3 ms·

We're on the same page here. Grid level storage does not exist. Then again 20 years ago grid level solar didn't exist. All infrastructure investment involves s

We're on the same page here. Grid level storage does not exist. Then again 20 years ago grid level solar didn't exist. All infrastructure investment involves some degree of fore-sight, and good luck (in picking the winner.) Private markets will tend to favor the most likely winners, leaving govt to support the outsiders. And govt may get lucky. But more likely they'll just do nothing. Politically no choice is better than the wrong choice. We could observe models from public-monopoly places. That frees up long-term planning while locking in fixed prices. That approach can be very effective and efficient. It can also go badly wrong. I'm not discounting any possibility here. Anything could still win. But the odds for nuclear are not looking great to me.

realusername 3y ago
> Private markets will tend to favor the most likely winners, leaving govt to support the outsider I don't really agree, private market favors tend to favor not the winners but the most profitable part of the grid and let the state or other people manage with the rest. Electricity is one of the worst place to get private markets, it's hard to divide (natural monopoly), critically need 100% uptime regardless of the costs and the only reason we're even switching generation tech at all is because of bad externalities which private market are also bad at. Then there's also the diplomatic angle, we can't depend from Russia or China from our energy either, regardless if it's cheaper or not. Sure there's other issues with the public model of electricity but at least it can work if done well whereas I'm betting on a 100% failure rate with a private one, like we're heading right now since we opened up the markets in the EU (and elsewhere)