Power & Revolution 2019: Guide to Energy

An in-depth look at energy, updated for the 2019 Edition!

Energy Production

There are 13 energy sectors in the latest installment, Power & Revolution:

• Coal
• Biomass
• Fossil Electricity
• Geothermal
• Hydraulic
• Nuclear
• Third generation EPR nuclear (2019 Edition)
• Wind (Onshore & Offshore)
• Fuel
• Oil
• Natural Gas
• Uranium

Out of these 13, only 9 are actually used to produce energy. These being; Fossil, Nuclear, Nuclear 3G EPR, Hydraulic, Onshore and offshore wind, Geothermal, Biomass, and Solar. These will be looked into detail later.

Energy Consumption

Energy consumption is always rising and falling in the nation as the player progresses through the game. Energy consumption is measured in terawatt hours (TWh). The national production of TWH never goes up unless the player invests in one of the 8 power plants buildable in the game.

Consumption is measured by the activity in economic sectors that require electricity to function, as these products need electricity to work or the factories they are made in are increasing production when you subsidize them. With consumption always going up, or down in some cases, the player must adhere and adjust their energy policy with the goal of producing more electricity than you consume, to switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy or to ensure consumption does not go above production.

Here is a list of sectors that require electricity and the development of these sectors will increase your consumption:

Industry:

• Aeronautical Construction
• Automobile Construction
• Electronic components
• Electric Vehicle Construction
• Electric Utility Vehicle Construction
• Naval construction
• Paper
• Steel
• Synthetic Fibers
• Tire industry
• Utility vehicle construction

Services:

• Air transportation
• Numerical networks and infrastructures
• Railway transportation
• Telecom operators
• Urban transportation

ICT:

• Broadband Internet
• 4G
• Super high-speed fiber optic

It is possible that some sectors that are not listed here could, theoretically, consume energy. For example, household appliances use electrical materials, steel, and electronic components to produce. An increase in the production of Household appliances would create a need for more electrical materials, steel, and components. Steel also needs electricity. A sort-of paradox would create a back and forth between the many sectors interacting, causing the energy consumption to go up.

The Search for Resources

There are five different ways to extract oil and natural gas in the game;

• Oil wells
• Offshore oil rigs
• Gas Wells
• Shale gas
• Shale oil

There are two classifications for oil and natural gas; conventional and non-conventional. Conventional extracts the resource using conventional means such as pumping and drilling. Non-conventional oil and gas, which must be approved via referendum or vote by parliament and at the cost of the environmentalists in the player’s country, uses methods of extraction specifically for shale oil and gas.

To explain why shale oil and gas does not increase your trade contract production, it seems, as of now, that shale oil and gas can only be used domestically to assist in lessening your dependence on foreign oil and gas as both sectors do not have a ‘World Info’ tab, meaning they are domestic sectors only.

Renewable and Non-Renewable Resources

As-in real-life, the game features renewable and non-renewable alternatives to how the player can produce energy in the game. Non-renewable energies are sources of energy that will run out in the future, but for the purpose of the game, these resources can be subsidized and the player’s production in the percentage of the world will increase.

One can be familiar with the primary sector of every economy. Primary resources in Geopolitical Simulator includes everything that is minable such as:

• Coal
• Oil
• Natural Gas
• Uranium

Coal, oil and natural gas are used in the production of fossil electricity, uranium is used in the process of nuclear electricity production and wood is used in the process of biomass production.

Renewable energies are:

• Biomass
• Geothermal
• Solar
• Wind (Onshore and offshore)
• Nuclear (Needs uranium)
• Third generation EPR nuclear (2019 Edition)

Note: Biomass can possibly be considered a polluting resource. In the beginning of the game, wood production and deforestation account for around 24% of the CO2 in the world. Biomass energy production should be discouraged in order to avoid raising CO2 levels.

