> Second, natural gas plants don't operate 24x365; the figures I see say 27%(!) to 71%. Even nuclear varies between low 70s and low 80s percentages: This is be

> Second, natural gas plants don't operate 24x365; the figures I see say 27%(!) to 71%. Even nuclear varies between low 70s and low 80s percentages: This is because gas plants are commonly used as peaking power plants because they can respond to load changes very quickly; cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant "Peaker plants are generally gas turbines or gas engines that burn natural gas. A few burn biogas or petroleum-derived liquids, […]" A nuclear power plant is the diametral opposite, it's slow as a behemoth to change output power — it's essentially required to run at those high capacity factors. (That said, gas power plants designed and built as peaker plants may not in fact even be able to run 24×365 since they're not engineered for that; planning for frequent idle or shutdown cycles certainly eases some constraints.) Either way discussing a "$50/MWh 24x365" requirement is not even wrong, just 無.