I'll preview the various hydro projects here since am mostly done writing them, but they're still subject to change/editing. Amur is also a good bit lower than potential estimates just because you cannot dam the actual Amur, only tributaries of it on your border.
-[]Amur Cascade: (1 Infrastructure dice) (-70 RpT) (+100 Electricity +60 Non-Ferrous) (Completion across 1969-1972) (Completes Far-Eastern Water Reservoirs) -[]Upper Ob-Irtysh Cascade: (2 Infrastructure dice) (-100 RpT) (+280 Electricity +30 Non-Ferrous) (Completion across 1968-1973) -[]Upper Lena Cascade: (3 Infrastructure dice) (-160 RpT) (+200 Electricity +200 Non-Ferrous) (Completion across 1969-1975) -[]Krasnoyarsk-Irkutsk Hydroelectric Zone: (3 Infrastructure dice) (-150 RpT) (+200 Electricity +80 Non-Ferrous) (Three +150 Steel Steel mills available 9th 5yp) (Completion across 1969-1974) -[]Amu Darya and Syr Danya Hydroelectric Cascades: (3 Infrastructure dice) (-180 RpT) (+350 Electricity +80 Non-Ferrous) (One +150 Steel Steel mill available 9th 5yp) (Automatically Completes Normal and Advanced Hydrological Stabilization Measures) (Completion across 1968-1974)
Thanks for the preview. It seems that the Upper Lena Cascade is our "crash the world Aluminum market" button. EHEHEHEH I WANTS IT. Krasnoyarsk-Irkutsk is a worse deal than Central Asia in raw numbers, but it opens up +450 worth of buildable steel. The big unknown is whether our steel demand will still be that huge come the 9th plan.
Why DO the dams open up steel mills anyway? Do they just allow barge transport to iron ore deposits that would otherwise be inaccessible?
Looking at the rocket production rate issue, OTL the Soviets were launching very roughly 40 Soyuz and 5 Proton rockets per year around 1970, plus a lot of smaller ones that'd probably be better served by R7U/a new launcher. If we naively count 1 RLA as 2 Soyuz and 1 Proton as 1 RLA then with the rough estimate of 40 RLA this year, we're on track to surpass that launch rate already. Given that, I'd say we're probably best off working on the light launcher once the budget situation is clear and waiting on the Stalingrad expansion until we hear of any availability problems, though IMO that's less important than the current canal/road/moon issue the plans are split over.
How quickly 2nd gen light launchers could be implemented?
As one of the concerns for RLA expansion program is availability of RLA cores, improving their availability would be nice, yet looming budget cuts are concerning vis a vis second production line and cutting "higher priority programs" wouldn't be great either.
So, could we loot the military again or it won't become relevant fast enough to matter?
Thanks for the preview. It seems that the Upper Lena Cascade is our "crash the world Aluminum market" button. EHEHEHEH I WANTS IT. Krasnoyarsk-Irkutsk is a worse deal than Central Asia in raw numbers, but it opens up +450 worth of buildable steel. The big unknown is whether our steel demand will still be that huge come the 9th plan.
Why DO the dams open up steel mills anyway? Do they just allow barge transport to iron ore deposits that would otherwise be inaccessible?
Both the aluminum and steel mills are solutions for how to use the massive amounts of hydro power we can't economically move to existing industrial areas. Which specific one we get is based on what ores are available locally, the aluminum mills have accessible bauxite/alumina while the steel mill projects have accessible iron ore (to smelt with arc furnaces to use up the electricity).
Looking at the rocket production rate issue, OTL the Soviets were launching very roughly 40 Soyuz and 5 Proton rockets per year around 1970, plus a lot of smaller ones that'd probably be better served by R7U/a new launcher. If we naively count 1 RLA as 2 Soyuz and 1 Proton as 1 RLA then with the rough estimate of 40 RLA this year, we're on track to surpass that launch rate already. Given that, I'd say we're probably best off working on the light launcher once the budget situation is clear and waiting on the Stalingrad expansion until we hear of any availability problems, though IMO that's less important than the current canal/road/moon issue the plans are split over.
