I've done it. The larger the grid, the more difficult it is. But as long as you have fuel and an adequately maintained grid, its not as hard as some in the comments make it out to be. Better regulation would make it easier. For instance, in Singapore emergency diesel or some other method for black start is a requirement for most generation stations. The rest of the world likely has more lax requirements.
No it's not. It's a pain in the ass but this isn't even close to correct. There are rocket launches and nanometer scale chips being built by engineers. Firing up some emergency diesel generators and syncing loads isn't easy, but don't be silly. I'm in charge of black start for a power grid. I've done it once and not looking forward to doing it again, but I'm not stressed out about it. And I'm not super smart.
If you make that big of a decision at the dinner table without excel, it implies that you make the decision without doing the math, which implies you are stupid.
Trying to make them look interesting is a bad idea, tried numerous times in the past. The best a designer can do is to make them disappear and not draw your eye. Trying to make them look interesting generally isn't the way to go. It's been tried and abandoned in California and numerous other places. I'd add some citations, but most writing about transmission lines is internal to the companies building and maintaining them. You can't make them into a beautiful sculpture because you ultimately need their utility of supporting the conductors, and that hardware is difficult to make aesthetically pleasing.
No it doesn't make sense. Transmission lines should be a boring as possible so you're eye is not drawn to them. There is no way to make them look beautiful. Good designers try to make them disappear to the extent possible.
I live in Asia and I'm in charge of air conditioning at my company. A ductless A/c is approximately $1,200 installed. $20k? You should put a split unit in each room. If one breaks, go sleep in the other room. I have 6 of them installed in my apartment.
The only thing new here is running them continuously. They were typically on standby for peak shaving or to avoid rolling blackouts during high peak loads or unanticipated contingencies. I operate 15 "747 engines" to produce electricity. They were installed in 1995.