Batteries in the Twilight World

[Raellus]

Went outside to look at a comet last night and grabbed a battery-powered lantern so I could avoid stepping on a snake in the dark. Toggled the power switch and... nada. Pulled the three AAA batteries and they were coated with white powdery gunk (dried battery acid?). Got me thinking about batteries in T2k.

A quick forum search didn't turn up a thread dedicated to this topic, so here we go.

I'm sure a lot of us have Ref'ed and/or played in a number of T2k campaigns in which the PCs were equipped with battery-powered radios, NOD's, etc. By 2000, working batteries would be in very short supply. A lot of Ref's (myself included) handwave this issue away by ruling that PCs' batteries are "rechargeable". How can they be recharged without a functioning power grid? Vehicle batteries or solar charges (how common were the latter IRL c.1998 or whatever, especially in the military). Not very realistic, I suspect...

Watching Silo on Apple TV, one wonders, where do all of the batteries that power the silo-dwellers' flashlights and radios come from 200 years or so after the apocalypse?

I could dust off the old Google search bar and start digging, but I figure at least one enterprising forum member may have some expertise (or already done the research) on the topic.

What's the read shelf-life of store-bought batteries?

How many times/for how long can a rechargeable battery be used before it will no longer hold a charge?

How easy would it be to make batteries from scavenged parts and chemicals? IIRC, the Classical Greeks invented a functioning battery. (Or did I just imagine that?)

How easy would it be to resume manufacture of batteries?

As a Ref, how have you handled batteries and battery-powered devices in your T2kU?

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