Chapter 322 The Secret Behind the Project
Chapter 322 The Secret Behind the Project
With the arrival of the Spring Festival in 2029.
The domestic civil aviation sector has finally encountered a major shock.
In fact, in September last year, Blue Whale Airship Company completed the construction of its first 100-ton passenger airship at the Minqin base.
But at that time, civil aviation companies at home and abroad did not care at all. Even large passenger aircraft manufacturers such as Airbus and Boeing showed the same reaction.
Why is this so?
The answer lies in this 001-ton passenger airship named "Beluga 28.6", which used a total of cubic meters of helium.
After seeing this data, both the airlines and the aircraft manufacturers were mocking in their hearts that the Hailufeng Group was going to fall this time.
You should know that the current helium price in the international market is higher than in 2025, which is about 124 yuan per cubic meter.
Even though Blue Whale Airship has invested in a helium separation plant in the Wei River Valley, it can currently only extract about 60 to 70 cubic meters of helium per year.
In Seris, as of early 2029, the helium separation plant that has been developed can refine approximately 550 million to 620 million cubic meters of helium per year.
If we add the 6600 million cubic meters produced by Qatar and the natural gas fields in West Asia, North Africa, Southeast Asia and other regions, we can barely get together about 1.3 million cubic meters of helium.
However, this amount of helium is still unacceptable for Blue Whale Airship Company, which wants to enter the civil aviation field on a large scale.
Although the official now allows many mining companies to use Blue Whale's cargo and engineering airships to transport personnel in remote areas, this is actually a violation of regulations and is obviously not allowed in the formal civil aviation field. In addition, the Blue Whale Airship Company has never introduced this type of airship as being able to carry passengers.
Seres can only obtain 1.3 million cubic meters of helium per year, which is not enough.
Although China has made breakthroughs in room-temperature superconductor materials, this technology, like the controlled nuclear fusion technology Ring 28, is top secret information and there are no plans to make it public in recent years.
Therefore, they are currently only used in some highly confidential institutions and factories. These room-temperature superconductors can reduce domestic helium usage by about 5%.
Then there is helium as the shielding gas for gas welding. This part has been restricted by industry technology and can be compressed by about 8%.
By making adjustments in other areas and increasing revenue and reducing expenditure, we can reduce it by 5% each year.
In other words, the overall domestic helium usage can be reduced by about 18%, and the surplus amount is about 2340 million cubic meters.
However, there is no way to allocate 100% of this surplus helium to Blue Whale Airship Company. After all, there is also huge incremental demand from other industries.
Overall, Blue Whale Airship Company can only obtain about 500 million cubic meters of helium each year, and the price depends on the market.
The Beluga 001 used a total of 28.6 cubic meters of helium. Even if there is no leakage in the future, the initial investment cost of helium alone is enough to discourage most civil aviation companies.
After all, the helium costs 3546 million yuan, plus the cost of the airship itself, maintenance, labor, and other expenses, the overall cost of Beluga 001 is as high as 1.5 million yuan.
This does not include the billions of scientific research funds and the construction of related supporting facilities. If these are added in, small-scale production each year will definitely not be cost-effective. If large-scale production is carried out, it will definitely further increase the demand for helium, thereby continuing to push up the price of helium.
And what about the passenger performance of Beluga 001?
It can carry up to 300 passengers and 20 tons of supplies.
The maximum flight speed is 120 kilometers per hour.
Apart from being relatively environmentally friendly and having a spacious interior, there are no other advantages.
After all, the cost and performance are actually too tasteless.
The speed is not as fast as airplanes and high-speed trains.
There is no cost advantage either.
If its cost is lower, even if it is only 20 or 30 million per vessel, civil aviation companies will find it profitable and can lower their profile to compete with buses or ferries, using passenger flow to make small profits but quick turnover.
However, the other costs of this thing can be compressed during large-scale production, except for helium, whose cost will become higher and higher with large-scale production.
This way.
Naturally, the civil aviation companies remained indifferent.
Unless Blue Whale can ensure that the price of helium does not rise, helium passenger airships, for example, will only be a luxury mode of transportation.
At present, only five airships of this type have been produced, all of which were purchased by Hailufeng Company, and the helium used is also from its own inventory.
Five airships have been operating at low altitudes in the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea for a long time, mainly carrying fixed routes from South Korea, Japan to the eastern coast of Serbia.