It is unknown whether the nation can actually run out of specific non-renewable energy, such as reaching peak oil or simply running out of coal or uranium. The player can, however, subsidize a sector by $100 billion and this will allow the player to control a lot of the world’s production. But this does not affect the trade balance.

Energy Policy & Climate Change

In the 2019 Edition of Power & Revolution, energy has become more of an integral part of the fight against climate change. To avoid strained economic and environmental disaster, a shift in policy must be adopted to slow the process of the change and to move away from fossil energies. Fossil energies directly contribute to increased CO2 and greenhouse gasses emitted into the atmosphere and will strain your global menace rating in the world, and, in turn, cause an increase in financial and environmental events in the nation. Biomass will ask for more wood imports and production, hurting your deforestation rating.

As of 01/01/19, this is the CO2 levels produced by the world. Adjust your energy policy accordingly to lower these levels;

• Heat and electricity production: 25%
• Forestry sector: 24%
• Industry: 18%
• Other energy sectors: 9%
• Ground transportation: 8.5%
• Building: 6.4%
• Waste & Sewage: 3.0%
• Air transportation: 3.0%
• Maritime transportation: 2.5%

Note, this is a world projection, as you should adjust as much as you can playing as one nation and hope other major AI powers do the same (India, China, EU). Playing as more than one nation will assist in this mission.

Transportation of Oil, Gas and Electricity

(TOE: Tonne of oil equvalent; is a unit of energy defined as the amount of energy released by burning one tonne of crude oil. It is approximately 42 gigajoules or 11,630 kilowatt hours, although as different crude oils have different calorific values, the exact value is defined by convention; several slightly different definitions exist. The toe is sometimes used for large amounts of energy.)

There are two ways of delivering oil and gas to your neighbors, though shipping it across the ocean makes it even more expensive. Transportation costs are included in the export and import prices of your contracts. To waive these costs, the player has the option to build oil and gas pipelines into neighboring countries. Before construction of a pipeline, you must first ask permission to build a pipeline through your selected countries. Building a pipeline from Russia to China only requires one, but Iran to Libya would require the player to have a good economic relationship with Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, and Libya, though you can possibly cheat and have the pipeline cross the narrow strait between Jordan and Egypt.

Upon completing this, the player can negotiate in the commercial phase of the project, meeting with leaders that the pipeline crosses to sell them their oil or gas. The profit margin that the player is rewarded with is extraordinarily higher since the oil or gas only has to travel from the oil or gas well to the national borders of the country you want to sell it to. In turn, transportation costs are almost wiped away. The sale of contracts in Oil and Natural Gas gives you the option to use the pipeline along with a second option. These options are transportation by train or the use of the pipeline, though the pipeline only allows a certain cap of TOE to be transported through it, which is dependent on what well it is connected to, how much production that well creates and possibly how long the pipeline runs. The first option is the default way of transportation to a neighboring country, the use of locomotives with tanker cars to transport the player’s oil. The second is the limited use of the pipeline, only allowing a partial amount of the actual production of the well to be exported.

There is no way to transport oil and gas across the oceans to get a bigger profit margin, so the player must deal with the transportation costs of loading the oil and gas on a tanker and shipping it across the ocean, though large contracts do have a healthy margin of profit.

To know when a contract while have a profit, one must negotiate their contact to be higher than their nation’s sale price. For example, Russia can sell off their oil and gas to nations such as Germany and the United States, whos purchase prices are much higher than Russia’s. The difference from your average sale price to what is negotiated is your profit. Ex: If Russia’s sale price is $500, and we negotiate a sale of 20 million TOE to the United States, who’s purchase price is $800, locked at a price of $700 for 5 years, our profit will be $200 per TOE.

As of the 2019 Edition of Power & Revolution, importing electricity will only be allowed with countries that neighbor you. This is different from where you could import from anywhere in the world in previous versions. This is to improve realism as nations sharing electricity usually tend to build powerlines and cables to provide power.

