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b_b  ·  1239 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Private-equity firm revives zombie fossil-fuel power plant to mine bitcoin

Our laws needs to catch up faster with the modern world. DTE's concern (besides the obvious no competition one) is that there are giant fixed cost with running a grid whose funding would be hampered by the creation of excess capacity. We should be running a model of a fixed fee plus a marginally lower per unit energy charge, as opposed to the pure per unit charge. In that case, everyone who wants to be on the grid still pays the depreciation instead of simply coming up with an illogical an unsustainable rule like no excess generation.

Similarly, what's going to happen to the roads when (very heavy) EVs are dominant (or even a significant proportion) and there is a huge loss in gas tax revenue? The price of driving an EV is currently subsidized by everyone not driving an EV and that has change and soon. We need a weight plus usage tax, which is not technically hard but probably requires more political will than we currently have.