> Simply put you can't centralize generation for the entire country.

Depends on the country.

In Washington state, our power sources are not next to our population centers; in fact many are in the center of our state! And our state would be the 87th-biggest-country out of 197 in the world.

USA averages 6% transmission loss. New long-distance transmission lines are HVDC and have far less loss over distance. But people oppose them for dumb and good reasons; why would I in Washington state want to have good connections to California so the local producers can reduce supply and drive up prices?