[yieldcrv]

how it was explained to me:

its like if you booked a prostitute to come over on Friday, on Friday you found out your partner was coming over and you need the full service sex worker to go somewhere else but have nowhere to send them, so you attempt to pay anyone to take the booking and everyone else is in the same predicament and eventually someone’s going to take the loss of having the prostitute around their partner and mess up their social situation but will be paid handsomely for it

relatable commodities problem

[tovej]

This sounds like something a toxic middle management bro might say to be edgy.

If this is easier for you to understand, you might have a problem.

[yieldcrv]

you’re right, sex workers take deposits for this specific reasons and have autonomy and agency, it’s weird and outdated to deny [probably] women that

thanks for pointing that out it’s a big plot hole and very much unlike the energy market. although maybe deposits would be an improvement to the energy market

[tovej]

a deposit has nothing to do with it, you need to dump the electricity or the entire grid will have a bad time.

[yieldcrv]

reiterating the analogy

[tovej]

no, because it's not your typical cost of carry problem. Oil barrels will not spontaneously combust if you leave them at the plant, and you can control the rate at which you produce them. And the problem is contained at the point at which a seller is left holding the goods.

The electric grid will always distribute the load _somehow_, but the way that happens if there's not enough buyers will have far reaching consequences that are uniuqe to this utility. AND you do not have full control of the production of electricity, which means you don't have the means to react ro a surge unless you have enough sinks distributed _across_ the network.