
Columbia Energy Exchange Alex Fitzsimmons on the DOE's 'Energy Dominance' Agenda
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Feb 17, 2026 Alex Fitzsimmons, Acting Under Secretary of Energy and head of CESER, guides efforts to secure U.S. energy infrastructure against cyber and physical threats. He discusses evolving cyber threats, tools and partnerships for grid resilience, trade-offs between speed and security in rapid build-outs, the role of dispatchable capacity and nuclear, transmission priorities to lower costs, and reshoring critical supply chains.
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Rapid Build-Out Expands Attack Surface
- Rapid build-out adds hundreds of thousands of grid components that are largely untested from a cyber standpoint.
- Prioritizing supply-chain testing yields high security returns as load growth accelerates.
AI-Driven Load Growth: Risk And Opportunity
- Surging electricity demand driven by AI and manufacturing is both a vulnerability and an opportunity.
- The U.S. must lead in innovation and deploy reliable, dispatchable generation to meet that demand.
Prioritize Dispatchable Capacity For Peaks
- Prioritize reliable, dispatchable resources (natural gas, coal, nuclear) for peak-demand resilience.
- Avoid prematurely retiring those plants before adequate firm capacity replacements exist.
