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Comment by scotty79

6 hours ago

Imagine if we build hydro to full capacity and monetize the excess with data/compute centers and/or crypto mining. We'd have so much spare capacity for any residential or industrial purposes.

Datacenters and crypto are evidently a bad source for large-scale load variability because their significant capex demands that they be kept running 24/7.

This is often a problem with variable load schemes that do any useful work, rather than just dumping heat into something. It would be interesting to see a list sorted by just how thick they are with capital considerations. Aluminum smelting, hydrogen electrolysis, lots of other options on that list.