Chapter 361 Upper Limit
Chapter 361 Upper Limit
After Jiang Miao had some phone conversations with several researchers, he dealt with several valuable scientific research projects in the near future.
"Huh..." After hanging up the phone, he let out a long sigh. After more than two hours of continuous communication and reading reports, he felt a little tired.
He stopped working, pushed his foot lightly, and made the chair turn 180 degrees. He looked at the Yandun Mountain behind the headquarters through the one-way transparent glass.
In May, Yandun Mountain is covered with lush durian trees, and to the south of the mountain is the azure blue sea and sky.
Between the sea and the sky, airships take off and land from time to time at the Magonghai Airport in the southwest.
Looking into the distance to relieve eye fatigue, Jiang Miao performed eye exercises again.
Several assistants lined up on the other side of his desk, dictating to him the contents of some documents that needed his processing.
Li Zixuan, the internal affairs assistant, reported in an orderly manner: "...According to the report from the first-level branch of the Indochina Peninsula, we have discovered a very promising helium gas field in the river valley plain around Mandalay in the north of Hongshawadi..."
"Oh?" Jiang Miao responded with a hint of surprise while continuing to do eye exercises.
"The gas field is a natural gas-helium mixed type gas field, with an average depth of 25300 to 256100 meters. Currently, the 10 wells drilled to this depth have all produced extremely high helium content, with an average helium content of 2.9% to 3.1%..."
Hearing this content, Jiang Miao raised his eyebrows: "What a surprise!"
It was indeed a pleasant surprise.
Due to the overall improvement of the Asian consortium’s drilling technology, the depth of many underground drilling projects can now easily exceed 3 meters if necessary.
Some scientific research institutions are even planning to break through the earth's crust and collect samples of the mantle.
Therefore, many previous geological theories are no longer in line with the times.
For example, in previous geological theories, an ancient craton with better integrity often means that more oil and gas resources can be preserved intact.
But as drilling technology improved, this theory was challenged.
Taking Shengli Oilfield, where the strata are relatively complex, as an example, traditional theory holds that the complex broken bottom layer here creates a clear upper limit to the resource volume of this oilfield.
But in recent years, Shengli Oilfield has drilled dozens of 10,000-meter-deep wells and discovered many new oil and gas storage structures, among which evidence of the inorganic generation of oil and natural gas was found.
The reason why Jiang Miao was so excited was that, on the one hand, the resource reserves of the Mandalay ultra-deep gas field were relatively high. If based on the resource reserves discovered so far, after the entire Mandalay ultra-deep gas field was mined, approximately more than 280 billion cubic meters of helium could be extracted.
Among the helium fields that have been explored so far, this accounts for about 17% of the total helium resources in the Asian Commonwealth.
The mining rights of the Mandalay ultra-deep gas field currently belong entirely to the Hongsawadi Branch of the Hailufeng Group, which is equivalent to 74% of the helium resources held by the Hailufeng Group.
In other words, almost overnight, Hailufeng Group obtained nearly three times the helium resources.
For the Hailufeng Group, which urgently needs helium to expand its passenger airships, this discovery has initially alleviated the group's urgent needs.
Jiang Miao made a prompt decision and ordered: "Let the Indochina branch increase investment and quickly build up production capacity."
"Okay..." Li Zixuan quickly recorded this on his tablet, and then he continued:
"Next is the development status of new indoor farms. At present, the scale of indoor farms invested by the group in the Asian Federation has reached 3549 million mu, accounting for about 29% of the new indoor farms in the country..."
Jiang Miao just nodded slightly and didn't say anything.
Hailufeng Group's investment in new indoor farms is indeed huge, and it ranks first in investment share among major companies within the Asian Federation.
After all, this technology is a project developed by Hailufeng Group.
"Among the new indoor farms operating in various places, the indoor farms in southern Yunnan are currently developing the best. Among the branches in various places, the indoor farms in southern Yunnan also account for the largest proportion, with an area of 574 million mu."
Jiang Miao remained silent, but from his eyes, it could be seen that he was not surprised by this result.
In fact, Jiang Miao had indeed anticipated that the scale of the new indoor farm of the Southern Yunnan Branch would be so large.
The reason why the Southern Yunnan Branch has been so rapid in the development of new indoor farms is that geography and climate have shaped this industry.
Geographically, the southern Yunnan region consists of two parts: the Hengduan Mountains and the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. The river valleys are crisscrossed and the towering mountains divide the interior into pieces. There are no large plains at all.
