Chapter 255 "Western Development"

Chapter 255 "Western Development"

Chapter 255 "Western Development"

Qiongzhou, the city of gratitude.

Lin Wenyi, head of the Gan'en City office of the Qiongzhou branch of Hailufeng Company, is taking Zhang Xincheng and others to inspect the local self-operated farm.

This is Datian Town, which has hilly and terraced terrain. Therefore, Hailufeng Company contracted 8600 acres of mountain land in the area for growing durian.

In addition to new-tech durian, the durian farm also uses the space under the forest to grow forage grasses such as alfalfa and white clover.

However, the growth of these durians and grasses is not good at this time.

Lin Wenyi explained with a wry smile: "Mr. Zhang, it's not that we don't manage well, but that droughts are prone to occur in the winter and spring every year in Graineng City. Especially in recent years, extreme weather has occurred frequently. For example, last winter and spring, the local area experienced a drought that lasted 119 days."

Zhang Xincheng is not the kind of person who likes to cause trouble. After all, this kind of weather conditions are sometimes beyond human intervention. Moreover, this time he came here to solve the local water problem.

"How far have you progressed with the matter I ordered you to do half a month ago?"

"It's already been done. We have negotiated the terms of cooperation with the local authorities, and they have agreed to our water adjustment plan. We have also acquired five factories along the coast, and are now undergoing renovation."

"Very good." Zhang Xincheng was very satisfied with the progress of the work here.

The so-called water use adjustment plan is that Hailufeng Company invests in the construction of a seawater desalination plant and sells purified water at a low price to the Gratitude Plain in Gratitude City. The upstream mountainous areas such as Datian Town can draw water from nearby reservoirs at a certain proportion for industrial and agricultural production.

In this way, we can reduce the problem of water transport from the coast to the inland, and solve the water use of inland agriculture and industry.

Lin Wenyi introduced the locations of the five factories to him in detail: "…Currently, the locations of the five desalination factories are in Haiwei Town, Duntou Town, Xinlong Town, Gancheng Town, and Pucun Town."

"According to the company's requirements, each of the sites we purchased can meet the standard of delivering 5000 million cubic meters of water to the surrounding areas every year."

Zhang Xincheng observed the layout on the map, and then shook his head: "Not enough, the density needs to be increased to 10. Among them, the desalination plants in Haiwei Town and Duntou Town near the Gratitude Plain must have an annual production capacity of 1 million cubic meters."

"Okay, Mr. Zhang, I will arrange it as soon as I get back." Lin Wenyi knew that he had little influence and his words were insignificant. He only needed to complete the tasks assigned by his superiors. As for whether the project could make a profit, it didn't matter. After all, if the sky fell, there would always be someone taller to hold it up.

There is naturally no pressure to make a profit.

Although the annual precipitation in western Qiongzhou can reach 1750 mm, the problem is that the local precipitation is seasonal, concentrated in the summer, and overlaps with the peak period of typhoon weather.

Moreover, the terrain of Qiongzhou is not conducive to the storage of precipitation. If it were not for the continuous construction of water conservancy projects in the local area in recent decades, the water shortage in winter and spring would be more serious.

Although the Shilu Reservoir, Daguangba Reservoir, Tangong Reservoir, Gaopoling Reservoir, Tuoxing Reservoir, Changmao Reservoir, Da'an Reservoir, Shimen Reservoir and Sanqugou Reservoir have been built locally, there is still no way to completely alleviate local dry season water use.

Especially agricultural production, which consumes the most water.

Currently, many local farms use the more traditional flood irrigation mode. The cost of precision drip irrigation equipment is too high. For many farmers, this is an uneconomical investment.

A large portion of Hailufeng Company's mountain durian is grown using drip irrigation.

Many local durian growers who cooperate with Hailufeng Company also use drip irrigation to reduce water use and avoid subsequent water use problems caused by drought.

Zhang Xincheng inspected the durian farm in Datian Town for more than two hours, and then rushed to Sanjia Town without stopping.

Sanjia Town is located in the center of the Thanksgiving Plain and is also a major rice and fruit-growing town.

To the west of Sanjia Town, close to the Changhua River, there is a factory that was acquired by Hailufeng Company. The factory was transformed into a paper mill and a silk drawing factory.

