- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
You do realize that for that to work, we'd need to build enough tiberium storage that we could store all the tiberium that would normally be processed by those plants during their shutdown period?
If we want to do the refits quickly, that's going to require a much, much greater quantity of storage capacity than we'd normally need just for emergencies. Especially if we're already building the Stage 1 refineries anyway, which give us so much surplus refining capacity that we'd have very little need of any silo capacity in the short term.
But like, suppose we wanted to refit 25% of our existing as of 2058Q3 refining capacity outside of Mecca and Chicago. That's somewhere in the vicinity of 250-300 points of refining capacity we'd need to take offline.
Now, if we're planning for those refineries to be offline and for the tiberium to go into silos, then we'd need 750-900 points worth of tiberium storage capacity, which we'd then have to refine slowly after the new plants came online. And we'd need to refill and re-empty those silos again, in about four rounds of major refits.
That's a lot more silo capacity than we'd need just because one set of refineries is offline, after we already have the Stage 1 refineries. Because then we'll have roughly 600 RpT of surplus capacity, making it easy to switch 250-300 points of refining capacity offline for refits. Something we cannot do without building a quite sizeable array of silos.
I strongly suspect that the silos you would need to build for your version of this plan are going to be very expensive, to the point where "just build more plants" is a competitive option.
I'm not saying "don't build some silos."
But realistically, the solution to our "fragile infrastructure" problem is "just build the stage 1 refineries, lol." Because having those gives us a huge infusion of surplus capacity, and we can easily finish a second stage a year or so from now, when we will still have a huge amount of surplus capacity, even if the amount is less huge then than it is now.
(Refinery refits, at least based on the tech we have now, don't increase our income; they increase our income cap)
No, but I won't be surprised if it turns out that the silos cost, say, -1 Energy per 100 units of tiberium stored.
In which case running enough silos to let us shut down a large fraction of all the old pre-2050 tiberium refineries at once could cost something like -6 or -8 Energy... at which point it's not saving us Energy compared to building more refineries.
The silos aren't a trap option, but that doesn't mean they'll turn out to be a superior alternative to just pausing briefly after building Stage 1 of the refineries, and then building Stage 2 of the refineries.
We should build at least a few storage facilities as a routine precaution. And soon.
But I don't think we actually need or should desire them as a superior alternative to solving our immediate predicament, because I do not expect them to be a superior solution when compared to the refineries.
Sad to think we probably won't get double 100s. 😟