In such a fragmented region, the available arable land resources are relatively small. In addition, in recent years, in order to strengthen environmental protection, the nature reserves have been continuously expanded, further compressing the available arable land resources in southern Yunnan.
This forced the local authorities to find ways to change the status quo.
During this process, Hailufeng Group's new indoor farm came into the sight of local managers and received great support.
In the vast plains of the North China Plain, the Northeast Plain, the southern part of the desert and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, Hailufeng Group's new indoor farms have not received much support, and local farmers are also in a wait-and-see stage regarding this new agricultural model.
Therefore, it is reasonable that the southern Yunnan region unexpectedly took the lead in this agricultural industry upgrading process.
"Currently, the new indoor farms in southern Yunnan are mainly focused on flowers, spices, fruits, and medicinal materials. The group's multiple new crop cultivation projects invested in the local area have achieved considerable results..."
"Among them, the spice project with three major incense as the core has become a new pillar industry in southern Yunnan. The three major incense are agarwood, musk, and ambergris..."
Jiang Miao recalled the production techniques of the three major incenses.
Among them, agarwood is the first precious spice to be conquered by the scientific research team of Hailufeng Group. Because agarwood is a woody plant spice, researchers only need to insert the fragrance-producing genes of agarwood into the newly cultivated crop species through gene editing technology to obtain a new type of artificial agarwood with a fragrance production efficiency dozens of times higher.
Musk was the second precious spice to be conquered.
Traditional musk is extracted from the sex glands of elk. Not only is the yield low, but it also causes considerable harm to the elk.
Therefore, researchers used gene editing technology to insert the genes related to the production of musk components in elk into artificial spice wood. After several years of research, they finally achieved a breakthrough at the end of last year.
The last one is ambergris, which is also the most difficult spice to deal with.
Mainly because traditional ambergris is a rare spice produced by whale poop in special environments and conditions.
Even if this thing uses genetic modification technology and gene editing technology, there is no way to make the plant produce ambergris by inserting whale genes.
Therefore, this project has also become a difficult problem that troubles researchers.
In the end, it was Lin Shuya who took action. She studied bacterial fermentation and developed a new technology for mass production of ambergris ingredients through bacterial fermentation. Therefore, Jiang Miao was deeply impressed by ambergris, and Shuya discussed the technical development process in this area with him several times.
...
Just as Jiang Miao was listening to the report, there was a knock on the office door.
Another assistant hurried over to open the door.
"Mr. Jiang? Please come in..."
Jiang Miao immediately turned the chair and looked at the dusty Jiang Haibo: "Haibo, sit down."
The assistant pulled over a chair and poured Jiang Haibo some tea.
As soon as he sat down, Jiang Haibo couldn't wait to say, "Boss, our project in Donghai has been approved."
"I know. I received the news yesterday."
"I think it is necessary to hold an internal meeting to discuss this matter." Jiang Haibo frowned, as if he had some concerns in his heart.
Jiang Miao obviously knew something and said with a smile: "Are you worried about cost recovery?"
Jiang Haibo expressed his opinion: "Well, the scale of indoor farms on land is constantly expanding. Is it really necessary to rush to build floating island farms on the sea?"
"Your concerns are valid, and I agree with them."
"Then why would the group approve the construction of 50 floating island platforms?" Jiang Haibo looked puzzled. He really didn't understand why Jiang Miao approved the project when he knew this.
Jiang Miao smiled and took a sip of tea, then calmly replied: "I know you are a little confused, but I have other uses for these floating island platform farms. It's not just to develop indoor farms at sea."
Hearing this, Jiang Haibo also knew that Jiang Miao must have some technology that required these floating island platforms: "Oh? What technology has the boss developed? If it needs to be kept secret, then forget it."
Jiang Miao shook his head: "There is no high-level confidentiality requirement. This project is expected to reach a stage where it can be applied next year. It doesn't matter if I tell you part of it now."
"It will take until next year to be applied? It seems the boss has made up his mind."
"This technology is indeed a further step towards artificial plants. To be more precise, it is an artificial plant with higher photosynthesis efficiency."
"Hiss..." Jiang Haibo couldn't help but take a breath of cold air: "Is it an artificial plant with higher photosynthesis efficiency than the current artificial plants?"
