Over the last few months, the Trump administration has made its disdain for renewable energy abundantly clear. At the President’s whim and command, legislators have slashed tax incentives for clean generation projects, derailed the offshore wind industry, and promised to stymie construction efforts on federal lands.
As electricity prices continue to increase nationwide, it’s reasonable to wonder why the federal government would want to take electrons off the grid or prevent the development of any form of generation technology, especially amidst a load growth crisis necessitated by data centers and artificial intelligence. Nevertheless, the Department of Energy has seemingly made it a point to disparage renewables by spreading half-truths and outright lies on social media.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s latest slight to solar is so absurd and misguided that it has caught the attention of the larger internet.
Even if you wrapped the entire planet in a solar panel, you would only be producing 20% of global energy.
One of the biggest mistakes politicians can make is equating the ELECTRICITY with ENERGY!
— Secretary Chris Wright (@SecretaryWright) September 2, 2025
Yes, you’re reading that correctly: The U.S. Energy Secretary got community noted by Twitter (still not calling it X).
As the internet hive mind was quick to point out, we would need to cover less than 1% of land with solar panels to power the entire planet. Perhaps a fundamental misunderstanding of solar’s potential is behind Wright’s distaste for clean energy?
The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) dunked on Wright with some facts just a couple of hours after the Energy Secretary’s post went up.
If we wrapped the entire planet in solar, we would produce more power in one HOUR than the world consumes in a YEAR.
It’s not either/or… its both/and. https://t.co/B4n7dgiKxR
— Solar and Storage Industry (@SEIA) September 2, 2025
Author and occasional contributor to Factor This, Dr. Michael E. Webber, was shaking his head, too.
This is horrendously wrong. Spectacularly wrong. https://t.co/C12ndIyDzF
— Michael E. Webber (@MichaelEWebber) September 3, 2025
IFP co-founder Alec Stapp made a simple suggestion:
If I were the Secretary of Energy, I would simply not make claims that are off by multiple orders of magnitude.
Solar + batteries are the future, and no amount of misinformation will change that. pic.twitter.com/TxCG3z5a8E
— Alec Stapp (@AlecStapp) September 3, 2025
Not so fast, argued fossil fuel favoritist Alex Epstein, who interprets Wright’s solar slander a little differently.
It’s always advisable to try to understand someone’s argument before trashing them. Especially if that someone is Chris Wright, who knows a lot about energy.
Wright’s point is that only 20% of global energy use today is electricity, and solar panels just generate electricity.… pic.twitter.com/Vf38bJQRDi
— Alex Epstein (@AlexEpstein) September 2, 2025
Regardless of your interpretation of Wright’s post (or more importantly, the impetus behind it), this isn’t the first time in recent memory that folks have had to step in and correct the record on renewables for the feds, far from it. SEIA has been particularly quick to point out the administration’s mistruths lately.
Oil and gas pipelines use 50x more land than solar.
Golf courses use almost 4x as much👀 https://t.co/Di6x2dFe6w pic.twitter.com/vNktjtDEqV
— Solar and Storage Industry (@SEIA) August 25, 2025
The renewable energy culture wars are still alive and well, readers.
