Chapter 664: We don’t plan to sell
Jean provided a complete desalination design to Jiang Chen.
Based on the actual conditions of Xin, Jiang Chen ultimately chose a mixed energy source desalination design. He assigned the unsophisticated parts to be manufactured by the factories in New Malaysia Special District, the more advance parts to be produced by the technology industrial park located on Ange Island.
While the name of the park is technology industrial park, only Future Heavy Industries’ factory is located there – the service robot assembling factory. A total of 400,000 “Xiao Lin” per month would step off the assembly line, be transported to port, and sold to the rest of the world.
Currently, a new assembly line was added to the plant combined with the industrial 3D printer Jiang Chen brought back from the apocalypse to produce core desalination equipment parts.
All the finished parts would be transported to the region east of Coro Island and assembled by the amphibious construction robots.
Different from Penglai’s construction project, the assembly was not disclosed to the public. Due to its small scale, it was not until the entire assembly was completed did the device float up and was hauled by a vessel to one hundred meters away from Coro Island’s coast for docking…
…
Noon. A sunny and cloudless sky.
The leaves of the coconut trees swayed and cast its shadow. Washington Post’s journalist Jim Calvin was resting relaxingly on the beach at the east coast of Coro Island, enjoying his rare vacation.
The island was always filled with countless amount of news, and the people of Washington surprisingly were intrigued by the small island. Any reports put on the front page of the newspaper about Penglai would garner addition sales. Or rather, people purchased newspaper for the sake of seeing if Future Group created something new.
When Jim finished writing a speculative piece of Penglai and sent to the headquarters, he also received an email stating his promotion. His manager wanted him to return to the headquarters to take on the role of chief editor. When Jim heard the news, he opened five bottles of champagne in joy.
There was still five days left before he started in Washington again. He planned to use this time to relax and recharge.
The tropical weather almost made people drowsy. Just as he was about to take nap in front of the steamy sea, shouting from the distance dispersed any of his weariness.
“Jim, get up, there is something on the sea!” Just then, his girlfriend in bikini came running, put the shaved ice she just bought on the table, and woke him up by shaking on his arms.
“What is it? Wait, are you sure you didn’t just see a mirage?” While he didn’t sound pleased, he still got up, and allowed his excited girlfriend to drag him onto the sandy hill not far away.
His reporter instinct told him that something incredible just happened on the sea.
The truth soon proved his speculation.
They only ran halfway before a pitch black shadow surfaced on the sea.
A metal floating island hauled by four vessels stopped at a distance not far away from the beach.
Jim gradually slowed down. While still holding his girlfriend’s hand, he stared at the sea blankly.
Words of amazement of different languages flowed into his ears…
“Dad, what is that?”
“This is incredible! My phone, honey, where is my phone? I’m going to upload it on YouTube! Oh, sh*t, it is in my hand…”
“I can bet you it must be Future Group again!”
“No rush, dear, maybe we can purchase tickets and go sunbath up there. Remember to wear your new swimsuit…”
“…”
Suddenly, the shouts from the crowd woke the dumbfounded Jim and his girlfriend up. The surface of the metal island began to expand, the airbags in the middle began to inflate, and the tubes located in the water started to submerge.
“Jim, what is that?” Jenny holding onto her boyfriend’s hand asked in disbelief.
Just then, her boyfriend who always treated her nice forced his hand out of hers.
“Phone… Dammit! Phone and camera are all in the bag! Wait for me here, Jenny, I will be back!”
Looking at his girlfriend’s shocked look, Jim shouted and dashed to the baggage storage…
But Jim didn’t end up filming the deployment of the giant.
Under everyone’s watch, the basketball court sized island expanded into the size of a football field.
The rectangular design looked like the offshore rig used for oil and gas, the only difference was the unscientific size and the hundreds of graphene pipelines on its surface.
Surrounding the metal island was stacks of floating pipelines. The pipelines directly extended into the bottom of the ocean and acted as the seawater collection unit for the desalination unit. They would crudely filter the collected seawater and sent the product through the graphene pipeline to the distillation equipment in the middle; the treated water would then be fed out through the outlet at the bottom of the platform.
The left connection could be connected to power units for electricity and the equipment would only be operational once powered. The modular design meant that whether fire power or solar power, they could all be used to power the unit.
The most critical aspect was the desalination equipment can be moved. If the current position was non-ideal or there was a typhoon warning, as long as the graphene cables connected to the bottom of the ocean floor were retracted, the major modules were taken apart, equipment could be hauled elsewhere for redeployment.
Once the pipeline from land connected with the equipment, the “seawater desalination platform” could continuously feed the residents on ground fresh water.
The desalination platform naturally would not be deployed in the tourism area. The reason it was deployed here was for an advertisement of the new equipment.
“This is astonishing.” On top of the Future Building, Yerif through binoculars gazed at the desalination platform and could not stop smiling.
He originally planned to send his assistant, but because of the importance of this project, he personally made the trip to Coro Island.
“We’ll see a lot of similar comments on newspapers tomorrow.” Beside him, Jiang Chen smiled. “So why don’t we discuss something more interesting.”
“How much do you plan to sell that platform for?” Yerif’s eyes were stuck in the binoculars as he said without turning his head.
“We don’t plan to sell.” Jiang Chen shook his head.
Yerif finally moved his eyes off of the binoculars and looked at Jiang Chen, puzzled.
“Didn’t we agree?” Jiang Chen smiled. “We’ll provide you fresh water at a cost of 1 US dollar per ton.”
Compared with one and done type of deals, Jiang Chen liked long term business more. If Future Group controlled Saudi’s hydro, they would not only gain financial benefits.
Everyone depended on freshwater, especially people in the deserts.
Once Future Group used the cheaper water to bankrupt other desalination plants, Future Group, with control of desalination plants, would control the lifeline of water shortage countries.
By then, all the countries in the Gulf and along the coast of the Red Sea would depend on Future Group’s water. By that time, they would hail Future Group as their king!