Production of Electricity

Imports, Exports, Taxes & Social Spending... discuss these topics here.

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Roest
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Re: Production of Electricity

Post by Roest »

tkobo wrote:This was looked at in depth in sr2010, and at that time it was found clearly that oil and coal were the most "bang for your buck" power sources in the game.I find it unlikely thats changed.
It certainly feels that way. I just replaced ~200 coal, ~45 hydro and ~45 other with just 149 fusion. Of course that's not really hard numbers. Also I usually get rid of every power petrol plant as soon as possible.
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Re: Production of Electricity

Post by tkobo »

Find the building cost for each type of power plant.
Find the operating cost-IE maintance and productions cost.
And come up with any fuel usage cost.
Add them up for each type and compare.
Than come up with the amount of power produced by each power plant type.

And work out the ratios.

Pretty sure that was what the forum did last time, and if i remember correctly it wasnt even close.Oil and coal won hands down in "bang for the buck"
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Re: Production of Electricity

Post by catatonic »

This was looked at in depth in sr2010, and at that time it was found clearly that oil and coal were the most "bang for your buck" power sources in the game.I find it unlikely thats changed.
Please read the excellent analysis of the subject performed by SirVeri and others above.
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Re: Production of Electricity

Post by Ruges »

Here is anouther thing that should be looked at. With an oil plant. The oil that is used by the plant. Is that taxed under domestic sales? Meaning If my oil power plant uses 10 barrels to work. And each barrel cost me $10 to make. Then I tax that barrel 150 percent. Then each time that oil power plant uses those 10 barrels I make a $5 profit.

I am not positive if it works that way, but I would not be suprized if they did.
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Re: Production of Electricity

Post by Balthagor »

IIRC that particular trick was checked for, but it's been a long time since it was discussed...
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Re: Production of Electricity

Post by tkobo »

catatonic wrote:
Please read the excellent analysis of the subject performed by SirVeri and others above.
"Excellent" is subjective.I suggest you look at them and see if and where building cost (for one thing) is factored in.

Now the price of oil has drastically changed since sr2010,so that might move oil downwards some.But im unaware of any major changes to coal from 2010 to 2020 that would change its place as number one or two.

A common theme all thru the sr series is "tech costs".Whether your talking research,units,or resources.Look at the cost of synthetic oil vs oil and gas.Look at the cost of oil facilities vs syn oil facilities.Syn ore vs iron ore.etc...

Now since im not currently interested in doing the work to double check(so to speak),im not gonna "bet an important body part" that my current stance holds as true in sr2020 as it did in sr2010. And by the way, in sr2010 i started out in the stance that higher tech non resource using power techs were the most cost efficient.

It wasnt til people used the factors i mention above and showed me wrong, that i embraced oil and coal as the most cost efficient.So until someone factors in ALL the data and explictly shows otherwise,im sticking to what i believe was shown to be accurate.

I simply have no reason to suspect BG changed things that much, even considering their choices so far on the defection system :P (Since i havent yet been killed by a huge flowing wall of CO2, i can still get the occasional jab in on that system)
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Re: Production of Electricity

Post by Roest »

tkobo wrote: "Excellent" is subjective.I suggest you look at them and see if and where building cost (for one thing) is factored in.
Factoring in one time costs would mean you could only compare costs for a given timeframe which doesn't make much sense for an open ended game. But i guess you knew that and only mentioned it for the sake of the argument.
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Re: Production of Electricity

Post by tkobo »

Yes and no.
As stated the tests were done in sr2010.Sr2010 as the devs said numerous times was designed for what many considered short term games,10 years or so.

But even sr2020 can be won in under 10 years.

Adding to that, past a certain amount of time played, money ,especially expenses (except research ) become all but ignorable as a player who knows the game has more money than he can spend (again, except in research).

So "bang for the buck" is far more important when getting your region organized and functioning early in play, then when your rolling in cash,resources, and control vast amounts of land and population.
Last edited by tkobo on Jul 11 2009, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Production of Electricity

Post by fool »

There ought to be some kind of pollution model where coal, and to a lesser extent, oil, plants slightly increase your death rate. Ofc, it might already be in and I just haven't noticed its effects. Does pollution increase your death rate, or just decrease your UN standing?
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Re: Production of Electricity

Post by catatonic »

Pollution is significant and used to be a factor in SR2010.

But what about just getting rid of petrol, coal and uranium as fuel? I think that that is a pretty significant objective.
What is the value of going out and selling a lot of uranium?

