so. Third, on safety, we start from an established body of IAEA standards and international maritime organization treaties and codes. Coordination between nuclear and maritime regulators will be vital, but so too will be coordination between the regulators of flag states and regulators of territories where these reactors are deployed, both of which the United States views as having a role in licensing and operational oversight. In the United States, our regulators are starting on the path to address how licensing and certification for these systems would function, and we encourage others to do the same. Fourth, on legal and regulatory frameworks, we have a complex mix of international instruments across the nuclear and maritime domains. These frameworks address many legal questions presented by floating nuclear power plants and civil nuclear-powered vessels. We look forward to working with all of you to identify any legal and regulatory open questions to complement the vital work of the safeguards and security groups. Fifth, on maritime classification, classification societies remain core to maritime safety. Their early involvement will help ensure new systems meet both nuclear and marine standard innovations. We welcome the chance to build a common understanding of how classification bodies can contribute to responsible deployment. Finally, on industry engagement, ATLAS will benefit from understanding how designers and operators see the path ahead. Their insights will help the technical groups target their work, where it can be the most impactful to enable deployment. In the last three months alone, the U.S. nuclear industry has achieved criticality on five new advanced reactor designs, with more major milestones expected in the coming months. These developments will directly support maritime nuclear applications. The United States is encouraging our industry to participate actively, and we hope other member states will do the same. This ministerial is the beginning of a long effort, but it is an important beginning. The choices we make now will shape how nuclear applications at sea are developed, deployed, and governed for years to come. The United States looks forward to working with the IAEA, IMO, and member state delegations represented here. Together, we can build strong partnerships that strengthen safety, security, and safeguards, supports innovation, and reflects our shared commitment to international cooperation in the nuclear field. Thank you all so much.