> So why would the electricity prices become unaffordable for heat pump heating in your well insulated houses with local hydro and nuclear power?
Umm. This whole thread is about the existence of nuclear power. Is it hard to understand that if nuclear power went away, the baseload would become extremely expensive during cold and wind-free days? That's a substantial part of the year, here.
In a nuclear rampdown scenario, hopefully it would not come as an overnight surprise. Usually there are plans on a 10 year timescale or more. But I'm not arguing against nuclear, just for dynamic electricity pricing.
That's the kind of thing we need to design for and handle using contracts containing hedges or cutoffs and price reactive usage. Texas isn't a cold climate place so relying on grid electricity to cover the exceptional weather is probably not the best plan in the post fossil future. But insulation will help with this and hot weather AC electricity usage both.
Umm. This whole thread is about the existence of nuclear power. Is it hard to understand that if nuclear power went away, the baseload would become extremely expensive during cold and wind-free days? That's a substantial part of the year, here.