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so approx 5k per house... i wonder how long they last for?

Hadn't looked at it that way yet, that actually sounds really attractive. If they can be maintained and operated at under 1k per house per year then that's competitive with what I pay now.

I wonder why it's so cheap when calculated this way it seems competitive with solar panels when I expected it to be a factor ten more expensive (of course solar panels wouldn't really work that far north).

A lot of what you pay now is for maintenance of the lines and transformers.

If you calculate 300MW/240k homes, it comes out at 1.25kW per home which is not enough for peak demand...

Especially not if we manage to electrify everything. The average American uses a little over 9kW of primary energy continuously. You can probably safely divide that by three if you use electricity, but still.

Yeah the pay back time is long but the cost of operation is so much lower than traditional fuels. It will pay off if it remains running for long enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY&ab_channel=Illin...

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