The performance of North American nuclear power plants during the electric power blackout of August 14, 2003

On August 14, 2003, an estimated 50 million people in large areas of the Midwest and Northeast US and of the Canadian province of Ontario, experienced a legendary electric power blackout. This event involved some 62 thousand megawatts of electric load at more than 260 power plants in 8 US states and the province of Ontario. Within less than a minute, 20 nuclear power plants tripped or disconnected from the grid, including 9 nuclear units in the US and 11 in Canada. President George W. Bush and then-Prime Minister Jean Chretien directed that a joint US-Canada Power System Outage Task Force be established to investigate the causes of the blackout and ways to reduce the possibility of future outages. Based on 3 reports issued within the year following the blackout, this article highlights the key Task Force's findings and recommendations, with a particular emphasis given to the performance of nuclear power plants affected by the blackout, and from the author's perspective as an appointed member to the Task Force's Nuclear Working Group. In fact, and most importantly, providing confirmation that nuclear power plants did not trigger the blackout or inappropriately contributed to its spread.