To be honest I did't read through the list of ideas but I also can't recall anybody mentioning it.
But I sure do like the idea! How do think it could work? Take forests as places for Biomas and making sure they stay there?
That would open up totally new ways of waging war btw! Imagine burning down the energy reserves of an enemy nation that has concentrated on Biomas for their energy supply! Or when using Hydropower; cutting the water supply by diverting rivers...

It would also open totally new ways in the fields of economy I guess. Coal might become close to useless...

Please write more about this! How do you want it to work like?

Whether or not people turn to renewable energy sources, or nuclear, is a matter for game-play though. Hopefully we'll have to make a meaningful choice between nuclear and a more natural alternative. And with small quantities of uranium around (as in Raingoon's energy model) some civs will be forced to use renewable energy if they don't have an abundance of natural resources, or are not wealthy enough to afford it).

Integrade this with expandable cities without making the system too tedious and you have a winner

Coal mining: costs for maintenance are increasing by time (longer and deeper mines) from to 2 to 4 shields. After a 100 years of operation resource of coal mine is finished.
Use of energy generated by coal is generating 100 % pollution (25 % after the invention of air filters). Pollution is causing some amount of unhappiness. Earthquake kills some units of population (miners)
Building costs are 100 shields. Production is 25 per year. Lifetime of coalmine is 100 years. Lifetime of coal power plant 25 years. Recover from recycling: 7.

Hydropower:
Only possible near rivers and lakes: mountains 200 % energy production, but cost also 100 % more to built. Hills: 100% energy production, flat land: 50 % energy production, big rivers are doubling energy production. Due to climatic changes production of hydro power can vary (e.g. more rainfall: small rivers get to big rivers and double energy production, in dry periods big rivers get to small rivers, under extreme conditions desertification can make power production impossible, earthquakes can cause flooding within the surrounding, lower squares (1-2 squares for hydro power plants built in hilly regions, 2-4 squares for power plants build in mountain regions). Maintenance costs are 1 shield.
Building costs are 200 shields. Production is 25. Lifetime is 40 years. Recover from recycling: 25.

Wind:
Works best in coastal areas: 200% energy generation, deserts are generally calm (50%). Sole hills and single mountains give 200% power production. Valleys are bad (30 %). Regions a bit away from the poles produce 150% of power (“roaring forties”). Hills, wood, other wind turbines and close obstacles (next square) reduce power (70 %). Maintenance is 2, in stormy areas (e.g. mountains 3). Building costs are 50 shields, generation is 10. Earthquakes could lead to total destruction in 50% of the cases. Floods do not interfere. Wind generators bulked directly near town squares may cause some unhappiness (noise).
Lifetime is 15-20 years. Recover from recycling 7 shields.

SOLAR ENERGY: General:
Irradiated solar energy onto Earth is gradually increasing from 700 kWh/sqm per year in Polar Regions to 2200 kWh/sqm per year in regions close to the equator – this results in a triple energy production!

Solar thermal power plants:
Work best in sunny and warm places (deserts): Energy production is 70% from standard near the poles; near equator is 200%. Desert gives an additional increase of 20%. Humid areas produce 20% less.
Construction of plants in woods and valleys decreases power by 25 % due to shadowing. Building costs are 200 shields. Power generation is 25. Maintenance costs are 2 shields. Earthquake and flooding decrease power production by 50%. Lifetime is 25 years. Recover from recycling: 100.

Photovoltaics:
Energy production in Polar Regions is 70 % from standard; near equator is 200%. Deserts give a 10% minus (heat is decreasing the voltage of solar cells). Hills give a 10% plus (cooler, increases voltage). Mountains give a 20% in power production. Costs to build in mountain areas are double.
Construction of plants in woods and valleys decreases power by 25 % due to shadowing.
Maintenance costs are 1 shield. Building costs are 320 shields, after the invention of Thin Film Semiconductor Technology: 180 shields. Power generation is 25. Earthquakes and flooding do not harm (solar cells even work in space).
Lifetime is 30 years. Recover from recycling: 200, for Thin Film Technology: 100.

Nuclear:
Power generation is 25, works for 35 years, costs 180, maintenance is 3. Nuclear power causes unhappiness and may cause scandals, especially when a university town is close by. Possibility of accident. Vulnerable to military attack and earthquakes (radiation kills in 4 squares around). Nuclear waste has to be watched by a military unit for 12000 time units. One square is sufficient for 10 years of nuclear waste. The reactor itself has to be treated as a nuclear waste square after the end of its lifetime. Recover from recycling: -40 (reactor has to be sealed).