Because Gratitude Plains currently has nearly 7.6 acres of Mac bananas planted, a large amount of abaca is produced every year. However, during the abaca production process, not all abaca can be used as textiles. Some fibers do not meet the standards, or there is processing loss, which will produce about 10% to 20% defective fibers.

This defective fiber can be used for papermaking.

Moreover, the local area is a rice-growing area, and rice straw can also be used for papermaking.

Sanjia Town Paper Mill is a subsidiary of Qiongzhou Textile Group and a grandson company of Hailufeng Company.

When Zhang Xincheng arrived at the factory, they had not received any relevant notification. This is also the internal management model of Hailufeng Company. Generally, the management will only notify the factory temporarily after arriving at the site, and will not give the factory or farm time to prepare in advance.

As soon as he arrived, Zhang Xincheng frowned: "Although it is two or three kilometers away from the residential area, the smell is obviously not handled well and needs to be rectified."

Lin Wenyi on the side did not say anything, because he belonged to the company's direct system and was separated from the Qiongzhou Textile Group by several levels of relationship. It was not his turn to worry about such matters.

The factory manager Miao Dongan, who had just come out to greet them, looked a little uneasy: "Boss Zhang, we will make corrections as soon as possible."

Still, Zhang Xincheng did not take it lightly and directly scolded: "How do you manage it? Where are the workers' gas masks and helmets?"

"The temperature and humidity in the factory are too high, and the workers are uncomfortable wearing gas masks and safety helmets." Miao Dongan replied with a stiff upper lip.

"Can't the factory install air conditioners? This is the company's safety production standard requirement. Don't fool me here. If something goes wrong, will you be responsible?" Zhang Xincheng said unhappily.

"Yes, we will correct it immediately."

"There is also the management of the stacking of these raw materials. The site looks a mess. How do you manage it?"

Zhang Xincheng scolded him.

The management of the three town paper mills remained silent.

He had only been here for less than a few minutes when he discovered so many problems. Although Zhang Xincheng knew that this was a sequelae of the company's large-scale expansion in a short period of time, he was still very angry about the management capabilities of some middle-level managers.

Not only did he scold people, he also ordered them to correct their mistakes quickly.

Zhang Xincheng then came to the factory's production workshop to inspect the operation of the new equipment.

The papermaking industry has been under pressure from environmental issues in recent years, and many papermaking companies have switched to importing pulp from abroad to cope with environmental scrutiny.

This paper mill only started trial production in October this year, which was last month. Since it has not yet started formal production, the environmental protection equipment is not yet in place.

There are more than a dozen sewage storage tanks and sedimentation tanks on the south side of the factory. The wastewater from the production workshop will enter these tanks.

Since it is in the trial production stage, there is not much wastewater in the wastewater pool, but it emits a foul smell.

Zhang Xincheng and others wore gas masks, safety helmets, and life jackets and looked at the pools in front of them.

"What is the capacity of these pools?"

"The total volume is 15 cubic meters, the area is 1.5 square meters, and the depth of the pool is 10 meters."

Zhang Xincheng frowned and said, "This factory produces 10 tons of pulp every year, right?"

"Yes."

Before Zhang Xincheng came here, he asked his assistant to collect relevant information, which is why he frowned: "10 tons of pulp requires at least 2000 million cubic meters of water. Even if recycled water is used, two to three million cubic meters of fresh water will be consumed every year. The original design of these sewage pools is definitely not enough."

Miao Dongan stood aside awkwardly: "It's indeed not enough."

Although these sewage pools have a capacity of 15 cubic meters, traditional sewage treatment is not that fast. It requires physical sedimentation, chemical precipitation, chemical neutralization, activated carbon filtration, etc. After a set of processes, only a small part can be processed every day.

Zhang Xincheng looked at Miao Dongan meaningfully. Not only did this guy have poor management skills, but he also liked to do things perfunctorily. He could not be allowed to continue managing the factory, otherwise something would go wrong sooner or later.

The original sewage pool and wastewater treatment system were not sufficient, and no report was submitted. Instead, they just dealt with it perfunctorily. This was not a problem of poor management level, but a problem of work attitude.

However, he did not get angry immediately. After all, it was not appropriate to deal with it directly. He asked the Supervision Department to send someone to check the situation of Qiongzhou Textile Group.

Miao Dongan didn't realize the seriousness of the situation yet, and quickly changed the subject: "The new equipment is very easy to use. It can process 15 cubic meters of sewage every day. The current water recycling rate of our factory can reach about 80%."