"Well, I have already researched that if we use infrared light in artificial plants, we can increase the energy utilization rate of photosynthesis in artificial plants from the previous 14.6% to around 25% to 28%."
Gurgle! Jiang Haibo's mouth was dry. He once again felt the horror of biologists and biotechnology.
After working in Hailufeng Group for so many years, although he did not graduate in agriculture and biology, he knew the terrifying level of photosynthesis energy utilization rate increased to 25% to 28% through what he had seen and heard over the years.
You should know that the upper limit of solar energy utilization of the current improved version of silicon carbide nano-thin film photovoltaic materials is only about 27%.
"In fact, there are already artificial plants in the laboratory that can achieve this energy utilization rate, but their specific uses have not yet been developed, so we have to wait until next year. But it doesn't matter. After all, it is impossible to build all 50 floating island platforms at once."
Jiang Haibo suppressed his inner shock and asked curiously, "What does the boss plan to produce with this artificial plant?"
"First of all, traditional oils, proteins, sugars, starches, etc. can be produced by indoor farms on land. There is no need to waste the limited space on the floating island platform." Jiang Miao then added:
"I plan to take advantage of the floating island platform at sea and use artificial plants with high energy utilization to absorb high-value mineral components from seawater. Currently, phosphorus and potassium are tentatively selected."
"Phosphorus and potassium?" Jiang Haibo immediately understood Jiang Miao's idea.
If there is any resource that is currently holding back the continued development of agriculture in the Asian Union, it would be the two major fertilizers, phosphorus and potassium.
Unlike nitrogen fertilizer, it can be synthesized from atmospheric nitrogen, which is almost inexhaustible.
The sources of phosphorus and potassium fertilizers mainly come from phosphate deposits and brine mines deposited on land in ancient times. These minerals are easy to mine, but their geological redeposition requires a long period of time, at least tens of millions of years.
Obviously, humans do not have the longevity to wait for geology to synthesize phosphate and potash ores.
Therefore, Jiang Miao set his sights on the phosphorus and potassium resources that have been discharged into the sea by humans since modern times.
Especially in East Asia and Northeast Asia, where the population is dense and the scale of industrial and living waste discharge into the sea is relatively large, the amount of phosphorus and potassium resources discharged into the ocean has been relatively large in history.
Among them, the East China Sea, surrounded by Seres, South Korea and Japan, has accumulated a large amount of phosphorus and potassium resources.
This is also the fundamental reason why 50 floating island platforms are planned to be deployed in the East China Sea.
Jiang Miao said helplessly: "Although we have adopted many technical means, such as recycling urban sewage, we can recycle a large amount of phosphorus, potassium and rare elements every year, but the current phosphorus and potassium production capacity is still not enough to support the further expansion of agriculture."
Jiang Haibo was also very clear about this. As a senior executive of the Hailufeng Group, he could learn a lot of confidential information that ordinary people didn't know.
The phosphorus and potassium resources currently mined within the Asian Commonwealth, plus the imported phosphorus and potassium resources, can only ensure that the scale of agricultural production reaches about 2025 times that of 1.8.
Even through artificial intervention such as genetic modification and gene editing technology, some plants can absorb as little phosphorus and potassium as possible in the process of producing vegetable oil, starch and sugar.
The current upper limit of agricultural production scale in the Asian Community is approximately 2025 times that of 2.6.
If there is not much room for growth in the supply of phosphorus and potassium resources, it will drag down the growth rate of agricultural production in the Asian Community.
In fact, the government has taken this issue very seriously and has been continuously looking for minerals within the country and on the high seas, even in Antarctica.
However, the overall amount of new phosphorus and potassium resources is still limited. It is not that we cannot increase production several times at once, but that doing so will not be worth the cost.
After all, mining requires adjusting the mining cycle. It is impossible to mine out a mine of tens of millions of tons in one year. Doing so will obviously do more harm than good.
Although the Asian Union holds the weapon of food, which prevents other phosphorus and potassium producers in the world from raising prices at will, they cannot raise prices at will. Naturally, the other party has no intention of continuing to expand production, but instead controls production capacity.
The amount of phosphorus and potassium fertilizers that Hailufeng Group needs to use every year is obviously an astronomical figure. Even if the price of one ton of fertilizer increases by 100 yuan, the cumulative cost increase will reach tens of billions or even more.
Therefore, Jiang Miao set his sights on the phosphorus and potassium resources in the sea.
(End of this chapter)