Proponents of molten salt reactor designs like Natura Resources' MSR-100 say the reactors offer significant safety and reliability benefits over traditional reactors. | Natura Resources

February 28, 2025

Happy Friday! Welcome to the end of the week, the end of February and another weekly email from ERO Insider! It’s no secret we like to look up funny holidays to put in the newsletter, and while we didn’t see any holidays that were particularly strange on their own, it did give us a chuckle that today is both National Chocolate Souffle Day and National Tooth Fairy Day. It does make sense to indulge a sweet tooth that you’re going to leave under your pillow anyway, we suppose.

On with this week’s stories, and we start with a webinar from the Texas Reliability Entity in which presenters discussed the new nuclear reactor designs that are emerging and their potential impact on grid reliability. Holden Mann listened in on the webinar, and he’s got more from the discussion inside. (See Texas RE Hears About Reliability Benefits of New Nuclear Reactor Designs.) 

Attacking operational technology and industrial control systems is only getting easier for malicious cyber actors, cybersecurity firm Dragos said in its Year in Review report released this week. Click through for key findings from the report, including the most dangerous new threat groups identified last year. (See Dragos: Attacks on ICS Increased in 2024.) 

A group of planning authorities from the Eastern and Central U.S. has urged FERC not to rely solely on NERC’s Interregional Transfer Capability Study to guide additions to transfer capability on the U.S. grid. We’ve got the details on their concerns about the report inside. (See EIPC: Transmission Studies Need More ‘Granularity’.) 

Thanks for joining us this week! We’ll be back next week with more news from the world of electric reliability. Until then, enjoy your weekend and have a chocolate souffle! 

Upcoming Stakeholder Meetings:

• 3/11/25: SERC Long Term Reliability Assessment Webinar
  
• 3/11/25: Talk with Texas RE: Protection Systems and IBRs