Get decentralized to the point that no single point of failure will result in wholesale outages: resilient as cockroaches. You can't do that if you have interconnects that have to work for society to work. The centralized electrical grid was a great idea and it got us very far. But it is just too fragile. Much better if you can have many (millions) of points of generation, storage and consumption and a far more opportunistic level of interconnect.

▲

JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> decentralized to the point that no single point of failure will result in wholesale outages

This is a good goal. But it needs to be more rigorously defined. Autarky can be done. But then you need to accept North Korean living standards.

> Much better if you can have many (millions) of points of generation, storage and consumption and a far more opportunistic level of interconnect

Again, to a degree. You can't decentrally power a modern city. So that means either no more cities, which is expensive, or ruinously-expensive power in cities, which again, in practice, means de-industrialisation.

▲

jacquesm 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> But then you need to accept North Korean living standards.

I'm not sure that's true.

> Again, to a degree. You can't decentrally power a modern city.

I'm not sure that that is true either, but it will take a lot more work than to do this for less densely populated areas. In general I'm not sure if 'modern cities' are long term sustainable.

▲

JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> not sure that's true

To be clear, I'm not either. But decentralisation requires sacrificing economies of scale. And total autarky is a proven failure. Between that and complete integration is probably a more-independent equilibrium for Europe. But it will require paying a price.

> In general I'm not sure if 'modern cities' are long term sustainable

Sure. Maybe. Until then, the economies that field them will call the shots. (Based on everything I've read, cities are far more sustainable than dispersed living.)

▲

jacquesm 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> But it will require paying a price.

I don't doubt that it requires paying a price. The only relevant question is whether that price is substantially lower or substantially higher than continuing on our current track. I'm open to be convinced that it is higher but I strongly believe that it is lower because with increased fragility you're playing the dice and one day they'll come up in a way that hurts you. The more people there will be in those baskets that harder it will hurt.

As for the future of cities: the internet has given us one thing: independence from having to go to cities to work. Combine that with the ridiculous energy expense on commuting and it seems like a complete no-brainer that we should just stop doing that. COVID has already shown us that this is far more possible than we ever thought it was.

▲

JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> relevant question is whether that price is substantially lower or substantially higher than continuing on our current track

It's higher than prevailing prices. And it gets higher the more autarkic and decentralised the system needs to be.

> with increased fragility you're playing the dice and one day they'll come up in a way that hurts you

Agree. It looks like insurance pricing. How much extra are your citizens willing to pay every year to reduce supply disruptions?

	▲	jacquesm 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> It's higher than prevailing prices. And it gets higher the more autarkic and decentralised the system needs to be. I don't actually think that that is true. If I look at the cost / KWh + the network costs + various subsidies you can probably supply a house for a lifetime if you the energy consumption costs for that same lifetime and spent them up front on decentralized generation + storage. It's all about the density, not so much about the cost and as the density goes up so do the complications and the costs. But if you have enough ground (which really isn't all that much) it is perfectly doable today, and probably you'll be in the black in a surprisingly low number of years. The higher the cost of oil the higher the cost of gas, and the higher the cost of gas the higher the cost per KWh (this may vary depending on where you live). > How much extra are your citizens willing to pay every year to reduce supply disruptions? That's a very good question. Probably not much until it starts to happen regularly, so I would expect that problem to solve itself over time. Energy has been a hot topic for the last decade and with every price shock it is getting easier to convince people that if they had more autonomy they would be less affected. Solar + heatpumps have exploded in Europe in the last decade and that trend has not stopped, in spite of a reduction in net metering. Ironically, the biggest stumbling blocks are the governments that want to tax energy but see no way of doing this if it is generated and consumed on the spot.

▲

consumer451 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Centralization of power distribution is a national security risk in every country.

The only problem is that we have to convince the centralized power industries to give up their complete control of our local and global economies.

I have been thinking about this for decades, as the path forward has been obvious for that long. Those in control just keep doubling down.

It appears that they would rather destroy our ecosystems, and risk economic collapse, instead of just adjusting their investment strategies.

▲

jacquesm 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Precisely. But if it isn't clear now then the only way it will become clear will be through catastrophe.

▲

consumer451 an hour ago | parent [-]

Then catastrophe it is!

But seriously, that appears to be the trajectory.

	▲	jacquesm an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Unfortunately, agreed. I once joked to some friends that the Mennonites would be the only people that would get through the next energy crisis without so much as blinking.