Quote:
Originally Posted by accord1999
Why do people want to go off the grid? A reliable electric grid is one of the key pillars of modern human civilization and I certainly have no interest in making my own electricity, just like I don't want to get my own fresh water or grow all of my food.
Going off the grid is also incredibly inefficient for saving the environment, as distributed solar is significantly more costly compared to utility scale solar (which already is expensive and not well suited to actual demand).
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Reliable power grids are available for a clear minority of the worlds people at the moment. Even in the US there are a lot of places where power outages are a monthly or even a weekly occurrance.
Besides, the electricity in the grid is mostly fossil fuel produced. You can of course give your money to a company that produces green energy, but that actually has no effect on where your electricity comes from.
As for industrial scale production, for Europeans there's the relatively significant issue that outside of Spain there's very few places to put solar farms. Essentially everything is either urban/suburban, farmland or forest (which we don't want to cut down) or mountains and waterways.