I know that money becomes less of a factor later in the game, but I am at 2033 and I still struggle to keep my treasury's balance from going in a negative direction. Building and fielding a mega-force is expensive and so is providing goods and services to continents of citizens.

I have not yet heard any specific criticism of SirVeri's 2020 specific thesis that was so well presented above.
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Indecisive
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Re: Production of Electricity

Post by Indecisive »

catatonic wrote:What is the value of going out and selling a lot of uranium?
I notice a lot of people merely look at the cost/production part of economics, but not necessarily the strategic picture. For example, rather than selling uranium (which, incidentally, isn't all that profitable given the very low output of uranium mines), I prefer to hoard it even if I don't actually use it. This is because it creates scarcity, which will:

1) Limit other nations' ability to produce nuclear weapons and nuclear naval vessels, thus giving you a modest military advantage.

2) Prevent (other nations') nuclear power plants from running consistently due to a uranium shortage, thus decreasing global electricity output and driving electricity prices waaaaay up.

Since I usually play as a major electricity exporter the second point is a huge bonus...whenever I don't sell to the world market for a few months consecutively, energy costs can easily spike up to 500% which means I net a HUGE profit margin.

catatonic wrote:But what about just getting rid of petrol, coal and uranium as fuel? I think that that is a pretty significant objective.
Same principal with petrol. If you've signed permanent oil contracts or have a big stake in the oil market, you may want to consider running lots of petrol power plants. While they might not be very cost-effective to run, the indirect effect of increased global petrol consumption could spike petrol prices up.

If you're worried about pollution here, you could always consider capturing a swath of land in Russia/China, speed-building petrol power plants with engineers, then letting them recapture the land. That way you could drive global prices up without the ill effects of pollution.

The artificial scarcity strategy is far more difficult with petrol, unfortunately, due to the abundance of it compared to uranium...
Routing garrisons can be frustrating, but in a good way. Like trying to open a carton of ready-made custard for your rhubarb crumble, knowing that the rewards will be all the sweeter for the effort.
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Re: Production of Electricity

Post by Indecisive »

fool wrote:There ought to be some kind of pollution model where coal, and to a lesser extent, oil, plants slightly increase your death rate. Ofc, it might already be in and I just haven't noticed its effects. Does pollution increase your death rate, or just decrease your UN standing?
After some testing I have concluded that pollution only affects birth rate, and NOT death rate, surprisingly enough.

Test case: Japan. I was running 500 Coal power plants at the time, and after finishing a new array of Fusion plants, I was ready to shut the coal plants down. This is end-game, so nearly every tech has already been researched. Also, environmental funding is at 100%. No major changes to funding or construction were made during this test.

Population info before and after shutdown:
BEFORE wrote: (One day before simultaneous demolition of all 500 coal plants.)

Immigration: 2.69 million
Emigration: 700

Births: 5.25 million
Deaths: 1.44 million

Environment rating: 141.3%
AFTER wrote: (Approximately 2-3 months after demolition.)

Immigration: 2.78 million
Emigration: 688

Births: 5.93 million
Deaths: 1.43 million

Environment rating: 141.3%
As you can see, immigration/emigration was fairly consistent and unchanged. The slight increase was likely due more to the increasing GDP than any pollution factors. Deaths remains the overall same as well. However, births have increased considerably. There was absolutely no change in the environment rating, both in score and in annual cost.
Routing garrisons can be frustrating, but in a good way. Like trying to open a carton of ready-made custard for your rhubarb crumble, knowing that the rewards will be all the sweeter for the effort.
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Re: Production of Electricity

Post by Benjaminvallen1 »

Roest wrote:
tkobo wrote:This was looked at in depth in sr2010, and at that time it was found clearly that oil and coal were the most "bang for your buck" power sources in the game.I find it unlikely thats changed.
It certainly feels that way. I just replaced ~200 coal, ~45 hydro and ~45 other with just 149 fusion. Of course that's not really hard numbers. Also I usually get rid of every power petrol plant as soon as possible.