Energy form biomass can be generated from three sources:

1. Agriculture:
1.1 A part of agriculture waste can be transformed into energy: having a biogas plant in a city is giving one energy unit for each two farming products.
1.2 Also farming could be directly used to produce energy: Instead of food, energy in the harvest: e.g. sugarcane can be distilled to alcohol which serves as fuel for cars (1990 60% of the cars in Brazil had been running on that) while also the waste could be used, I suggest an efficiency of 150% compared to food production.

2. Waste
Waste and pollution production in a city with a biomass plant is sinking by 50%,
25% of the original produced waste and pollution can be transformed into energy.

3. Woods
Waste directly form the woods (dead trees) and indirectly in the city (e.g. from carpenters etc. ) can be transformed into energy. For each two shields produced in a wood, one energy unit is generated.

citation:
"An energy resource model could and should be implemented in Civ 3, as distinct from the current production resource model in Civ 2. Where production resources would remain as SHIELDS, energy resources could be depicted as BARRELS".
***Energy units !***

"Energy could be derived from animal power, wood, water, wind, coal, oil, uranium, and solar", ***geothermal sites, waste, agriculture (biomass)*** "depending on your current level of technology. The map would seed certain Special Energy Resources"
*** and - more whitspred general energy resources (rivers, windy coasts, sunny mountains etc ***
"according to their energy yield potential. E.g., the more profitable the resource is to exploit, the less frequently it would appear on the map. Perhaps Uranium, which might yield the most barrels per site of all, would be the hardest to find.

The use of Energy in the game would be in combination with production shields to create units. Some units, like battleships, could not be built without HUGE volumes of energy barrels, the kind of volume a lower-yield resource like coal couldn't begin to provide. The balance of the game should dictate that building a unit like a battleship, and supporting its movement (see below), would require that the player locate, secure and exploit a resource with no lower yield ratio than oil. It is suggested the production model be changed such that one energy barrel would now be needed per shield to build. This could be modified by certain improvements and wonders. Any ratios suggested here are of course subject to practical testing.

Various areas of the game that would be effected:

Trade and Trade Routes - first, trading energy or buying and selling it outright will help players who missed the exploration and resource grab; secondly, even those who succeed in controling resources should have to initiate trade routes (made instantly with a small fee) from their oil producing colony to their production heartland. It should therefore be possible to make a blockade against an enemy. This would finally give players a reason to have a navy - to protect their own energy trade routes while disrupting their enemy's.

Diplomacy - includes negotiating trades of energy barrels, resource rich land, the outright buying and selling of energy barrels as mentioned above.

Transportation - The game would require each road tile and highway tile to consume energy barrels, thereby adding a strategic cost to unchecked city expansion; rail tiles should be free to maintain, but movement on them would now cost a certain amount of energy (see "Unit Movement" below).

Exploration - a new game feature: locating resource deposits.

Technology Tree - discovery is needed before the player is able to locate/use a resource.

ICS - it will cost more to have more infrastructure, thereby helping to restrict unbridled expansion.

Unit Movement - a new movement model whereby modern units consume energy barrels to move; on undeveloped terrain moving one space would require one barrel of energy, so a tank moving three spaces across a field would require 3 energy barrels. This cost would be modified by, going highest cost to lowest, road, highway and rail -- for instance, a tank moving 11 spaces on a highway might require 3 energy barrels, where a railroads would require either much less or a fixed amount of barrels as a "fee", while a stealth fighter flying 11 spaces through the air would require 11 energy barrels.

Land Control - necessitates the need to explore, control and defend resources.

Game Interface - energy "barrels," ***E-units***or another icon, would now be tracked alongside production shields.

Map Tiles - new tiles for Special Resources"
***and whitepread renewable energy ressources***

"Early Energy Sources

oxen ranch (grass and plains, animal power, greatest energy production)
***biomass production***

lumber jack (forests, uses wood, high energy barrel production)
***depending on location - see my suggetions for biomass ****

mills (river tiles, uses water, medium energy barrel production)
***depending on location ! - see my suggetions ****

wind mill (hills, uses wind, medium energy barrel production)
*** depending on location !***

Later Energy Sources

open pit uranium mine (uranium squares, greatest energy barrel production)"
*** other longterm problems, nuclear waste etc. - see my suggestions above ***

"oil well (oil squares, high energy barrel production)
***equaivalent properties to coal - limited resource - see suggestions above ***

coal mine (coal squares, medium energy barrel production)"
***- limited resource - see my suggestions above***

"dam (river tiles, medium ***to high** energy barrel production)"
******depending on location ! clean - see my suggetions ****

solar panels (desert tiles, low *** ,meduim to high*** energy barrel production)"

*** please diverse between Solar Thermal and Photovoltaics - depending on location see my suggetions ****

wind power plants (hills, low ***to high*** energy barrel production)
***depending on location ! - see my suggetions ****

Pollution - energy barrels should be the sole determinant of pollution; energy barrels might produce pollution on a one-to-one per barrel basis, but increased technology would lower this amount.
*** renewables cause less pollution!!***

Overall Impact

Energy barrels would now be needed for production - i.e., you can't process shields without using energy barrels. Thus, no matter how many shields per turn your city collects, if it doesn't have energy barrels it cannot apply those shields to production. Before factories it would take one energy barrel to use one shield. As factories are built the amount of shields utilized per energy barrel would go up.

