That might change the economics, for nuclear fission as well as fusion.
Fusion and fission are extremely capital expensive with quite hefty marginal costs through the steam side. They're simply awful at solving the last 20%. Even worse when they're undercut badly enough to never run for the first 80%.
I find it amusing that Helion's approach also strongly depends on the cost of storage, just in a very different part of storage parameter space.
That has been looked into, in the context of propelling very large spacecraft. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propuls... )
Then the way EVs are trending, each home should have giant batteries in their garage and a good percentage will likely be incentivized to charge their EV when the sun/wind is strong and potentially release it back to the grid when its not.
After there is enough renewable generating capacity to charge it from, storage will be built out, and NG turbines will be used decreasingly often. Many will be converted to burn ammonia instead, which will be fixed at solar farms in the tropics and shipped wherever it is wanted.
If there is dystopia it will be via failure to build out fast enough.
Stuff will become more expensive, economic activity might be somewhat dampened, but that might be offset by the cheapness of wind and solar, and by the fact that building the new infrastructure will create a lot of growth. And in the end, it will literally save the planet. I'd choose a bit slower economic activity over accelerating climate change any time.
But nationwide nearly everyone is on a fixed price per kWh deal, and current electricity meters don't usually even support pricing that chances every few minutes, as would need to happen to incentivize people to only use power when the wind blows.
The cost of simply upgrading every electricity meter to a modern one is many years of profits for most energy companies.
As the sibling post said, the transition will be difficult. But there is absolutely no way the government will allow widespread brownouts or industrial collapse (in the worst case we'll use just enough fossil as necessary). We are talking about reduced profit margins for a couple of years, and having to wait a bit more longer to buy shiny new gadgets. The real challenge is to orchestrate everything so that it is socially fair and the weakest, or those most dependent on cars, etc. don't get hit too hard.
The big thing I see with a ton of arguments about changing the way we produce and consume energy assume that things will change overnight and the whole system will come crashing down because it's not ready.
Perfect is the enemy of good. Things aren't going to happen overnight, there will be a transition period.
Electric vehicle transition is a good example of this. * OMG, the grid will crash with all the charging. * OMG, You won't be able to charge it <because reasons>. * OMG, it doesn't solve <random gas car use case here>.
The transition to electric vehicles is coming, but slowly. It basically started at 0 in 2010 and a decade later it's still only at 2-5% in the US and something like 5-10% in the EU, China, etc. The ball is just getting rolling.
The grid hasn't crashed, charging is getting deployed where there's demand, and not every <random gas car use case here> needs to be solved now, or even in the mid term future.
It's difficult for political reasons, not economic or practical ones.
This is why one must look at the whole spectrum not only on wind and solar. There is hydro, biomass[1] and geothermal as well. The latter is currently not so relevant directly for electricity in most regions, but has a hugh potential to replace other energy sources, including electricity, for heating buildings via heat pumps.
[1] In the USA biomass plays a comparatively minor role in electricity production: 1.3% of all, 6.5% of renewables (half of solar). In a more advanced country like Germany the numbers are: 8.8% of all, 19% of renewables (a little less than solar). -- Sources: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany
Don't you realise the consequences of phasing out fossil fuels? So much of that is used for, well fuels.. and even when it isn't, like fertilisers, it's still something that's produced in bulk in large quantities and stored. We'll have to produce a HUGE amounts of hydrogen, ammonia, etc. .. and in the absolute worst case scenario we can store some of that hydrogen and use in in existing natural gas power plants (yes, running a turbine on 100% hydrogen has been demonstrated already).
We're already seeing the prices swing more due to renewables, and we're already seeing that it's creating a lot of solutions for shifting energy consumption. Right now I can connect my EV directly to my electricity provider and they'll stop or start charging based on prices. There's an entire parking garage in the Netherlands full of EV rental cars that can deliver power back to grid when prices are higher.
People seem to think nuclear will let us avoid solving the energy storage problems. No. You might be able to run some big ships on nuclear, but not much else. If we solve the problems we need to solve to stop climate change (in a sustainable way.. don't get me started on CCS), then we'll be doing energy storage at just around the same scale needed to balance renewables. BEVs is a pretty good illustration of that, where, if you have one you suddenly have enough energy storage to run your house a day or three. If we're making enough batteries for all cars to be EVs, we're making battery at a scale where a doubling could give most households dedicated battery storage. I'm not sure exactly that will be the solution, maybe it'll be more specialised grid-level batteries like Ambri.. point is, we're moving towards a world where we HAVE to become experts at transforming and storing energy. Cause we're not getting "free" storable/transportable energy from the ground for eternity.