This is really good to know and quite disappointing. I try to keep things grounded and at least close to reality but had no idea of the limitations here. I’ll have to think on this and I might come back with questions if that’s okay.
I suspect the utopian emphasis on green power, hydro, solar, and wind, will further weaken this possibility? I haven’t thought much about what the grid looks like around these fringe communities (further out where the story takes place it’s basically gone and homesteads and villages have to be self sufficient) but these folks could be tied to the grid or striving for self suffiency but that would probably make it even harder to provide this kind of power reliably, even if someone was making tons of the necessary hardware because a train boom is happening.