Hearing about the water recycling rate, Zhang Xincheng felt dissatisfied again.

It should be known that when using Minqin Group's water purification equipment, unless the thermal power plant needs to use cooling water for cooling, causing part of the water to be discharged in the form of water vapor, otherwise the water recycling rate is lower than 90% which means the system design is unreasonable or poorly managed.

Zhang Xincheng looked at it for a while and found several problems.

The first problem is that the sewage pool and the clean water pool are completely open, and a lot of water is evaporated naturally.

The second problem was that the sewage pool was not managed by classification. Even though he was an outsider, he knew that paper mill sewage was divided into three types, and the components were different. If they were mixed together, it would increase the difficulty of subsequent sludge treatment. The third problem was that the sludge was not fully squeezed out of the water. He saw that the sludge pumped from the bottom of the sewage pool had a high water content. After all, it could be sucked up by the sludge pumping equipment, so the water content of the sludge must be high.

For a paper mill, water cost is very critical.

You should know that even if a better process is used, the water consumption per ton of pulp is about 100 cubic meters. Some old factories with poor technology even need 300 cubic meters of fresh water per ton of pulp.

Don’t think that using recycled water can reduce costs. In fact, the cost will not be reduced much because recycled water requires processing costs.

According to the current common process in China, which is to make pulp from wood and bamboo raw materials, about 100 cubic meters of water are used per ton. Based on the industrial water price of 3 yuan per cubic meter, the water cost is 300 yuan.

The Sanjia Town Paper Mill uses rice straw and abaca as raw materials, and its water consumption will reach about 300 cubic meters per ton of pulp.

If the water recycling rate is only 80%, then every ton of pulp will still require 60 cubic meters of fresh water, which is still too high.

At least the water recycling rate must reach 95% to minimize water costs.

Zhang Xincheng did not point out the problem directly, but asked: "Director Miao, do you think there is potential for improving the water recycling rate?"

"Huh? This is difficult, and the investment cost is too high. It's better not to change it." Miao Dongan shook his head.

"I understand. That's it!" Zhang Xincheng felt more and more that he should remove this guy from his position as soon as possible.

He has no brains at all. With this level of management, he suspected that this guy got in through the back door.

Even if you can't innovate, can't you copy homework?

There are so many factories under Hailufeng Company, and they are like living templates, but they can't copy homework. They are simply hopeless.

Photovoltaic panel roofs can be laid above the factory's sewage pool and clean water pool, which not only reduces water evaporation but also generates electricity from photovoltaic power generation.

How much does a set of sludge pressing equipment cost?

He can't even do the math.

What's more, the sludge needs to be transported to so many factories for subsequent treatment. The higher the water content, the higher the cost of transportation.

All I can say is that this person is not a qualified manager.

Anyone with a little common sense can come up with a plan for improvement by looking at the company's other factories.

The water recycling rate increased by 1%, and the market cost per ton of pulp was reduced by 8.9 yuan.

Increasing the water recycling rate to 95% can reduce the cost by 133.5 yuan per ton of pulp.

Zhang Xincheng left the Sanjia Town Paper Mill with a lot of anger.

Lin Wenyi, who was accompanying him, could see that Zhang Xincheng was very angry, but since it was none of his business, he kept silent throughout the whole process, believing that too much talk would lead to mistakes.

The convoy arrived at Duntou Town.

The Duntou Town desalination plant is right on the seashore. It used to be an aquaculture farm and is currently undergoing transformation after being acquired.

Standing on the side of the road nearby, one could see the progress of part of the transformation of the desalination plant. Zhang Xincheng just took a look but did not go in.

As for construction quality management, he was not too worried because there was basically no possibility of any shoddy work between the third-party company responsible for the acceptance work and the company's internal project acceptance office.

He said calmly: "The salt after desalination is a problem!"

In fact, this issue has already been discussed within the company.

After all, each cubic meter of seawater contains about 35 kilograms of various inorganic salts. In the future, the Duntou Town desalination plant plans to produce 1 million cubic meters of fresh water each year, which means that at least 350 million tons of salt will be produced each year.

There are 10 desalination plants in the city of Thanksgiving, which produce a total of 6 million cubic meters of fresh water and about 2100 million tons of salt each year.