My guess is we could get it with a cheap program of 3 years or less, assuming a decent roll.
My one concern with starting the light launcher sometime soon is that I would rather not add any more ongoing costs when we're staring down the barrel of either a heavy budget cut or that budget getting eaten for the moon program.
If I'm understanding the numbers right, for a moon landing after Vacuum Electronics finishes dropping off this turn and Interplanetary RLA is done early next year we should be spending 90 RpT on space, with the 30 RpT for Chelomei then taking us right up the max funding cap.
If we're cancelling and dealing with a hefty cut to avoid a worse cut later, another 5 RpT means 5 more that will need to be carved away. And since it seems the thread is generally in agreement that the LL are important, that means we're going to have to cancel even more things that we're already working on.
That's one thing the plant expansion has going for it at least, it's only one time construction costs instead of an ongoing research budget that makes our budget issues worse.
Absolutely not. It's probably even worse in fact, due to the stronger states versus the weaker federal government. However, the larger Muslim population from lack of Bangladesh and Pakistan means that it is proportionally less prominent.
Personally i think hotels are far more important than garbage. Right now we already have a garbage operation up and running where it can't keep up with demand but everything that is left over kan just be landfilled to no great loss. This stand in contrast to the total lack of hotels as an industry sure there might be a few small coops doing it but there is no larger initiative which is going to be very detrimental to our efforts to promote internal tourism or just for all the businessmen having to constantly travel between cities for meetings and deals.
I also realised that another LCI project i personally didn't pick this turn but i think we should do soon is synthetic rubber as our car industry likely is increasing the demand massively and natural rubber isn't nearly as good which is going to be important now that roads are being build.
My one concern with starting the light launcher sometime soon is that I would rather not add any more ongoing costs when we're staring down the barrel of either a heavy budget cut or that budget getting eaten for the moon program.
If I'm understanding the numbers right, for a moon landing after Vacuum Electronics finishes dropping off this turn and Interplanetary RLA is done early next year we should be spending 90 RpT on space, with the 30 RpT for Chelomei then taking us right up the max funding cap.
If we're cancelling and dealing with a hefty cut to avoid a worse cut later, another 5 RpT means 5 more that will need to be carved away. And since it seems the thread is generally in agreement that the LL are important, that means we're going to have to cancel even more things that we're already working on.
That's one thing the plant expansion has going for it at least, it's only one time construction costs instead of an ongoing research budget that makes our budget issues worse.
Expansion at Stalingrad, however, would take time and resources - looking at plans in the vogue, it won't be funded in full until 1966 at earliest, with completion and production spool up taking up more time.
Light launchers on the other hand, leverage existing (military) production and stocks - there ain't much difference from economics perspective whether ICBM is fired at some Far Eastern firing ground or into LEO orbit - as well as possibly finish (significantly) earlier than Stalingrad expansion does.
And earlier expansion of our space lift capability - be it through more RLAs or via LLs - should allow for earlier conclusion of RLA expansion program, which is more expensive for our space budget in any case.
I believe we should go for []Enforce Voznesensky's Proposal: Our scientists have clearly all failed to grasp even the most basic principles of cooperation. Luckily, they may still be of use even now. Korelev, Glushko, Yangel and Chelomei shall all be strapped to a single rocket aimed at the moon. Four tools needed to secure their escape shall be provided, but only one tool shall be within in arm's reach of each scientist. If they can somehow cooperate long enough to break free and take control of the ship in time to avoid becoming live test cases for the interesting effects of an impromptu lithobraking on the surface of the moon, then hopefully the whole experience would have served as what the Americans have recently taken to calling a "team-building excercise" (50 RpT) (4 "Quality" Rolls)
Asked the question, and if we want to go with Chelomei's program, we do need to cancel one of 5 RpT programs for now. Personally, I decided to go with Venera - it is marked as poorly performing, and if we try it again with new stage, we might actually design a probe that will get us some info before getting obliterated by the atmosphere.
Also replaced the one die on Transportation Enterprises with Hotel-Enterprises. Honestly, that option was there for so long, I just want to actually start it, and we can just invest enough dice into Transportation next turn to finish it, since it's a staged program, so there's no wasting the overflow.