***Technology advanvement: Energy saving production: By introduction of ISO 14000 and Life Cyle Analysis (LCA) products could be produced with less energy consumption while a part of the energy (20-70%) could be regained by recyling ***

It is suggested that at some point a new advancement would make it possible for shields to be turned into energy barrels - such as synthetic fuels produced by germany at the end of WWII. Perhaps it would take two shields to make one energy barrel.

A suggested New Wonder - "OPEC," would increase oil production by 1.5 times per square and leech 1/4 of energy barrels produced from oil squares belonging to other civs.

Where shields might well continue to be locally gathered by each city, energy barrels could be collected from developed resource tiles in colonies within or outside your civ's borders, sent via an unobstructed supply route (abstracted on the game map) to your civ, where the cost of national infrastructure is taken off the top and the remainder is disbursed to each city to be processed with shields for production.

Excess barrels would go into individual city reserves, located in each city, the capacity for which would be equal to 10 times that city's population (before modifiers, which might take it up to 15 energy barrels per citizen). Reserves would be used to fund movement of units from that city (if applicable), and then to make up for any shortfalls in future production.

Balance

High production resource sites should be rare, and it should take a great deal of energy barrels to support a large civ's needs. If one civ gets extraodinarily lucky and manages to gain a site that produces copious amounts of energy barrels (i.e., several uranium sites together), limiting the storage capacity in each city would check them from being able to build an insurmountable stockpile.

The race to control resources would add a fun new layer of strategy and excitement, and the balancing act of USING those resources is nothing less than fundamental to a world class 4X strategy game.

*** while resources are limited, energy is getting more rare and expensive in the future, so storing could be also an option
instead of using it up ***

Some thoughts...
I generally agree with what has been posted above. Even though I like to get into as many details as possible we have to remember not to too much of the good things. Some who is not familiar with the workings of the various energy systems should still be able to enjoy the game. But we haven't reached that point yet. So go on!

Now, some suggestions I just came up with:

-I know there is some kind of power plant in Spain that is using solar power more indirectly. There is a large area of ground which is covered by a transparent plastics (foil?) thingy. In the centre there is a very high tower with several turbines in it that are above each other.
As I understand it works because the air under the plastic is heated and moves along the bottom of the plastic which is about 1 meter above the ground towards the tower. The air is then going up the tower and turns the turbines.
How do we catagories this? Solar Thermal, Solar Collector or what? Would it be worth including?

-How about Photovoltaic Power Plants in Earth Orbit? I guess the initial investment would be huge but I think the outcome can be quite large as well. The would of course have to be ground stations to recieve the energy via microwaves that are transmitted from the orbital plant to the ground. But those could be more or less anywhere on the surface of the planet. They would not be interrupted by rain, clouds, smok or anything in the air because the microwaves can penetrate through them. Of course, being close to the equator would be a benefit I prosume because of the angle the beams come down and the distance from orbit to ground if the power plants are in a geostationary orbit which I believe would most favourable.

-I believe the idea of tidel power plants in coastal areas is already included, is it?
If not it definetly should be!

Well, that's it for now.

To the questions from Hendrik:

The solar power plant you mentioned was built
near Manzabares in Southern Spain. It was working by thermal convection triggered by the hot air under the transparent foils. It got a diameter of 122 m and got a chimney of 195 m (at its end was the turbine and the generator).
Unfortunately it broke after an extraordinary storm in 1988 (climate change?) and was dismantled later. It was also a solar thermal power plant.

Space Photovoltaic Power Generation: it costs a lot of money to put things in space and the maximum solar irradiance is only 35% higher than on the Earth's surface. o.k. - nighttime could be avoided. But I don't think it is worth the effort - you have to consider the losses of the conversion to microwave and the re-conversion. Also control has to be save not to grill some cities etc. These ideas came up in the 70s and 80s when NASA needed some money for future projects and self-justification.

Tidal hydro power plants could be considered in the game, although I know only two of them on the planet working (the biggest in in Normandy, France with 240 MW at a tide hub of 17 m), it seems they are uneconomic.

First, what does this mean: "ISO 14000 and Life Cyle Analysis (LCA)" ?

I would like to help you simplify this but I can't think of anything simpler. For me it sounds quite understandable.

The effectivness of certain technologies would have an impact on not just the effective use of energy but also on the scale of pollution, wouldn't it?