For example, the distance from Jeju Island to Shanghai is about 465 kilometers. The Beluga airship takes about 5 hours for a one-way trip. The one-way fare is 262.5 yuan, of which 232.5 yuan is the metered fee, which is an average of 0.5 yuan per kilometer, plus a comprehensive service fee of 30 yuan.
The revenue for each trip is only about 78750 yuan, and at most four trips can be made per day.
After deducting the extra costs, if we operate at this frequency, it seems like we can generate hundreds of millions in revenue a year?
Think beautiful!
Due to the time it takes for the airship to dock and take off, various questions from passengers, and the airport's need to conduct a quick inspection of the airship, the airship can only fly twice a day.
Even if the ticket price is cheap, there is no way to guarantee that the seats will be 100% full.
After all, airships are evolving, and airplanes are also evolving.
China's Commercial Aircraft Corporation and Xi'an Aircraft Corporation have already launched new versions of passenger aircraft that use new materials to achieve comprehensive weight reduction and expansion, and are now producing them on a large scale.
For example, Spring Airlines customized 50 C919s, an improved version of the C288. This passenger aircraft has one feature, which is that it is very fuel-efficient, mainly because the fuselage material is very light. The price quoted to Spring Airlines is 4.9 million yuan per aircraft, and the price can be further reduced in the future.
Now Spring Airlines is also operating on the Northeast Asia route, and the price difference between the two sides is not much. For a one-way ticket from Jeju Island to Shanghai, Spring Airlines quotes around 340 yuan.
The slow-moving airship naturally has no way to compete when faced with air tickets that only cost a few dozen dollars more.
As major domestic aircraft manufacturers increase their investment in civil airliners, the airship business in the civil airliner field is destined to become a niche category.
for this.
In fact, Jiang Miao, who had been quietly paying attention to the Hailufeng system, had already anticipated this situation.
But he did not order Blue Whale Airship to terminate the project. Instead, he asked Wan Gaofeng to continue to increase investment.
Because airships have their own race tracks.
During the Spring Festival.
The Minqin base is decorated with lights and colors.
Inside the 75th dock of the Blue Whale airship.
As the dock dome slowly opened, a huge ship appeared in front of everyone and also appeared on the screen of the live broadcast room, and the image was sent to all parts of the world via electrical signals.
Wan Gaofeng appeared in front of the airship via the electric rail car inside the base.
The contrast between the two standing together, the incomparable visual impact, makes people involuntarily feel giant fear from the bottom of their hearts. "Dear friends, I am Wan Gaofeng. On this festive occasion, I wish you all a happy holiday and all the best." Facing several live cameras, Wan Gaofeng, wearing a relatively Chinese silk dress, calmly greeted everyone.
Then, he changed the subject: "I believe everyone has seen the airship behind me. It is our company's latest design of super-large passenger airship: Gravity."
Following his footsteps, people who were watching the live broadcast also learned that the Gravity, which cost 150 billion yuan to build, was actually an extra-large airship similar to a large cruise ship.
Its maximum payload is 3500 tons.
The airship has a very spacious interior, with rooms, floors, furniture, and other items designed using a variety of ultra-lightweight materials.
At the same time, there is an independent mooring system, which allows it to be moored directly on relatively flat and open ground or on the sea without the assistance of the ground.
This independent parking system alone cost 14 billion yuan.
In addition, there are security systems, medical systems, independent life support systems, self-sustaining energy systems, etc.
In terms of flight, the maximum speed is 120 kilometers per hour, the cruising speed is 90 kilometers per hour, the economic speed is 60 kilometers per hour, and it can withstand 10-level strong winds.
In case of emergency, a large area of photovoltaic film can be deployed. By increasing the scale of power generation and using a specially designed aerodynamic shape, the airship can rush into the stratosphere, and then use the parallel wind and light in the stratosphere to fly to other areas at the fastest speed.
The airship can accommodate 500 guests, plus 200 crew members, for a month-long unsupplied voyage, or a six-month voyage with fruit and vegetable supplies.
Of course, the costs of this super-large airship are not a small amount, so it is only a tourist project for the rich.
But in fact, there are three special confidential projects hidden in this project.
They are: the Ta 005 natural gas well which is currently being secretly mined in the Tarim Basin; the human independent environment living test project; and the Venus development plan.
Among them is the Tower 005 natural gas well, which appears unremarkable on the surface. It was only developed at the end of November last year. The well produces about 8000 cubic meters of natural gas per day, and produces 292 million cubic meters of natural gas per year.
The drilling depth announced to the public is 7364 meters.
But in fact, the well was drilled to a depth of 27149 meters.
