We'll most likely see off-peak or dispatchable-demand energy prices become effectively negligible due to cheap intermittent sources, but the price for reliable 24/7 supply will if anything trend higher. Storage is not enough to bridge the gap in all cases, so you need either very expensive peaker plants or less expensive nuclear to provide a reliable baseload supply for those critical uses.
The baseload framing is increasingly outdated. What grids need isn't constant supply - it's flexible supply that matches variable demand. Solar + batteries handle daytime and evening peaks well. Wind fills different gaps. The remaining "firmness" problem (extended low-wind, low-sun periods) is real but smaller than baseload thinking suggests. Most studies show you can get to 80-90% renewables before you hit hard storage limits. The last 10-20% is the expensive part, but that's a different problem than needing baseload for everything.
Yes if we could only build them. I recently learned there was one built from the Columbia river hydro projects to southern California in the early 1970's Has one been built since?
