Re: Charging
"(you can't turn a nuclear reactor on/off on a whim)"
You can't do that with a coal plant either. Any thermal plant doesn't lend itself to being turned on and off. That's why there are natural gas peaking plants. Combustion for fast start up and combined cycle for longer term planned ramping.
Every time you heat something up, it expands. When you cool it down, it contracts. Doing that repeatedly causes cracks, breaks and wear. It also would mean constantly building up and throwing away all of the heat required to get up to the operating point. This is why power companies will pay large companies to use power in the middle of the night to keep a load on the grid. They can't shut the thermal power plants down and start them up every day so it's more cost effective to offer negative rates. Most plants can be throttled, but they have a setting for the best efficiency and it may not make sense to throttle down.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