It seems that it is only 2100 million tons. The domestic chemical industry, food processing, edible salt, fertilizer potassium salt and the like can fully consume 2100 million tons of crude salt.

However, this idea is destined to be impossible to achieve.

Because in the future, there will definitely be more than one place in Qiongzhou Gratitude City where desalination plants will be set up in coastal areas of China, especially the Bohai Sea Rim region headed by Beijing. The annual demand for fresh water is calculated in the tens of billions, and by then, hundreds of millions of tons of crude salt will be produced every year.

There is definitely no way to fully utilize such a huge amount of crude salt.

Whether it is edible salt, chemical salt, or fertilizer potash, none of them can consume so much production capacity.

Therefore, out of so much crude salt, only a small portion will be purchased by chemical companies, and the rest will either be discharged back into the ocean or buried in an abandoned mine.

There are some risks in discharging directly into the sea.

Because a large amount of crude salt will quickly increase the salinity of the seawater in the nearby waters, the surrounding marine life will inevitably be seriously affected. In severe cases, large-scale deaths may even occur.

The death of marine life is just a small problem.

The real big problem is that the increase in salinity in local sea areas will cause changes in the movement of sea water. The dynamic mechanism of ocean currents is mainly affected by salinity and temperature.

And ocean currents are related to climate.

Therefore, if a small amount of crude salt is discharged into the sea, the ocean can still regulate itself with its huge volume. However, if hundreds of millions of tons of crude salt are discharged into the sea every year, the consequence will definitely be a huge ecological and climate disaster.

Especially the future large desalination area: Bohai Sea.

The Bohai Sea is a semi-enclosed inland sea with a long water exchange cycle, which takes about 30 years. Large amounts of salt input will cause a significant increase in the overall salinity.

If the total water volume of the Bohai Sea is estimated at approximately 1.7 trillion cubic meters, the discharge of 2 million tons of salt is equivalent to an annual increase in salinity of approximately 1.2‰, and the long-term accumulation far exceeds the tolerance threshold of marine life.

High-salinity water bodies have a high density and may form vertical stratification, which will hinder the exchange of oxygen and nutrients between the upper and lower layers, aggravate hypoxia in the bottom layer, and cause the "dead zone" to expand.

Although the Bohai Sea can exchange seawater with the Pacific Ocean, thereby diluting some of the salinity, the problem is that the Qi and Lu regions of the Yellow Sea will also be the main force of seawater desalination in the future, which will also increase the salinity of the Yellow Sea, thereby extending the time for the Bohai Sea, which is blocked by the Yellow Sea, to exchange water with the Pacific Ocean.

Therefore, discharging crude salt directly into the sea is definitely harmful to others and not beneficial to oneself.

On-site burial becomes an inevitable option.

However, burial on site is not without risks.

Because there is often groundwater in abandoned underground mining areas, if a large amount of coarse salt is filled in, once it comes into contact with the groundwater, it can easily cause the surrounding groundwater to become salt water, thereby causing large-scale salinization of the surrounding land. This consequence is also very serious.

A safe and sealed storage system must be built to ensure that the crude salt does not leak into the surrounding environment.

This is a considerable investment.

In fact, if water use in coastal areas increases massively after seawater desalination in the future, leading to an increase in fresh water discharged from rivers into the ocean, we can also consider discharging some crude salt into the ocean to maintain the salinity balance of the ocean.

However, this kind of thing requires supercomputer simulation calculations, and requires the cooperation of many professional scientists and countries around the world to establish a dynamic monitoring system for the global ocean and climate before salt removal operations can be carried out. Otherwise, it is better not to try it casually, so as to avoid irreparable consequences.

Zhang Xincheng is doing industrial investigation and layout work in Gratitude City.

The results of the election of Jiang Miao and Lin Shuya as academicians were also officially announced on November 11.

Although many people on the Internet guessed that Jiang Miao would be awarded the academician, many people did not expect that Lin Shuya would also be awarded the academician this year.

However, after the results were announced, many people calmed down and thought about it, and then they felt that it was reasonable.

After all, the technology of sponge batteries is not much worse than that of soybeans. This technology has profoundly changed the domestic and even global battery and new energy industry landscape, and is indeed qualified to be an academician.

At the same time, online discussions also soared in popularity.

Not only the domestic Internet is discussing this, but the foreign Internet is also talking about it.

(End of this chapter)