The full depth of 20,000 meters was concealed.
The reason is that this well was jointly developed by Hailufeng Company and Xiyu, and was assisted in development and management by the joint venture area of the two parties: New West Energy Group.
Judging from the number of the well, it is not the first one.
Well No. 14777 is meters deep, and a small amount of coalbed methane and trace radioactive elements were discovered.
The depths of Wells No. 1.8 and No. are both around meters, but the drill bits in both wells were broken and no valuable discoveries were made.
Well No. 24149, with a depth of 5700 meters, discovered a continuously stacked natural gas formation that can produce about 1.3 cubic meters of natural gas per day. At the same time, the natural gas well also contains a lot of helium, with a helium content of about %, making it a relatively helium-rich natural gas well.
However, Well No. 4 cannot be compared with Well No. 5 at all.
Because the helium content in the natural gas in Well No. 13.4 reaches 13.8% to 37%, and among this helium, about 3% is helium 4, rather than helium which is very common in other hot weather wells.
This can only mean one thing, that is, there is a gap in the stratum below the natural gas well that goes directly to the mantle layer.
The reason for this conclusion.
The reason lies in helium-3.
Helium 3, the original stardust of the solar system, is extremely rare on the surface of the earth.
That's because helium 3 will gradually turn into helium 4 after being irradiated by neutrons.
There is still some residual helium 3 on Earth, which is stored in the mantle. The helium 3 and helium 4 that are occasionally erupted through magma will not stop in the atmosphere, but will rush back to the starry sky.
The natural gas reservoir discovered in Well No. 5 is estimated to be a relatively new natural gas reservoir, and it is also possible that it is connected to the cracks in the mantle.
Nearly 1080 cubic meters of helium can be separated from the gas well every day, one-third of which is helium-3 and two-thirds is helium-4.
After further separation, helium 3 is taken to the controlled nuclear fusion project for nuclear fusion power generation; helium 4 is used as gas filling for airships.
It seems that the production capacity of this gas well is just average, not as good as that of America and Qatar.
But the existence of large amounts of helium-3 in ultra-deep formations is more important than anything else.
Because currently humans only have two channels to obtain helium 3.
The first way is to mine on the moon.
The second way is to refine tritium like Hailufeng Company did, and then let the tritium decay into helium 3.
Now a third way emerges.
That is to drill a well more than 20,000 meters deep and try your luck underground to see if you can encounter helium resources that seep up from the mantle.
Of course, even if the discovery is made public now, European and American forces will not be able to replicate it in the next few years, but this will further increase the possibility of European and American forces taking desperate measures.
Seris, which has already gained global technological hegemony, has also passed the era when it had to be first.
If disclosure does more harm than good, it is better not to disclose it.
Moreover, the large-scale production of helium-3 will certainly make people think of projects related to controlled nuclear fusion. Therefore, this natural gas well is nominally used to supply helium to the Blue Whale airship.
The Blue Whale Airship then secretly resells the helium-3 to Star Ring Energy through the channels of its parent company, Hailufeng Company. All channels are within its own system, and the outside world has no idea of the tricks involved.
Especially after StarRing Energy was completely privatized, it is no longer a necessary obligation not to disclose the company's operating conditions to the outside world.
The same is true for Hailufeng Company. Although the scientific research department of Hailufeng Company is managed very strictly, many people inside the company know one thing, that is, the funding for many projects is "inflated".
This situation occurred because Jiang Miao deliberately allocated a portion of the scientific research funds that could not be disclosed to other public projects.
Through this kind of behind-the-scenes operation, it is difficult for the outside world to understand Hailufeng Company's scientific research projects.
For example, the Human Independent Environment Living Test Project and the Venus Exploration Plan, these two projects were hidden.
Compared with domestic and foreign aerospace agencies or aerospace companies, which are all thinking about how to conquer Mars, Jiang Miao is betting on Venus instead.
Because Venus is closer and the buoyancy of Venus' atmosphere is very strong, it can support the airship floating above Venus' atmosphere for a long time.
As for Venus' acid mist atmosphere, there may be no way to completely solve it now, but with the current speed of technological development, it is estimated that in the near future, humans will have the ability to transform Venus' atmosphere.
Another big advantage of Venus is that its gravity is similar to that of the Earth. For humans who have not yet mastered the technology of artificial gravity fields, it is actually a more suitable planet for survival.
So while others were staring at Mars, Jiang Miao was secretly planning to develop Venus.
(End of this chapter)