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by omega3 1520 days ago
Millions of people live in such regions and importing energy also creates issues that are visible in the events today.
1 comments

There are not enough of them to be a big problem. Numbers matter.

They are importing fuel now, and may continue. In the future the fuel they import will be cheaper if synthetic. Or they may rely more on transmission lines, and stockpile synthetic fuel for backup in case of outages.

People everywhere will do what works best for them where they are. As synthetic fuel cost drops below extracted and refined hydrocarbons, people will simply stop buying the latter. Forward-looking sunny tropical countries will do well exporting synthetic fuel to places where the wind or sun flags.

What's an example of a synthetic fuel suitable for this purpose? I wouldn't call methane synthetic, for example.
Anhydrous ammonia stores liquid at room temperature under light pressure, stores energy per unit volume close to hydrocarbons, and can be burned where they can.

But in the near future, synthetic methane will be cheaper than mined natural gas. More expensive than ammonia, necessarily, because it needs carbon.