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A comment on Google Funding Construction of Seven U.S. Nuclear Reactors. Parent comment

Re:Google Funding Construction of Seven U.S. Nuclear Reactors by Dylan16807 on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @11:34PM (#41855357)
If you're not in Texas, there's such a thing as paying to keep capacity available, and then you don't lose money.

And power plants having individual finances in the first place is a policy choice, not a law of nature.

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Re:Google Funding Construction of Seven U.S. Nuclear Reactors by philwelch on Wednesday October 16, 2024 @01:06PM (#41861359)
We have a version of that in Texas, too. There are some commercial cryptocurrency mining operations that pay for a certain level of power capacity, and if the grid is running low on power, the grid just buys the capacity back from them and they stop mining for awhile.

If you find cryptocurrency mining objectionable for some reason, you could apply the same basic principle to things like aluminum refining or desalination.

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Re:Google Funding Construction of Seven U.S. Nuclear Reactors by Dylan16807 on Thursday October 17, 2024 @07:51PM (#41875005)
That's still only paying when the capacity is needed. It doesn't do a good job of incentivizing power sources/releases that are needed very rarely.
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