I keep seeing this and I keep not getting why. Why always replace petrol plants? I have vast and constantly expanding oil production and absolutely ZERO coal production. Why not use it? Right now I am lacking Fusion, so I am building Petrol, Nuclear, and Hydro plants like crazy.The issue right now is that I need to increase my power production by 400% just to catch up with demand. I am the second highest exporter of Petroleum in the world, and my Electric Power imports almost completely negate my billion+ profits! |O |O |O
All this building is making me pay out big to import Industrial Goods, and my exports in every other field barely make up for that, so I am fluctuating back and forth between a minor trade surplus and a minor trade deficit. HUH
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Re: Production of Electricity

Post by Indecisive »

Benjaminvallen1 wrote: I keep seeing this and I keep not getting why. Why always replace petrol plants? I have vast and constantly expanding oil production and absolutely ZERO coal production. Why not use it? Right now I am lacking Fusion, so I am building Petrol, Nuclear, and Hydro plants like crazy.The issue right now is that I need to increase my power production by 400% just to catch up with demand. I am the second highest exporter of Petroleum in the world, and my Electric Power imports almost completely negate my billion+ profits! |O |O |O
All this building is making me pay out big to import Industrial Goods, and my exports in every other field barely make up for that, so I am fluctuating back and forth between a minor trade surplus and a minor trade deficit. HUH
Coal plants consume about 5600 units of coal per day. Oil plants consume about 10700 units per day. However, coal plants have double the base power output -- which gives a hidden bonus of lower maintenance costs (since you have to run two oil plants per one coal plant to reach a given power output, thus "doubling" the maintenance of oil power plants). Let's not forget that coal, on average, costs only about 25%-33% per unit compared to oil. In a nutshell, this all means coal power plants are far more cost efficient. One of my first goals in any SC2020 game is usually signing a permanent import contact with a major coal producer (China, India, etc) so I can have a very cheap source of fuel and therefore produce huge amounts of power.

Oil plants, on the other hand, seem to have absolutely no case under which they are more cost efficient even in oil boom economies like Saudi Arabia -- assuming my calculations are correct. I think the only reason they must exist in SR2020 is to create oil demand on the world market on behalf of NPC countries.

As for nuclear power plants, I avoid those almost as readily as oil plants. They are not very cost-efficient given the selling price of uranium. Also, in the end-game I tend to mass produce nuclear ships and nuclear missiles, and end up completely running out of uranium unless I stockpiled it mid-game. Also, the uranium market seems unreliable due to low supply, so its hard to keep a large number of nuclear power plants running consistently unless you produce your own uranium.
Routing garrisons can be frustrating, but in a good way. Like trying to open a carton of ready-made custard for your rhubarb crumble, knowing that the rewards will be all the sweeter for the effort.
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Benjaminvallen1
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Re: Production of Electricity

Post by Benjaminvallen1 »

Indecisive wrote:
Benjaminvallen1 wrote: I keep seeing this and I keep not getting why. Why always replace petrol plants? I have vast and constantly expanding oil production and absolutely ZERO coal production. Why not use it? Right now I am lacking Fusion, so I am building Petrol, Nuclear, and Hydro plants like crazy.The issue right now is that I need to increase my power production by 400% just to catch up with demand. I am the second highest exporter of Petroleum in the world, and my Electric Power imports almost completely negate my billion+ profits! |O |O |O
All this building is making me pay out big to import Industrial Goods, and my exports in every other field barely make up for that, so I am fluctuating back and forth between a minor trade surplus and a minor trade deficit. HUH
Coal plants consume about 5600 units of coal per day. Oil plants consume about 10700 units per day. However, coal plants have double the base power output -- which gives a hidden bonus of lower maintenance costs (since you have to run two oil plants per one coal plant to reach a given power output, thus "doubling" the maintenance of oil power plants). Let's not forget that coal, on average, costs only about 25%-33% per unit compared to oil. In a nutshell, this all means coal power plants are far more cost efficient. One of my first goals in any SC2020 game is usually signing a permanent import contact with a major coal producer (China, India, etc) so I can have a very cheap source of fuel and therefore produce huge amounts of power.

Oil plants, on the other hand, seem to have absolutely no case under which they are more cost efficient even in oil boom economies like Saudi Arabia -- assuming my calculations are correct. I think the only reason they must exist in SR2020 is to create oil demand on the world market on behalf of NPC countries.

As for nuclear power plants, I avoid those almost as readily as oil plants. They are not very cost-efficient given the selling price of uranium. Also, in the end-game I tend to mass produce nuclear ships and nuclear missiles, and end up completely running out of uranium unless I stockpiled it mid-game. Also, the uranium market seems unreliable due to low supply, so its hard to keep a large number of nuclear power plants running consistently unless you produce your own uranium.
Hm, I hadn't thought about that. I am now playing as South Korea, and I have conquered North Korea and a big chunk of China, I am exporting everything but I have a trillion dollar deficit JUST in electrical power. I need to fix it. My current construction include 150 Hydro plants, 20 Nuclear plants, and 45 Other plants. Is this a good approach, or should I be trying something else? I don't have Fusion yet.
The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.
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