> If they wanted to use more it's right there and available.
But they'd have to pay more. We're postulating a scenario in which electricity prices fall precipitously. As far as I'm aware, any time the prices fall for any resource, society consumes it with increasing inefficiency. For example, broadband Internet becomes readily available and people start streaming cat videos, CPU clock speeds skyrocket and Microsoft releases Windows Vista. If renewable energy prices decline thus driving down costs for all energy prices, I suspect we'll find something equally stupid (e.g., mining more bitcoins) to do with the extra capacity rather than decommissioning fossil fuels.
Ultimately we have to choose to decommission fossil fuel plants at the expense of our frivolities, but at least in America we seem to be disappointingly bad at this kind of impulse control (in aggregate).
But they'd have to pay more. We're postulating a scenario in which electricity prices fall precipitously. As far as I'm aware, any time the prices fall for any resource, society consumes it with increasing inefficiency. For example, broadband Internet becomes readily available and people start streaming cat videos, CPU clock speeds skyrocket and Microsoft releases Windows Vista. If renewable energy prices decline thus driving down costs for all energy prices, I suspect we'll find something equally stupid (e.g., mining more bitcoins) to do with the extra capacity rather than decommissioning fossil fuels.
Ultimately we have to choose to decommission fossil fuel plants at the expense of our frivolities, but at least in America we seem to be disappointingly bad at this kind of impulse control (in aggregate).