ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright says it’s critical that the nation be out in front when it comes to artificial intelligence, and that means having reliable and affordable sources of electricity to meet the growing demands of the technology sector.
Wright made the comments Tuesday before touring Sandia National Laboratories. On Monday, he visited Los Alamos National Laboratory, home to the top secret project during World War II that created the atomic bomb.
A fossil fuel executive and graduate of MIT, Wright highlighted the labs' legacies and said they will play a role in what he described as this generation's Manhattan Project — a critical scientific undertaking that will change the course of the world in ways yet to be imagined.
To win the AI race, he said the nation needs reliable and affordable electricity and the infrastructure to move it around.
“I'm a believer,” Wright said, adding that nuclear power will be part of the solution.
Federal energy analysts say the U.S. has generated more nuclear electricity than any other country and that plants here have supplied close to 20% of the nation's total annual electricity since 1990. That's enough to power more than 70 million homes.
Nuclear power makes up less of the world’s portfolio when it comes to generating energy than other sources, Wright said. That's despite plants having small footprints and running on small amounts of material that pack a big punch.
"It’s playing a shrinking role in our energy pot,” he said. “That doesn’t square.”
However, many states are looking to nuclear energy to fill the gap as more data centers come online and tech companies develop more energy-thirsty AI tools.
Arizona already is home to one of the nation's largest nuclear plants and utilities there have teamed up to explore the potential for building more. Meanwhile, California extended the life of its last operating nuclear plant with the help of more than $1 billion in federal funding. Officials say the Diablo Canyon plant is vital to California's power grid.
In Wyoming, TerraPower, a company started by Bill Gates, broke ground last summer on what officials say will be one of the first advanced reactors to operate in the U.S.
Nuclear power plants are fueled with uranium — the mining and milling of which is a major sticking point for environmentalists who point to legacy contamination from early operations in western U.S. states and on Native American lands. Concerns still swirl today, with some groups criticizing the revival of mining near the Grand Canyon.
The back end of the fuel cycle also is an issue, with commercial reactors across the country producing more than 2,000 metric tons of spent fuel annually, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Most of the waste remains at the sites that produce it because there’s nowhere else to put it.
Private companies plan to temporarily store spent fuel in New Mexico and West Texas. In the case of Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court is weighing whether federal regulators have the authority to grant licenses for such facilities to operate.
Barring a permanent solution, both Republican and Democratic leaders in the two states have said they don't want to become the nation's nuclear dumping ground.
Wright acknowledged the challenge of spent fuel, saying there are “some creative ideas” on the horizon that could lead to long-term storage solutions at multiple sites around the U.S.
U.S. President Donald Trump has set the stage, signing executive orders aimed at stoking American innovation when it comes to AI, declaring a national energy emergency and establishing a national council that will be focused on “energy dominance.”
The administration also supports a multibillion-dollar venture by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank that involves building data centers and the electricity generation needed for further AI development.
The Biden administration, too, had touted nuclear power as a way to meet demands without emitting greenhouse gases. The administration last year set a target of at least tripling nuclear power in the U.S. by 2050.
Standing in a corner of the national nuclear science museum in Albuquerque, Wright noted that the nation's nuclear history began in large part in New Mexico with the development of the atomic bomb.
There are many reasons for the lack of progress over recent decades, including government regulations he called overly burdensome. Beyond ensuring human safety, he said the high bars that have been set have stifled the development of next-generation nuclear power.
“Our goal is to get that out of the way, bring private businesses together, and figure out what kind of nudge we might need to get shovels in the ground and next-generation small modular reactors happening,” he said. “I think they will be part of the solution.”
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright talks with reporters at the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History before a tour of Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright talks with reporters at the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History before a tour of Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright talks with reporters at the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History before a tour of Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
DYERSVILLE, Iowa (AP) — Major League Baseball came back to the Field of Dreams carrying a big piece of Cooperstown.
The pregame pomp before the Minnesota Twins played the Philadelphia Phillies — adjacent to the farmland where the 1989 fantasy was filmed — featured 26 members of the Hall of Fame emerging from the outfield corn just as the ghost players did in the movie.
With some of the loudest cheers saved for former Phillies third baseman Mike Schmidt and former Twins catcher Joe Mauer, the capacity crowd of about 8,000 at the newly constructed ballpark in northeast Iowa soaked up the surreal atmosphere as the aged stars strolled into the infield for proper introductions.