In short, ISO (International Organization for Standardization) make standard books of rules about Quality (ISO 9000) and Environment (ISO 14000) in business (production process) and a lot more.

If a company complain to ISO 14000 rules, it must take care of environmental impact of a product (or service), starting from project scratch to the final disposal (recycling) of it.

I know ISO 14000 compliance on industry just enough to assure you they almost always become huge paper monster useless if not to maintain lot of ISO certification company I for sure will roll on the floor laughing if Firaxis will put them as a Wonder with positive effects on environment

That said, I support the original idea of Raingoon about energy barrels and any reasonable improvement that can match with the strategic, global level of a CIV game (not Sim powerline, please ).

quote: Originally posted by That said, I support the original idea of Raingoon about energy barrels and any reasonable improvement that can match with the strategic, global level of a CIV game (not Sim powerline, please ).

Agreed

- MKL

quote: Originally posted by Hendrik the Great on 04-26-2000 08:20 AM When you started this thread you wrote that you are a professor in this field. So I was wondering what is it exactly that you are doing?

Answers to Hendrik: Job: I am teaching Photovoltaic Systems at the Federal State
University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ-COPPE)
and I try to establish a department for
Renewable Energies here.
Thanks for keeping the discussion !
I`ll be back soon...

quote: Originally posted by Adm.Naismith on 04-27-2000 08:09 AM Hendrik, about you question on ISO 14000, please jump to http://www.iso.ch for deep explanation. If a company complain to ISO 14000 rules, it must take care of environmental impact of a product (or service), starting from project scratch to the final disposal (recycling) of it. I know ISO 14000 compliance on industry just enough to assure you they almost always become huge paper monster useless if not to maintain lot of ISO certification company I for sure will roll on the floor laughing if Firaxis will put them as a Wonder with positive effects on environment

- its a huge paper monster, yes, but its outcome is helping the environment, because the companies start to think over a complete
life-cycle of a product (production, utilization and recycling) - remember that also the United Nations are mainly a huge paper monster also (especially at its beginning, take look at all their regulation stuff), but at the end something useful spins off (sometimes).

I just returned yesterday from traveling, too. I was at Brussels for a few days with my school class. Our geography teacher had arranged for us to visit the European Parliament there.

Every house is then equipped with a photovoltaic (PV) roof and has enough energy for themselves and some to feed into the public grid. Advantages: de-centralized power generation makes the society less vunerable: natural diseasers have a 50% smaller impact, in case of wars: under attack only 50% population reduction. Total power production is increased by 25% without emissions. No lifetime limits. Cost: 1000.

What I'd like even more would be if I could make up my own ways of generating power, not just the options the game offers. But I guess that would be too difficult to make.

I'd say we get these ideas about alternative energies more known around the forums and see what can be done to get it to FIRAXIS so it will be noticed. Who knows, maybe they like it!

quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger on 05-24-2000 12:21 AM What about the use of energy saving devices? That should fit in here somewhere.

Devices, processes politics (eco-tax)or even education could save energy. Perhaps it is ok
to do it as a development stage as in CIV 2: Development of Environmentalism
allows to bulid certain renewable power plants, but also reduces energy consumption.

By the way: should we make energy consumption dependent on the region?
e.g. polar climate requires more energy,
see also ../../Forum28/HTML/000271.html?14#14 )

quote: Originally posted by Hendrik the Great on 05-15-2000 04:18 PM I'd say we get these ideas about alternative energies more known around the forums and see what can be done to get it to FIRAXIS so it will be noticed. Who knows, maybe they like it! What do you say?

...done! The forum "Energy" at "Suggestion for FIRAXIS" is reopened! ../../Forum28/HTML/000271.html?14#14

And I agree that the climatic region a city is located in should have an effect on the need for energy. However, it should not make exploration and colonisation of such regions impossible, just harder.
Remember that in regions like Siberia there might not be enough wood at some places in the taiga but there are large swamps. Peat can also be used easily for energy, fire and heat. As it is still used today where there are no other alternatives.

quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger on 06-11-2000 08:19 PM krauter, Discussion of recycling in the Apolyton Off-Topic. Join if you have time.

..ok, I will see

quote: Originally posted by Hendrik the Great on 05-25-2000 12:34 PM I'm just reading throu it. And I agree that the climatic region a city is located in should have an effect on the need for energy. However, it should not make exploration and colonisation of such regions impossible, just harder. Remember that in regions like Siberia there might not be enough wood at some places in the taiga but there are large swamps. Peat can also be used easily for energy, fire and heat. As it is still used today where there are no other alternatives.

ok, agreed, also the eskimos can survive by using oil from whales for fire or reduce energy consumption by using insulating furs from bears.