Re: can a situation exist where electricity can't be g

Are you talking about the commercial coal-fired power plants?
Well, as long as electromagnets are possible (in other words,
as long as metals are conductive,) electric generators will 
still function.

It's concievable that a really immense and long-lasting 
solar storm would create constant EMP and burn out all utility 
lines longer than a few tens of feet.  Generators themselves
would still work, but they'd have to be small, local, engine-
powered devices running off propane, gasoline, diesel, etc.   
Large power grids would be unusable.  Solar panels and batteries 
would not be affected (but the civilization which could build 
such things would probably collapse.)   Only thing is, after
a few years people would figure out how to tap electric power 
from the EMP storm rather than having to burn fuel.

There's one famous short story where generators are all halted
worldwide because an odd sort of cometary dust causes metal 
bearings to weld together (it also stopped all gasoline engines 
and any other machines which use ball bearings.)

People have written about parallel universes where the
laws of physics were slightly different.  If chemistry is
about the same, then the change wouldn't be lethal to 
biology.  It doesn't take much of a change to kill living
things, so it's hard to imagine any change which would
affect electronic devices but which wouldn't seriously 
change electrochemistry in living things.  But if the 
difference was just right, then stars would still burn, 
living things could still exist, but transistors could 
no longer work.