[pfdietz]

Base load was a useful concept when steady output power plants with high capital cost produced energy at the lowest cost. It then made sense to use them as much as possible -- to handle the "base load" -- and cover the rest with more expensive to operate but lower capital cost sources.

But that's no longer the world we live in. The lowest cost energy is now from intermittent sources, and the optimal grid design will look very different.

[Animats]

Right. Primary power sources will be solar, wind, and batteries. What we need now are peaking plants with low capital cost and high output. High operating cost when running is acceptable because they won't be running much. They're backup generators. Currently, gas turbines can do that, but not much else does.

Nuclear, fission or fusion, is the opposite. It's all fixed cost. A higher fixed cost than solar or wind.

[belorn]

Gas turbines can not do that if we include the cost of pollution. Currently we do not have anything that has low capital cost, high operating cost, overall cheap, and carbon free.

Natural gas just trade pollution, a problem for the future, in return for cheaper energy price today.

[pfdietz]

Gas turbines burning e-fuels like hydrogen. No net CO2 emission.