In the Developing World, Solar Is Cheaper than Fossil Fuels

[hunter]

6. There's a point where it's simply not worth building a network.

Without a network there is no baseline.

It happens in the USA all the time. Someone with a property they want to build on balks at the cost of installing power lines. Even in areas not particularly remote, people planning to build a house will choke when they see how much it will cost to install power lines, easily $10,000 or more and the sky's the limit if you want underground lines. So they'll opt for solar with a backup generator instead.

If potential power network customers living outside high density population centers will only be running a few LED house lights and charging their all-purpose-cellphone-internet-radio-television-devices, but no high power devices like electric cars, air conditioners, heaters, irrigation pumps, rice cookers, microwave ovens and such, then a power network will not be cost effective.

I always think of my very stingy great-grandparents. My great grandfather loved rural electrification because it meant he never had to buy batteries for his radio again. Radios used tubes then. The batteries were big and painfully expensive. But even when they got network power, he and my great grandma never used more than the radio and a couple of forty watt light bulbs for a few hours a day. The government agency funded power line to their homestead never did pay for itself.

Personally, I don't believe wave and tidal power is worth the environmental damage, nor is it sustainable. Even the most benign wave or tide setup will require dirty industrial capacity elsewhere to maintain it. The oceans eat human creations; all marine projects become what boat owners say about their boats, "a hole in the water you pour money into."

Nobody should be obligated to buy into that.