Chapter 350 - Seawater Desalination
Chapter 350: Seawater Desalination
Chen Jin’s plan was good, and it was certainly feasible.
However, he did not intend to reveal the technology for the life-prolonging medical procedure right off the bat. The nutrition compartment technology for cultivating infants in vitro was still ethically controversial and a lot of people would find it difficult to accept. It could take thirty to fifty years for people to get used to the idea.
The life-prolonging technology, on the other hand, would not encounter much resistance.
Five years.
Chen Jin decided that he would disclose the life-prolonging technology to the public in five years, once the first Xing Hai Hospital had been established in the desert,
One other consideration was that once the desert area controlled by Xing Hai Technologies had reached 500,000 square kilometers, Xing Hai Technologies would no longer be allowed to take control of the remaining desert areas no matter how much money they could offer. This was the upper limit of the land area that Xing Hai Technologies could hold.
This was all within Chen Jin’s expectations and he did not express any dissatisfaction whatsoever.
“500,000 square kilometers is enough. It is impossible for me to take control of all desert areas; the higher authorities would never allow it. I already have the equivalent of the area of several provinces, and it will cost five to ten trillion dollars to fully transform all of them.”
“Most of the revenue that Xing Hai Technologies earns in the domestic market will be invested in these desert land. It should just be enough.”
Chen Jin shook his head.
A few years ago, when Xing Hai Technologies had just entered the desert, his aunt He Jia had shown great interest in the plan, saying that she had found the meaning of life and wanted to contribute to the cause of environmental protection. Now that the market had encountered a breeze and with capital constantly being withdrawn, her passion faded, and she never once brought the topic up again.
“Aunt He Jia should have more than 20 billion dollars in her hands now! It’s time now for those idle funds to strike the metal.”
But those funds were not to be used in the local deserts.
…
May of 20X8.
Africa, the Sahara Desert.
On the eastern coast of Morocco, there was a research institute for seawater desalination, the Xing Hai Desalination Research Center.
Chen Jin made a video call to the center and asked about their recent progress.
“Professor Bi, how is your research on the nano-molecular permeable membranes going? Have you found a better way of extracting freshwater compared to other methods of desalination in terms of production efficiency and cost?” asked Chen Jin.
There were several alternative ways to desalinate seawater.
There were common distillation methods classified into high-temperature and low-temperature distillation. The high-temperature distillation would yield higher production efficiency while low-temperature distillation was more energy efficient.
Alternatively, the freezing method allowed freshwater contained within seawater to be separated using low-temperature freezing.
There was also solar desalination. This method used a simple solar distiller constituting a water tank and a black porous felt-filled floating hole. The top of the tank would be covered with a transparent glass lid with edge closure. Sunlight would penetrate through the transparent cover into the black insulated bottom and be converted into heat energy.
There was also the multi-stage flash distillation. Flash distillation referred to the phenomenon where a portion of seawater evaporated rapidly when the pressure of seawater at a specific temperature was suddenly lowered. Multi-stage flash distillation would evaporate heated seawater within a series of flash chambers in which pressure was gradually reduced and the steam would then be condensed to obtain fresh water.
Lastly, there was also the membrane osmometry, which was more commonly known as “ultrafiltration.” This method separated freshwater from seawater via the means of a semi-permeable membrane that would allow only solvents to permeate it. Under normal circumstances, freshwater diffuses through the semipermeable membrane to the side of the seawater, causing the liquid level on the side of the seawater to gradually rise until it stops at a certain height. This was the infiltration process. If an external pressure greater than the seawater’s osmotic pressure was applied to the end containing seawater, the pure water within the seawater would undergo reverse osmosis and permeate into the freshwater.
The biggest advantage of membrane osmometry was energy saving.
Of all the methods stated above, the one that Xing Hai Technologies was focusing on was membrane osmometry.
The reasons were obvious. First was cost, and the second was efficiency. Other seawater desalination methods would all have some drawbacks, but membrane osmometry could take care of both of these aspects simultaneously.
“We have attained the standards for large-scale operations, Mr. Chen,” Professor Bi Yongfu said. “I have been striving in this field for nearly 20 years and now, I see the hope of eradicating our planet’s sickness—deserts.”
“A large desalination unit incorporated with Xing Hai Technologies’s ‘Bi’s nano-permeable membrane’ can extract 12 tons of fresh water per second and produce more than 1 million tons of fresh water per day. That is enough for a city with a population of one million.”
“By building 100 such desalination facilities, we will be able to tackle the needs of 100 million people. If we build 1000 of them, the whole Sahara Desert can become a land full of vitality.”
“The cost of building a desalination plant is around 1.5 billion dollars. In the process of producing freshwater, the average electricity consumption per ton of water is about one kilowatt.”
“If we assume that the cost of electricity is 30 cents per kilowatt, then adding that to the cost of pipeline construction, management, and maintenance, the average cost of desalinating one ton of water will not exceed three dollars.”
“This costs a little more than directly pumping water from Lake Baikal, but not that much. It is still within our affordable range.”
“Mr. Chen, I would suggest you buy the deserts over here and develop them with the company’s most advanced desertification control technology. I believe that in just one or two decades, we will have large oases in our possession!”
“Xing Hai Technologies will become the world’s largest land contracting company, and these lands alone will bring huge profits to the company.”
Chen Jin nodded.
Freshwater at three dollars per ton; all fees included. This cost-performance ratio was truly satisfactory and had reached the standards of mass production.
During this time, Xing Hai Technologies had dispatched representatives to conduct commercial negotiations with North African countries such as Morocco, Libya, Algeria, Niger, and had purchased 1.5 million square kilometers of desert land. The total cost was about 150 billion dollars. All the money was Xing Hai Technologies’s revenue generated from business activities overseas.
All contracts that were signed were permanent contracts.
Now that the desalination technology had matured, Xing Hai Technologies could spread their wings and have a big go at the Sahara Desert.
But the timing was not quite right just yet.
…
On the 29th of May.
In the virtual world.
“Alice, how are the polling results? Any problems with the president’s re-election?” Chen Jin asked while crossing his arms.
“His share of the vote is 82.17%, and he will be re-elected without any need for anxiety. He has also broken the record for the highest number of votes to be re-elected in history,” said Alice.
“But from what I see, the media was rather aggressive. Almost none of the mainstream media supported Lanfelord and the criticisms were completely one-sided. They have also conducted a lot of online polls and claimed that the probability of Lanfelord’s re-election was less than 1%…”
“Fake news master! Those are all false reports. The final polling result is true. This is the only merit of this government system,” Alice added. “Besides, master, we must increase Lanfelord’s guard robots. We had better double them. Since the beginning of last year, Lanfelord has faced 187 assassination attempts, on average more than once per day. I believe that the numbers will further increase in the future with the attempts becoming more intense and extreme. We must be better prepared.”
Those who have suffered loss to their interests would never let it pass.
“What in god’s name? 187 assassinations?” Chen Jin shook his head. This was only the beginning. It would become even crazier when the next phase of the operation began.
It seemed that aside from Avatar robots which could not die, in normal conditions, even God could not deliver the M nation.