(9/8/2021)
Reducing the cost of electricity and only electricity generated at fixed locations by large central power plants by eliminating fuel costs would not generate the income needed to advance technology as far and as fast as the author indicated. Also some of the technology talked about would not develop at all in a society with more disposable income, not less. Old energy inefficient methods would prevail, not new ones. People could afford to maintain there old ways. And most notably, cities would not become bigger and buildings taller, as land would become cheaper as there would be less of a need for land to produce biofuels and energy intensive hydroponic food production would be cheap. Also, batteries no matter how cheap the cost of electricity at the outlet don’t magically become tiny and efficient. If anything, cheap power at the plug would stop there development as most appliances and electrically powered devices would stay or become energy hogs. In reality, cheap electricity would mean single pane picture windows in the living rooms of large ranch houses without insulation sprawled across former farm land no longer needed or used as most good would be grown indoors, both plants and animals in the manner of factories even more so than today. And the idea of robots replacing people defied economic logic as people writ large would be too cheap to replace as electricity is a minor part of the cost of robots and low cost electricity still wouldn’t make them low cost. Star Wars makes more sense than this book,