Fusion reactors: Not what they’re cracked up to be

Re:Fusion reactors: Not what they’re cracked up to be by WalterBright on Wednesday April 26, 2017 @04:07PM (#14206489)

Nobody ever mentions varying the price of electricity to reduce demand when the sun isn't shining. We need to get past the assumption that electricity prices should be fixed.

This won't solve the baseload problem, but it will reduce it.

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Re:Fusion reactors: Not what they’re cracked up to be by Retric on Wednesday April 26, 2017 @04:27PM (#14206652)

Electric prices have never been fixed at scale. It's really only small scale consumers that get a fixed but often higher rate. See Enron for example. Changing when energy is cheap does not break the model.

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Re:Fusion reactors: Not what they’re cracked up to be by WalterBright on Wednesday April 26, 2017 @08:41PM (#14208285)

My electric rates have been fixed rates 24/7 for decades.

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Re:Fusion reactors: Not what they’re cracked up to be by Retric on Wednesday April 26, 2017 @10:26PM (#14208747)

Are you using KW, MW, or GW of power?

So yea, residential customers get a fixed rate but that's because there is no point in demand based pricing. They simply charge you enough that it makes little difference what time of day you use slightly more power. In the future the same is likely to be true.

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Re:Fusion reactors: Not what they’re cracked up to be by WalterBright on Thursday April 27, 2017 @09:17PM (#14216217)

My own usage is inconsequential, but not the aggregate of all the consumers.

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