I know I will be seen as having a one track mind for saying this; I would wonder whatever happened to solar energy, how did they snuff it out in the story? Because they would have had to snuff it out to prevent it becoming the energy we move to, removing all the illusions of privelidge and power, and even the legality of the energy lie of profit, after the panels all over the planet had multiplied to a point that the people could no longer be sold energy, therefore breaking out of the system of energy slavery whilst turning around our net presence from net destructive to net creative, motivating us to use that entropy reversing technology to reverse desertification, re-greenifying the planet, replacing the chronological heatsink consumed as fossil fuels, with a hydrogen alternative, reversing the temperature rise trend, whilst fueling a new breed of aerospace, tuned to the 3x higher energy density of hydrogen than fossil fuels, even producing new hydrogen based human food directly from the energy of the sun (see Solein), whilst filtrating and circulating both water and air by all transportation.
I guess that very different, progressive future could be cancelled from us the same way as it was cancelled from the people of Gaza, by having all the buildings razed to the ground including all the solar panels on roofs, after we got close to a similar level of solar coverage as the gazans appeared to have, maybe 70 percent coverage, therefore putting them close to breaking out of the energy slavery imposed on them by Israel.
I guess if we got that close as a population worldwide, to removing the need for the energy lie of profit, either our governments or big corporates or maybe both, would find a way to just genocide the entire population, along with buildings and solar panels, to keep themselves in power.
But such a destructive scenario would result in the planet rebelling in any case, if the planetary heating and desertification carry on unchecked, and with no free alternative hydrogen based food technology, we will die of famine, rich and poor, no matter what they could cram into storage, there is no possible food that would sustain folk for years unsupported by some kind of sun powered biological growrh, unless we somehow evolved to become mushrooms.