Garbage is important, but a big part of the reason why I want to do hotels now is just that even beyond the possibility of tapping into tourist money thanks to our massive network of passenger rails, we are just a really damn big country. People will just need to travel occasionally, and having some place where they can stay the night outside their hometown/city is important for that. I could try to squeeze Garbage in on top of Hotels, but that would require dropping either Childcare or Trucking down to just one die of progress, and both of those are important too. It's just a situation where we've got too many things in Services that we want to do with not enough dice to do them, and when it came down to it between Hotels and Garbage the former has been sitting untouched on the list for years now, while we just finished a project for the later last turn. Fortunately this is the last turn before the new plan where we already have locked ourselves into a Service focus for more dice, so we should be able to start work on another Garbage project before a year from now.
Expansion at Stalingrad, however, would take time and resources - looking at plans in the vogue, it won't be funded in full until 1966 at earliest, with completion and production spool up taking up more time.
Light launchers on the other hand, leverage existing (military) production and stocks - there ain't much difference from economics perspective whether ICBM is fired at some Far Eastern firing ground or into LEO orbit - as well as possibly finish (significantly) earlier than Stalingrad expansion does.
And earlier expansion of our space lift capability - be it through more RLAs or via LLs - should allow for earlier conclusion of RLA expansion program, which is more expensive for our space budget in any case.
Light Launchers leveraging existing military designs doesn't really help up if we can't afford the budget to adapt them though. Unless a Glusko Proposal makes an extreme comeback, we will be canceling programs for budget reasons next turn even with just our current ongoing spending. The necessity for cuts if we cancel is obvious, but even if we do stick with Chelomei we're going to need to free up 5 RpT as RLA Interplanetary will still be on the books for one more turn. That can be fairly easily done be stopping the underperforming Venera program, but adding the 5 more RpT to that from trying to keep the Light Launchers funded starts causing problems. The PKA can't really be cancelled until we're ready to send cosmonauts up in the VA+RLA, because otherwise we'd be putting another delay on any development and testing that requires someone in space to do just after we put a delay in the program to send the moon mission to the committee. The Weather and Comm sats are both things that are extremely useful for the USSR as a whole instead of just getting to the moon, so if we canceled either one of them now we're going to have to squeeze them back into the cut even further post-moon space budget, likely delaying other projects we consider important then, and the Luna program is us developing powered landers, so that can't really be cut wholesale either. That leaves just ending both interplanetary probe programs, and there's been some vocal pushback to that whenever it gets floated due to those helping to push electronics development and just wanting to not lose institutional experience.
If enough people want it I could be convinced to just not select any Rocketry options in my (Kill the Moon ver.) plan and put those resources somewhere else, but I'm not going to be adding additonal ongoing Rocketry costs at all, Light Launchers included, until either the dust has settled from the budget cuts or we get some slack from projects ending naturally.
Now that it's clear we're not building manual power this turn, and we're gotten a hint about future hydropower projects, it's time for me to post this. @Blackstar have an omake/analysis/thing. It got a little out of hand.
Report on electrical generation capacity installed during the 7th FYP
By sheer coincidence, natural gas combined cycle power generation comprises almost exactly half of the 521 TWh/year new generation capacity installed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics once capacity factor is considered. Though this is an impressive performance of the new design, the original goal to "entirely take up the burden of coal demand" has clearly failed owing to the rapid growth of electrical demand from the union's population and industries, with old coal-fired thermodynamic cycles comprising 20.6% of installed capacity. Due to concentrated efforts to construct facilities away from population centers this has not increased smog-related health issues too severely however it is still undesirable.
Despite the failed ambition, the benefits of implementing the new combined cycle generation technology cannot be understated. Achieving an additional 261 TWh/year capacity with coal power alone not only would have a much larger health impact but it would have stretched the union's infrastructure to its limits with construction of the trans-ural waterway having to rush at the start of the plan rather than its end due to rapid overloading of the railway system.[1]
While Malenkov had inexplicably dragged his feet on dam construction with only a few projects partly funded a full decade after the post-war survey on potential sites was completed, a renewed focus on hydropower during the 7th plan has allowed its potential to be truly realized with it accommodating over one quarter the union's electrical demand with zero emissions or fuel requirements. The gains from this area disproportionately arrived in the late years of the plan and early construction of additional coal power was done on the assumption they were temporary measures until hydropower capacity increased, however electricity demand continued to grow quicker than anticipated throughout the plan and new coal power plants had to be built as late as early 1964.
