Empire Rising: Spain

If there’s a company that’s busiest at this time, if the power company claims second place, no company would dare to claim first.

Carlo had already reminded General Manager Graham of the Power Company to hurry up with the production of various models of bulbs and wires before the Madrid’s Nocturnal City plan, to prepare for the popularization of electricity in Spain.

Graham indeed followed Carlo’s orders and produced a large number of bulbs and wires in advance. Since its formation, the power company has also been actively recruiting personnel to prevent such busy moments.

But Graham greatly underestimated the public’s love for electricity, or perhaps he greatly underestimated the nobles’ and capitalists’ enthusiasm for enjoying electricity.

When enjoying electricity and bulb lighting became a new fashion, the nobles really had no choice.

If other nobles are using electricity and bulbs, can other nobles of the same class remain indifferent?

After Christmas, the power company has been in a state of overwhelming orders. For Graham, at this moment, he is both pained and happy.

Although electricity can only be used for lighting at this time, it is undeniable that lighting is also an extremely important function. As a pioneer in the electricity industry, Graham is very happy that the public values what he has researched.

But the problem is, currently, the Spanish National Power Company’s orders have already been scheduled for a year later, and orders are still being generated every day.

Judging by the current production capacity of the Spanish Power Company, just meeting the electricity demands of the two large cities of Madrid and Barcelona could require more than two years of production at full capacity.

Graham had no choice but to find Carlo, requesting Carlo to recruit more employees for the Power Company and help the Power Company expand its production scale and improve the efficiency of its electricity supply.

Naturally, Carlo nodded repeatedly to Graham’s request.

The good news is that Carlo has always valued the development of electricity. Some universities in Spain also have specializations in electricity, although they are not very popular.

Even though they are not very popular, the various universities combined still bring more than 100 talents to the electricity industry every year.

If we add the technical workers trained in technical schools related to electricity, such as electricians, Spain could produce several hundred electricity-related technical talents annually.

If these talents are not enough, Spain can still recruit a certain amount of talent from other countries. However, because all countries have begun to value the development of electricity, recruiting talent is not as easy as it used to be.

Fortunately, Spain had already poached quite a few talents from abroad before, which is why Spain has been at the forefront of the electricity industry globally.

Carlo not only highly values the development of electricity, investing a large amount of money every year, but also continually introduces foreign talent when other countries did not pay much attention to electricity development.

Under such circumstances, the rapid development of electricity in Spain is quite normal. When there are no other external factors interfering, it is quite simple for a country to fully develop a particular industry.

Moreover, Spain is not a small country; with sufficient funds, progress in both electricity and other industries is only to be expected.

Another piece of good news for Spain is that cooperation with Prussia has, to some extent, improved Spain’s metallurgical technology.

Metallurgical technology also includes the technology of refining brass, which is the most reliable electrical wire material, not only improving transmission efficiency but also being safer than other metals.

Due to the improvement in metallurgical technology, Spain’s annual copper production has also increased to a certain extent. As copper production increased, the price of copper naturally fell.

The drop in copper prices led to a slight reduction in the production cost of wires, contributing significantly to the advancement of Spain’s electricity development.

Spain has a relatively small population, which leads to the current situation where only the two more populous cities, Madrid and Barcelona, can have widespread access to electricity.

But this is not entirely bad news. Compared to populous countries like the UK, France, and Germany, precisely because Spain has a smaller population, Spain can spend less money on the spread of electricity; Madrid’s Nocturnal City is the best example.

Such a City of No Sleep should definitely be placed in the capital, or at least in economically and industrially developed cities.

These cities would have larger populations, especially the capitals of the UK, France, and Germany, which all have populations exceeding millions.

Compared to Madrid, they would have to spend at least twice the cost to replicate a similar City of No Sleep. That’s not even taking into account the costs of generating and using electricity; if those are included, their costs might be three times more than Spain’s.

This is actually why the UK and France haven’t promptly followed suit. It may seem that Spain did not spend too much to construct Madrid’s Nocturnal City, but if you multiply that cost by three, the expenditure would be considerable.

Wouldn’t it be better to use that money to build a large fleet? Even if used in the army, couldn’t it build a large and elite military force?

For the UK and France, the two veteran powers, investing large sums in the field of electricity, which has not yet shown enough function, indeed requires enough courage to accomplish.