Fireworks were launched from the cornfield during the national anthem, and Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber followed with his own big bang — a stalk shot to right on Twins starter Taj Bradley's third pitch of the game.
After stealing the show at the inaugural 2021 event, which was played on the same footprint at a temporary setup that also hosted the 2022 game, Kevin Costner did not appear.
But the star of the film — as the restless farmer Ray Kinsella who reconnects with his late father by playing catch on his front-yard ballfield — narrated the pregame video that helped pump some old-guard nostalgia through the new-school broadcast on global streaming giant Netflix.
Both teams emerged from the corn together to take their places along the lines like on opening day, and Twins All-Star Byron Buxton — who came off the injured list in the afternoon to play — took the microphone to evoke a line from James Earl Jones, who played the author Terence Mann in the movie.
“The one constant through all the years has been baseball," Buxton said before Schwarber followed with a brief script on an idyllic late-summer night after heavy rain moved through the area earlier in the day.
Then came the legends, and living ones at that, unlike those wool-clad lads in the movie.
Schmidt and Steve Carlton wore Phillies uniforms along with Jim Kaat, who played for both teams. Mauer and Bert Blyleven donned Twins jerseys. The others — Andruw Jones, Harold Baines, Fred McGriff, Adrián Beltré, Andre Dawson, Larry Walker, Cal Ripken Jr., Iván Rodríguez, Jim Thome, Scott Rolen, Tony Pérez, Tony La Russa, Jeff Kent, Fergie Jenkins, Joe Torre, CC Sabathia, Billy Wagner, Rollie Fingers, Lee Smith and Trevor Hoffman — helped form a half-ring around the diamond to represent about one-third of the Cooperstown contingent that's still alive.
This was the largest such gathering at a ballpark, not including the annual ceremonies at the Hall of Fame in upstate New York, since the All-Star Game in 2008 that feted the final season at old Yankee Stadium.
Before the game, Buxton played catch with his 12-year-old son on the nearby movie site that remains open to the public for no cost on non-event days. Twins manager Derek Shelton did the same with his 78-year-old father, a former educator who coached him on his high school baseball team. Shelton later complained that his arm was in weaker shape.
“You don’t get old enough that an experience like that is not emotional to be able to do something with your father,” Shelton said.
Phillies manager Don Mattingly, whose son just happens to be the club's general manager, found himself harkening back to Indiana childhood ballgames with his brothers upon arrival on the team bus.
“This place reminds me of when I was a kid,” Mattingly said. "You’d go down a dirt road, and all of sudden you’d see a cornfield and then there’d be a field there."
Both teams wore throwback uniforms — the Twins in home threads from their first season in 1961 and the Phillies in road jerseys circa 1940 — in step with the hand-operated scoreboard in right field.
The permanent ballpark built for all kinds of events — including the opportunity to host MLB games on a recurring basis — also has plenty of amenities with the video board in left field, a state-of-the-art sound system and, of course, indoor plumbing.
The feel of the farm was just as strong as the buzz of the ballpark, with natural sponsor John Deere pledging $100,000 per home run hit to hunger-relief organization Feeding America.
The special environment didn't erase the circumstance of the stretch run of the regular season, though, with both the Twins and Phillies in the thick of their respective wild-card races.
“We’re not in Minnesota for three days," Phillies star Bryce Harper said, "but we’re still playing the Twins three times and we've still got to win some games."
See AP’s full MLB coverage here
Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Jonathan Bowlan talks with Paul Scherrman, right, of Farley, Iowa, before a baseball game against the Minnesota Twins at the Field of Dreams movie site, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, in Dyersville, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Minnesota Twins manager Derek Shelton walks off the field after a team photo before a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies at the Field of Dreams movie site, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, in Dyersville, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Minnesota Twins pitcher Dean Kremer poses for a photo in a cornfield before a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies at the Field of Dreams movie site, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, in Dyersville, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Scoreboard workers look on before a baseball game between the Minnesota Twins and the Philadelphia Phillies at the Field of Dreams movie site, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, in Dyersville, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Players walk onto the field before a baseball game between the Minnesota Twins and the Philadelphia Phillies at the Field of Dreams movie site, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, in Dyersville, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