Construction of coal power plants was always either contemporaneous with or directly preceding construction of industrial projects with uniquely high electricity consumption such as major chemical plants and the Severouralsk MMK. The lesson of this is that construction of desirable power generation should be done in excess of average demand to build a buffer that would allow critical projects to be built without having to commission additional coal power on short and unpredictable notice.
This plan marked a major milestone in electricity generation technology with the 1964 commissioning of three large power reactors. While this experimental project is a negligible component of capacity in this plan, it promises to build a bright future for socialism where electricity can be generated without smoke nor flame, and without the location restrictions of hydropower.
The last component of electrical generation introduced during the 7th plan was the combustion processing of waste, equally novel to the nuclear reactors as it is only made possible and necessary by the massive increase in consumption of goods that the successes of this plan have delivered. With barely one-third the generation capacity of coal power for similar resource investment and even more harmful smog, adding boilers and turbines to our garbage incinerators is questionable is a questionable electrical strategy. Between this and capacity being limited by the union's population and consumptive habits, it should not be considered a significant factor for future planning. [2]
Tentative proposals exist to increase the rate of combined cycle plant constructions by 50% in the 8th plan now that technology has matured, but any belief that this would guarantee a total replacement of coal generation stems from incorrect assumptions that the patters of hydropower in the 8th plan will have the same pattern as the 7th plan. This plan saw the completion of all conventional dams and other installations with low lead times. While the large cascade proposals for implementation in the next plan would have large yields, their large scale guarantees they will only come online during the final years of the plan, with no generation in the years 1965 to 1967. This sadly guarantees that for most of the 8th Five Year Plan coal power plants will remain necessary to ensure power grid stability.
These conditions raise completion of the trans-Ural canal system and expansion of the Kuzbas coal mines to critical priority, the 4+ year lead time of nuclear reactors and large dams is time Soviet industry does not have if the union is to maintain technological and productive parity with the capitalist world.
[1]Coal supplies are abstract so I can't convert them to an in-universe hard number. Generating all of this plan's gas power with coal instead would consume 260 to 290 units. For comparison, we gained 244 total from mines and gas heating.
[2] I don't actually know just how much waste-to-energy potential the USSR has. If this paragraph gets proven wrong next plan, chalk it up to a cranky bureaucrat unhappy that the Services ministry is joining the power generation party. But the plastic smog is a serious problem.
Heh, can't exactly fully do that, but close enough
Everyone pretty much agreed for an auto-coal next plan (Also new coal pulverization and supercritical? coal plants unlocked)
Can you solve plastic smog by burning stuff really hot or installing scrubbers or something?
Because it's the only way I can think of to permanently destroy plastic, at least in principle, that MIGHT not leave residual microplastics without requiring some absurd exorbitant economic measure like "just dissolve it all in concentrated acid."
Can you solve plastic smog by burning stuff really hot or installing scrubbers or something?
Because it's the only way I can think of to permanently destroy plastic, at least in principle, that MIGHT not leave residual microplastics without requiring some absurd exorbitant economic measure like "just dissolve it all in concentrated acid."
]Enforce Voznesensky's Proposal: Our scientists have clearly all failed to grasp even the most basic principles of cooperation. Luckily, they may still be of use even now. Korelev, Glushko, Yangel and Chelomei shall all be strapped to a single rocket aimed at the moon. Four tools needed to secure their escape shall be provided, but only one tool shall be within in arm's reach of each scientist. If they can somehow cooperate long enough to break free and take control of the ship in time to avoid becoming live test cases for the interesting effects of an impromptu lithobraking on the surface of the moon, then hopefully the whole experience would have served as what the Americans have recently taken to calling a "team-building excercise" (50 RpT) (4 "Quality" Rolls)
