National Energy Explorer

National Energy Explorer (v2) - can simulations support democratic sense making?

serious games simulations sense-making energy data public policy pro-democracy

I'm building a serious game of the UK energy system to test the uility of simulations for supporting democracy.

You can play with a work-in-progress prototype¹ here: ajamesphillips.com/sims/national-energy-explorer

It will eventually contain oil & gas² for domestic and industry use & extraction. For now it is focused on electrical supply & demand.

National Energy Explorer

Aim


The sim should engage and empower our democratic citizens to have conversations about our national energy situation grounded in reality: we should be able to know which political promises & plans add up and which are wishful thinking.

It's not a high fidelity simulation. Instead it's aiming to be ±10% and highly accessible: it will be mobile optimised, and load and play in < 3 seconds.

Motivation³


When it is hard for us and our fellow democratic citizens to know, say and do smart things then we can't expect to live in a functioning flourishing democracy.

We are facing several intersecting crises e.g. climate, energy, demographic, economic, housing, water, resource over extraction, pollution etc. which we need to comprehend and move coherently, at speed and scale to address. To do this we need to have a shared view of reality and how to navigate it.


It's like we're trying to fight WW2 without the generals map of the battlefield - everyone's doing their best but most of us, politicians included, lack the high level view of the whole problem and solution space.

Simulations and serious games are a powerful and underused sense making medium to provide that high level view.

Team


I'm working with two amazing designers - one in games, the other a strategic product designer.

Funding & Access


All self funded so far. My partner has been very supportive but I haven't earnt anything for > 12 months.

The core data and model will be all open source on wikisim.org, and a simplified version of the simulation will have a permanent public (free) version available.

I'm hoping to support the project by offering a more entertaining paid-for version as a serious game which will contain story / plots, sound effects etc.

Question


If this sounds intriging please share your thoughts. I'd also be happy to chat about simulations and discuss their potential for supporting our democratic processes, citizen engagement and empowerment.

Notes

¹ The first prototype version was actually released all the way back in Feb 2020: "Energy Explorer" on TheWorldSim.org

² Whilst we're still burning fossil fuels we need to know how much energy it's contributing, from which countries, how secure those sources are and how much alternative energy sources we would need to replace our current unsustainable fossil fuel usage.

³ This work has been heavily inspired by David MacKay's book "Without Hot Air" and his work on the UK national energy "balance sheet".

I'd recommend spending a few days reading and digesting the book if you haven't already; but I hope one day soon you'll be able to learn as much or more about the UK energy system from 5 minutes of serious play.