Back in May 2015, I presented a paper in Houston on the resilience of natural gas and oil pipelines and their relationship to the power sector. The audience was polite, but few people were interested in resilience. How things have changed!
Secretary of Energy Rick Perry’s use of the term “resilience” has created havoc and dismay over compensating coal- and nuclear-fired power plants to participate in energy markets. The resilience genie is out of the bottle and it remains to be seen whether coal, nuclear, or other power plants will be compensated as proposed by the secretary. Nevertheless, future discussions in electricity circles are sure to go beyond electric reliability and include robust discussions of resilience. I discuss the difference between reliability and resilence, start-up characteristics of nuclear and fossil-fired power plants, what roles States may play, and whether the rule will require a NEPA environmental review. Read more