The globe looks radically different when presented in transport-energy-cost-distance.

Bulk container ships are crazy efficient. It makes more energy sense for a nation like France to trade with the eastern US than it does with Hungary.

I’d like to add construction materials to the list of energy intensive products. Glass, bricks, rockwool and cement.

nothing stops them from also using swarms of solar panels on their roofs to at minimum offset the energy needs, localized power plants to save on transmission costs, raw high voltage power.

Hetzner does this!

They are not forced to make those kinds of capital investments if they're unable - they'd be no worse off than today. Those who do get cheaper electricity (in lieu of whatever they could've otherwise spent that capital on).

However, it's the onus of the gov't (regional or federal) to create the investment needed for large, industrial scale solar and battery storage. That's what taxpayer money should be spent on.

yah, this is more for low density/mid density housing, I am sure the roots of 2-3 floor apts should be more than enough to sustain it as energy needs of apartments are lower to begin with. They can also bleed them into parking lots and have cover from the sun.

The problem is that the grid doesn’t really get economies of scale.

Just the grid is often up to 50% of people’s electricity bills, cutting that out is a massive saving.

I think we might see a future where the grid becomes smaller. Still utility scale but skip the continental transmissions and instead run a local city scale grid with renewables, storage and a chemical based carbon neutral backup.

I can attest that. I installed panels on my house, they are not enough to cover my electrocity needs, let alone gas (heating). Even if it would be enough to cover electricity needs, the cost was (upfront) more than the equivalent of the next 20 years in bills.

To be fair, many of the costs are because of high demand (artificial, because the gov. mandates it to be installed) and lots of work to be integrated in the national grid. But as things are right now, it not economically convenient (at least where I live) and for what I have heard, in other places is not much different.

Technically, you can turn off the sun with a nuclear winter. But in that case your main problem would be starvation anyway.

It's batshit crazy that the most powerful and influential person in the world dismisses the above (practical, clinical and irrefutable) as "a green scam" and people go along with it. We do so at our peril on so many levels.

having a military grade generator (can pick up decomissioned ones for pretty cheap) as a backup still works.

It might not be needed though if you have a battery generator and enough solar panels.

But if you have a BBQ with propane and the sun didn't shine for many many days that should be sufficient.