Perry stirs gas versus coal fight

US energy secretary's subsidy plan gets a roasting

The US' natural gas producers have protested strongly against Rick Perry's proposed Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule, to help prop up struggling coal and nuclear power plants. The rule, which Perry has urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Ferc) to implement, would subsidise any power plant with stores of 90 days of fuel on site, ostensibly to bolster the reliability of North America's power grid. Since gas-fired plants rely on supply piped in as needed, and the wind and sun can't be stored, the benefits from the proposed rule would flow to coal and nuclear plants. It is the latest manoeuver in the Trump administration's fight to prop up America's coal industry. In the past 10 years, c