I wouldn't think desperate - I'm sure there's a lot of other words though
none of them good
we've not ever got fully reliable power generation from any source. All have problems. Interesting really, as we are now down the path of power generation by about 140 years
What seems odd to me is that most of the reliability problems - the big ones - usually come from breakdowns that one would think we should have got solutions for in almost 1 and a half centuries
things like cooling problems, bearings, - actually pretty basic stuff.
All of it has issues - coal, nuclear (not real bright putting your backups below where water can get to on the coast in Japan - duh!
And of course, our current crop of renewables - some of which are pretty good - but, one can see some basically knock the lot out natural occurrences coming - volcanic winters etc..
It's interesting that basically all of modern living and society is totally dependant on power generation and transmission - yet - in reality -- it's all quite vulnerable.
then, of course very recently - we also have society now almost totally dependent - or certainly hugely dependent on the internet and computers - if for any reason the net went down for any length of time -we would survive - but, by god, life would change so dramatically, instantly -
it sure would take a LOT of adaptation for societies and nations to survive the acute phase.
What's worth thinking through is that mankind, by it's massive technological developments since about 1900 (perhaps a little earlier) -- has made the species actually more vulnerable on a societal level - not less
