Comment by 542354234235

I used to think the same way, “just use cheaper solar” but I have come around to see the value. Doing science and engineering projects to explore new or different alternatives is valuable. We might find something surprising.

Having different types of power generation provides redundancy. The wind still blows at night, the tide still comes in and out when its cloudy, etc. Grid storage is nowhere near a solved problem, so something like tidal could prove less expensive than storage or overbuilding alternatives to overcome their variability problems. Even if it doesn’t end up being widely useful, it could still end up finding a use in more niche applications.

Finally, it can and will improve. 30 years ago, solar was not price competitive and decades of development and iterative improvements have changed that. We should keep developing alternatives to see their full potential.