I suppose this could be handled with some kind of roof price (with the lost money being inserted as some kind of fixed surcharge on the bill or something like that). That would allow reaping most of the benefits of spot pricing without risking bankruptcy during a crisis.
There's a name for it: "rolling blackouts". Texas had them, they're also popular in California.
Another name for it is "shortages". Shortages happen when prices are fixed. Having fixed prices does not at all mean there's enough for everyone. Someone's gonna do without.
Of the two states you mentioned, California is also faceing a housing shortage. I would hazard that the same factors that are causing that shortage are in play for their power problems as well.
No they don't.
> See most of what is happening durring the pandemic. I can assure you the price of containers and wood have not been fixed.
The price of car batteries has doubled. But they're readily available. Why do you think all those prices have gone up?
Same as ECM for cars. You think that Ford, GM or Toyota would not pay a bit extra to be able to sell cars?
Wood saw a huge price increase but also ran out.
Right now try to source tires. Distributors don't have them, you might be able to find 1 or 2 if you are lucky but you could offer double or triple and you still couldn't buy in volume. Material is not available.
You could buy them from someone who has them. There's a price at which anyone will sell. The problem then becomes the price you'd have to charge for the cars is too much, but someone who is willing to pay that price could still buy them.
Which is why new car prices are up substantially.
If prices were set by law, this couldn't happen (legally). So then the shortages are real.
Or another example: So if I am willing to pay anything, I can get the Mona Lisa? and if you are willing to pay anything, you can get the Mona Lisa as well? There is only one.
But to bring this back to the original topic of the thread, since we have determined that money is no object, why not spend that money to build nuclear power plants.
In many areas wholesale markets work on a spot price basis (although players in the market can of course hedge against low/high prices), but consumers have been very reluctant to go with spot price contracts.
This will probably not be helped by the experience of those consumers in Texas who got $10000 electricity bills during last winter's storm, as the prices skyrocketed.