Casey Handmer noted last Sunday that we can power the Lunar base... from Earth.
It's wasteful, of course. But electricity (currently) is cheap down here, by contrast with up there. Even with the waste it's more scalable than erecting generators around the Lunar surface and then threading cable across the regolith.
Various reply-guys are 'splaining to Handmer about (small!) nuclear-reactors (pdf) and stuff like that. Handmer keeps 'splaining back that first we have to get to that point. Yeah SpaceX's SuperHeavy could shave some cost-per-cargo but, we'll want that for the actual mission(s).
If power can be beamed from Earth, that's one problem solved, at least for a small base for a short term. Better that Lunar colonists make their own solar-panels and their own (thorium?) reactors, and maybe a voltage-capture system. All sorts of options.
But first we have to get there.
UPDATE 7/11 - One more use for the energy is spinning a habitat. I expect this is for VIPs. The average workman will be sucking it up in 1/6 gravity hopefully being permitted to jump back to Gateway and Earth before nightfall.
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