Chapter 144: Nanhua's Great Gold Mine (Second update, please subscribe)
It’s a wonderful time!
There is almost no technological blockade in this era. As long as they can afford it, those companies, or more precisely, those capitalists, will sell their most advanced technologies or products to any country without any scruples. There is no need to consider national-level prohibitions at all.
This era of free trade probably lasted until... the 1920s and 1930s of the next century. During that period, the Soviet Union imported a large amount of machinery, equipment and technology from all over the world through such free trade, and even commissioned American companies to design aircraft carriers.
In a word, in this era where capital is rampant, money is omnipotent.
With sufficient financial support, Nanhua can not only introduce machinery and equipment, but also its technology and technical experts from all walks of life. Just like the Soviet Union in another time and space, the country's industrialization was achieved in a short period of time through the large-scale introduction of equipment and foreign experts.
However, the premise of all this is sufficient funds.
Development is the bottom line, but the prerequisite for development is money!
Although Buffett is digging holes in London and Paris, two million pounds can only meet the needs temporarily! The development of Nanhua requires long-term capital injection. Although Helen Pharmaceutical Company has considerable earning power as a cash cow, only one cash cow cannot meet the needs.
"It's a pity that there are no gold mines in Nanhua!"
Although he sighed like this in his heart, Zhu Xianhai soon found a gold mine for himself.
It took almost a month to build a small factory on Panshi Island at the entrance of the right bay of Nanhua Bay.
The so-called "Panshi Island" is a small island about 1.5 kilometers long and a few hundred meters wide. In the planning of Nanhua Bay, the right bay will be the future naval base. The cliffs at the coastline are nearly 100 meters high and completely protect the bay. In the simulator, even the bombardment of the British and American navies did not cause any damage to the base.
The "Panshi Island" is the most important defense line at the entrance to the Right Bay. In order to protect the Right Bay, a fort was specially built, and this factory is located inside the fort, which shows the difference between this factory and others. As for the outside of the factory, there are armed guards. The brick and wood structure factory building is not only surrounded by barbed wire on the wall, but also in the air.
What exactly is being produced in such a heavily guarded place?
No one knew, and the armed guards were not aware that the order they received was simple - anyone who tried to break in or go out without permission would be shot dead!
With the roar of the steam engine, the generator began to turn. In the dim tunnel, Zhu Xianhai stared at the electrolytic tank in front of him. In the past month or so, he had been wholeheartedly devoted to this secret factory.
From designing generators to designing various equipment needed for production, this factory, or it can be said that everything in the workshop, was created by him, and even the workers were trained by him personally.
The product produced by this small factory is actually very simple - electrolytic aluminum.
Aluminum does not appear in a free state in nature. It was first isolated by German chemist Wöhler, and then produced in small quantities by the famous French scientist Saint-Clair Deville in 1854. Deville used the expensive sodium method to obtain metallic aluminum through chemical reactions, starting the process of commercial aluminum production. However, due to the complex production process and extremely high costs, the output of aluminum was extremely small. In this era, "aluminum" was placed together with those precious jewelry and was called "Deville's silver".
Because "Dwyer's silver" was expensive and rare, the emperor promoted it. French Emperor Napoleon III made an aluminum crown for himself to show his nobility. Not only that, the tableware he used at banquets was also made of aluminum.
And this is exactly why Zhu Xianhai devoted himself to this factory - to open up new sources of income.
"By electrolysis, the aluminum is separated and precipitated at the bottom of the crucible, releasing oxygen..."
Unlike Deville's followers of the time who tried to reduce the price of sodium to lower the cost of the new electrochemical process, Zhu Xianhai chose electrolysis directly.
The aluminum electrolysis process was not invented until 1886 by American Hall and Frenchman Heroute, who independently invented the same patent without knowing each other. Although the patent lawsuit lasted for 15 years in the United States, Hall, as the inventor of the aluminum electrolysis process, still became a legend and won the largest fortune in the history of American patents.
Now, all Zhu Xianhai needs to do is copy the aluminum electrolysis process and then produce electrolytic aluminum.
Then what?
Of course, it is to export aluminum to foreign countries, no, it is to export "Dwyer's silver".
This kind of silver is only slightly cheaper than gold.
"The factory needs to keep running, because if it stops running, the tank will "solidify", making the metal in the tank unusable and need to be cleaned and discarded. So during production, it is 24 hours a day, uninterrupted production..."
While explaining the production process, Zhu Xianhai personally instructed the two supervisors on how to operate the equipment.
Although the factory operates two shifts a day, in reality, there are only six employees - day and night shift supervisors, and four "furnace workers" to be responsible for these electrolytic cells. The so-called factory actually only has two cast iron "electrolytic cells" with anodes.
"The hanging wires are connected to the horizontal copper busbars... furnace workers should pay attention to wearing rubber gloves when breaking the shells..."
Under Zhu Xianhai's guidance, the first batch of aluminum ingots was soon produced. In the following days, after the factory supervisor and furnace workers mastered the production process, the daily output of this small pilot factory with only 6 employees exceeded 250 pounds!
Although the supervisors and workers in the factory did not know what these "silver-white" metals were, when Zhu Xianhai left the factory with 2,000 pounds of aluminum, he was extremely excited.
"The current market price of aluminum is about $550 per pound, which means that the factory's profit is close to $140,000 a day, which is about... $50 million a year!"
For a moment, Zhu Xianhai was stunned. He even turned around to take a look at the factory guarded by guards behind him.
Staring at the "gold mine", he found that his vision was too narrow!
This is a "gold mine" with an annual output of 40 to 50 tons! Such a huge gold mine is unique in the world! Not to mention ordinary gold mines, even in San Francisco, the gold output there may not be comparable to this mine.
And as long as we want, we can double or even multiply the output at any time, of course, as long as the electricity supply is guaranteed.
Such an important place. I only sent so few people to guard it. This is an unforgivable mistake!
The current price of gold is only around US$650 per pound. How could such a large gold mine be guarded by only so few people?
Even if these people in the factory don't know what they are producing, they can't be so careless.
After all, safety comes first.
"No, we need to send more people. Well, we can build a naval academy here and set up the factory in the academy. With hundreds or thousands of naval academy students guarding it, it will be safer now..."
(End of this chapter)
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