Energy policy in Burgundie

The energy policy of Burgundie is determined by royal and national governments of Burgundie, which address issues of energy generation, distribution, and consumption, such as building codes and gas mileage standards. Energy policy may include legislation, international treaties, subsidies and incentives to investment, guidelines for energy conservation, taxation and other public policy techniques.

Since its addition to the responsibilities of the Royal Department of the Commonwealth, power generation and distribution has been a matter of public health in Burgundie. Comprehensive plans for the development of the energy sector have been enacted in times of energy shortage or in times of conversation. The Royal Department of the Commonwealth has the power to oversee, inspect, and enact laws regarding the generation and distribution of power in Burgundie. The Golden Council of Ten has the authority to regulate consumption and taxation/incentivization of the energy utilized by Burgoigniacs. This difference means that energy generated for export is outside of the Golden Council’s jurisdiction and therefore not subject to taxation by the nation of Burgundie. This makes the generation of power in Burgundie attractive to many multi-national firms as they can sell it cheaply. This has led to a number of fuel shortages and in some cases paradoxical actions over the years. During the Second Great War, large portions of energy sold on the international market by companies operating in Burgundie was purchased by the Auxilium Alliance. Thusly, Burgundie was a massive provider of wartime endurance to its enemies and its detractors in the Western Alliance accused the royal government of racketeering. Regardless of ongoing criticism, the policy remains in place today.

History
With the advent of transportable electricity and as part of the city beautiful movement in the 1890s-1920s, the Royal Department of the Commonwealth brought centralized power generation under its jurisdiction. Until that time it was common for each entity to generate its own power which, with the advent of the industrial revolution meant the cities were packed with dirty factories and sick workers. Compounded by the fact that Burgundie’s most accessible power generating material was the dirty and inefficient lignite coal, cities were filthy and workers succumbed to all manner of lung and heart diseases. As a matter of public health it was determined that public power needed to alleviate factories from having to build in-house power plants and that they should be far from the cities they served to keep the air clean and breathable.

Starting with the Royal Order for the Renaissance of Blue Sky Cities signed in 1887, a series of 15 large scale steam turbines, three each outside of Vilauristre, Port Diteaux, Dormanshire, Dorft, and Soix. The turbines were completed in 1895 and the first transmission of public power occurred on 14 November. For the first decade the power was only available to factories that removed/repurposed their in house power plants. By 1906 general commercial power was introduced. The steam turbines were already over capacity and coal plants were hastily erected to meet the additional draw in Vilauristre, Port Diteaux. These plants were never meant to be permanent but they remained activate into the nuclear age. Residential electrical power was introduced in 1909 and throttled to 4 hours a day, two in morning from 6am-8am and then two in the afternoon from 6pm-8pm. This was to allow more power to go to the factories during the day shift. A confederation was formed of second and third shift workers who could not benefit from the timed electricity to protest the throttled times. Due to their influence unfettered access to residential power was introduced in 1911, but meters were added and residential customers charged for the energy they used. They system remained the same until after the Great War when free commercial energy became untenable and businesses were metered and charged for their usage. In the 1950s and 60s the advent of nuclear energy made public power cheap so business did not have a difficult time purchasing it and the abundance made residential power cheaper too. After a devastating accident in the nuclear sector fossil fuel fired plants came back into prominence. A cautious resurgence in nuclear power was bolstered in the 1990s by the BurgunFri movement which sought to make Burgundie self-sufficient in regards to power generation. This was felt primarily in the overseas territories as they were less likely to have their own power generation. In Levantine Burgundie, existing power generating processes were increasing transferred to nuclear and renewables. By the 2020s Burgundie had become a net exporter of energy, but remained an importer in some smaller, more far flung territories.

Biomass
As a result of the BurgunFri movement in the 1990s an increase in investment in alternative fuels occurred. Biomass (known currently as experimental fuels) has become the most promising area of exploration since the 2010s. Biomass is collected across Burgundie and the world with Lansing Lines opening up a circumnavigational route that collects both first and second-generation biofuels for use across the Burgoignesc thalassocracy. These products are brought to gigantic torrefaction and pelletizing plants on Salarive for the Audo-Alshari market, Torlen for Burgoignesc market, and Port de Vent for the Equitorial Ostiecian market. These new plants have boosted employment significantly on the islands and also has had a marked impact on global waste, reducing industrial dumping/landfill use rates in participating countries by up to 3%. In 2035, Lansing Lines and PYC Limited started work on a retrofit for a bulk carrier that could perform small scale torrefaction and pulverization while travelling to and from ports of call.

Petroleum
O’Shea Container Shipping has long maintained a dominant position in the global petroleum trade. They are estimated to ship 38% of the world's unrefined petroleum and 42% of the refined product. Since Burgundie does not extract large quantities of petroleum, its primary part in the process is the refinement the product on islands proximate to other nation's oil fields.

LNG
O'Shea LNG tanker