Shale Plant?

[Garth Vader]

I was reading a thread at another site where I am not registered, and somebody said that with the shale plant since BTS you have no -health from coal if you have oil, or something like that.

Is that right? Is this documented anywhere? I am currently in a game as Japan and was bummed cause I don't usually build coal plants because of the unhealthiness, but if true this is going to rock!

[Theben]

Let us know.

[joncnunn]

Any coal plant stops producing unheathiness when a cleaner source of power arrives to the city (e.g. Hydro Plant built later in the same city or Three Georges on the landmass.)

But Coal Plants built after clean power arrives also replace the clean power source and so they start poluting.

So for any civ as long as you only build power plants in the cities that are already most productivate and stop doing so when you near completion of Three Georges you'll generally be fine. (Possible exception of a very productive Sushi's corp if your not holding the pop down with extra specalists).

[ColdPhoenix]

He's not talking about building a cleaner power plant, just getting oil. Don't know if it's what happens with the shale plant though.

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by Theben
Let us know.

Yeah. The UB keeps me from playing as Tokugawa. I would play Japan if this were true.

[ColdPhoenix]

It doesn't appear to be the case. The advantages are an extra 10% and that you don't need coal to power it. Nothing changes when you get oil.

[Garth Vader]

Ok, I had got to the point where I could build it, but I don't have oil yet. Although it looks like you don't get the extra 2 unhealthiness from coal, so it's a clean power source with +10 production.

[ColdPhoenix]

You get 4 due to power from both and nothing due to coal (though you don't get the power if you don't have coal for the coal plant).

[Garth Vader]

So it's no difference? I could have sworn there was a difference, I didn't have nearly the problems I usually have when I industrialize. Oh well.

[Baldyr]

Man, this subject seems confused. Does someone know for a fact what Shale Plant does and doesn't?

[ColdPhoenix]

I checked using worldbuilder before I wrote post 6 and as far as I can tell that's the way it works .

[Blaupanzer]

The shale plant substitutes oil for coal for the power plant with the same pollution effect.

This breakthrough in the use of shale oil is as meaningless in the game as it was in the real world. We are still trying to figure out how to extract oil from shale at some profitable cost. In WWII, the cost of the process did not matter. Japan had no other source for fuel, so had to extract it at whatever cost applied. War often distorts economic policy in this way.

[ColdPhoenix]

You don't need any resource for the shale plant to provide power.

[joncnunn]

Actually, Blaupanzer's statement is outdated. (It should read prior to the recent oil price run up ...)

With raw crude oil demanding over $100 a barel, even Shale Oil extration could turn a profit. Now if the price drops significantly below $100 it would become unprofitable.

[Blaupanzer]

My understanding is that the engineering process to extract oil from shale of from tar sands is not well-defined. Meaning "it may be profitable, if oil remains above $80 a barrel," or whatever. Test sites are in place at the Colorado/Utah/Wyoming border. However, no "Eurekas" have been sounded as I understand it.

Back to the game, I have now heard the claim that the shale oil plant produces no pollution, and that the shale oil plant requires no resources. The former certainly appears to be false. As to the latter, does anyone know if this is correct? The darn UU comes too late -- a quick bee-line to plastics and up goes the Chinese dam, removing the need for any power plants.