US agencies working on critical plant list
10 August 2018
The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is working with the US Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Security Council (NSC) to identify power plants that are "critical" to the nation's power grid, according to the regulator's chief of staff.
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FERC is examining resilience of the US grid (Image: Pixabay)
"We are working with DOD and DOE and NSC to identify the plants that we think would be absolutely critical to ensuring that not only our military bases but things like hospitals and other critical infrastructure are able to be maintained, regardless of what natural or man-made disasters might occur," Anthony Pugliese said to the American Nuclear Society, in remarks shared by Rod Adams of Atomic Insights and reported in E&E News.
FERC earlier this year launched a proceeding to examine the resilience of the US grid after terminating proceedings on a proposed rulemaking on grid resilience and reliability from US Energy Secretary Rick Perry. Perry's proposed rulemaking would have recognised the attributes of generation sources able to store fuel on site, such as nuclear. FERC instead directed the regional transmission organisations (RTOs) and independent system operators (ISOs) - the bodies that operate the USA's power grid - to assess the resilience of the electricity grid and to recommend additional actions to mitigate any identified issues.
US President Donald Trump in June directed Perry to take immediate action to stop the loss of "fuel-secure power facilities" from the country's power grid, including nuclear power plants that are facing premature retirement. Later the same month, a group of 75 senior US figures, including former statesmen, military, industrial and academic leaders, wrote to Perry imploring him to take immediate action to prevent the closure of reactors, citing the contribution of nuclear power to national security.
"It is incredibly important to the national security of the United States that we ensure that some of these critical assets like these nuclear plants do not go the way of the dodo bird," Pugliese said.
According to E&E News, FERC spokesman Craig Cano said Pugliese was "simply stating that the federal government is working to ensure that important critical infrastructure" remains operational. "FERC is an independent agency and therefore has not assisted in the development of policy but provides technical assistance as subject matter experts," Cano said.
Researched and written by World Nuclear News