Electricity Shortages

As of the 2019 DLC, it is possible to have civilian unrest and suffer power outages and shortages in your nation. Outages are caused when your electricity deficit is high enough to start suffering outages (Exact number unknown, possibly 10 or more). You will receive a news update from state media announcing that hospitals cannot supply enough fuel or electricity to their units to ensure proper safe operations for their patients.

Further negligence to address your energy crisis will further your disapproval, your security services director telling you about how rolling blackouts are making the population uneasy.

Financial Costs and Energy Output for Power Plants

(As of the 2019 Edition of Power & Revolution, when constructing a plant, the game gives you an approximate output of the selected energy park. These numbers may be inaccurate for the time being until I can thoroughly research each park’s output. -PG, 3/7/19)

Most do not need a secondary resource to produce electricity, such as most renewable resources like wind and solar. Fossil electricity requires you to have coal, oil or natural gas to produce it. One is fine, but all three are recommended as many countries in the game have more than 50% of their power being produced by fossil fuels. A recommendation for what energy you should produce would have to be solar, wind and nuclear. Solar energy produces the most for a renewable energy park other than nuclear energy. Below, you can find the cost of and production for 1 of each power plant as well as the cost to make one terawatt of power for each energy plant. Some plants produce more than one terawatt, such as solar, nuclear and nuclear-EPR!

These calculations are in USD, playing as the United States on 01/01/19 and account that you are using the default number of manpower on each project. Costs can vary depending on your inflation level (Unconfirmed)

Note: Solar and wind power is locked at 0.1TWh, I’m currently trying to see why this is happening. Power productions for these industries may be inaccurate, possibly being nerfed. Check soon for more updates.

Fossil fuel energy = Coal, oil and gas
$17.6 million annual, $88 million over 5 years (1 plant) | 1TWH (50 facilities) = $880 million (1yr) $4.40 billion (5yr)

Manpower for each plant: 2,000 – 6,000

Maximum manpower cost: $88 million, $440million | 1TWH (50) = $4.40 billion, $22.0 billion

Nuclear energy = Uranium
$2.5 billion, $12.5 billion, 21.8 TWh

Manpower for each plant: 3,000 – 9,000

Maximum manpower cost: $12.5 billion, $62.5 billion

Third Generation EPR Nuclear Electricity = Uranium
$2.5 billion, $12.5 billion, 28.1 TWh

Manpower for each plant: 3,000 – 9,000

Maxiumum manpower cost: $12.5 billion, $62.5 billion

Hydroelectricity = None
$8.80 million, $44.0 million | 1TWH (50) = $440million, $2.20 billion

Manpower for each plant: 2,000 to 6,000

Maximum manpower cost: $44.0 million, $220 million | 1TWH = $2.20 billion, $11.0 billion
(Onshore, offshore,
Onshore wind = None
$377,000, $1.88 million | 1TWH = 9-10 facilities Manpower for each plant: 900 to 2,700

Maximum manpower cost: $1.88 million, $9.41 million | 1TWH = $3.9 million, $16 million

Offshore wind = None
$448,000, $9.4 million | 1TWH = 4 facilities Manpower for each plant: 1,350 to 4,050

Maximum manpower cost: $1.7 million, $8.4 million

Geothermal energy = None
$1.57 million, $7.84 million | 1TWH (200) = $314 million, $1.57 billion

Manpower for each plant: 2,000 to 6,000

Maximum manpower cost: $7.84 million, $39.2 million | 1TWH (200) = $1.57 billion, $7.84 billion

Biomass = Wood
$314,000, $1.57 million | 1TWH (1,000) = $314 million, $1.57 billion

Manpower for each plant: 2,000 to 6,000

Maximum manpower cost: $1.57 million, $7.84 million | 1TWH (1,000) = $1.57 billion, $7.84 billion

Solar energy = None
$26.3 million, $132 million | Solar energy produces more than 1TWH with every facility.

Manpower for each plant: 2,000 to 6,000

Maximum manpower cost: $132 million, $659 million