I know people who live on a small island in the Pac NW.  their community owns a generator.  they have electricity 12 hours a day -- about 8am to 8pm iirc.  they live comfortable lives...

where is it written that except for emergency rooms and the like, we have to have 24x7 electricity on demand?  we lived w/o it for 20,000 years, and now all of a sudden it is the end of civilisation if we have to fit our electric consumption into some kind of a schedule?

this idea that every human epoch prior to our own fossil binge was unrelievedly dark, dirty, smelly, cold, miserable and stupid I find historically naif and more than a wee bit arrogant.  we can't even match the lifespans of peasant farmers in the Caucasus, and we're the all time hotshots and pinnacle of human evolution?  but I bet the Romans thought the same, between swigs of Pb contaminated drinkies...

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...