But the price of energy can be negative, so a new nuclear plant might never pay off its cost, even if it provides the public benefit of cheap electricity.
Is it case that the metric we're using does not show the actual price? https://www.squeaky.energy/blog/the-unintended-consequences-... shows a way to get "free" electricity on a regular basis, while it still costs consumers a very non-zero amount. In the case of solar, revenue could be achieved through out-of-market payments (CfD, power purchase agreements, renewable energy certificates).
Or is it the sign that the nightmare battery dominated grid is starting to happen? https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/05/20/the-unstoppabl...
Battery operators can choose between strategies designed to maximize revenue, profit, competitive advantage, or competitor losses, over any given timescale and with almost perfect deniability.
> That's not how this works though, energy abundance means industrial abundance, more energy availability (for cheap) would simply mean that demand will scale to meet the output.
If the price of electricity is negative, people will build stuff like aluminum smelters and desalination plants to use the excess energy, and electricity will cost money again.
> In economics, the Jevons paradox (/ˈdʒɛvənz/; sometimes Jevons effect) occurs when technological progress increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use), but the falling cost of use induces increases in demand enough that resource use is increased, rather than reduced.
> people will build stuff like aluminum smelters and desalination plants to use the excess energy, and electricity will cost money again.
But will electricity cost enough to justify the huge upfront cost of nuclear plants?
If we have the wealth to build capital-intensive projects that are marginally cost effective, it might be easier to build smelters and desalination plants that only run at 40% capacity, when the sun is out.
