And when the power lines fall down in rural areas, how will people heat and power their homes? I guess they could buy some batteries, but then they'd sit idle most of the time. Maybe they could find some other profitable use and share the capital cost?
> The people buying the batteries and the government's capital.
The former should be allowed to make their own decisions. I agree that the latter should probably be kept out of this: government is usually not very good at making these decisions. But alas, in many places they play a huge role in the electricity supply and distribution.
> The former should be allowed to make their own decisions.
Yes, but that's how we arrive to local economical maxima that are much, much closer to the global minimum that to the global maximum. The personal decisions aggregate, after all.
People are buying the batteries with their OWN capital, not Govts capital.
You say Govt capital which only benefits private utlities and ALSO say govt/utility should to build out the storage. Not sure what you are trying to say. You sound pretty confused.
In a lot of places the power companies are government owned and the private companies get massive amounts of captial from the government for buildouts.
The better option is for the government/utility company to build out the required storage for a fraction of the cost.