Chapter 1144 I suddenly had an inspiration

Although the Industrial and Construction Commission has completely separated itself from the color of a military organization, it was reorganized from the old leadership of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. The middle and grassroots cadres were only partially transferred within the ministry, and the original operating structure was basically maintained.

Therefore, when the document requiring centralized reporting of research results was issued, the subordinate units responded quite quickly.

In just half a month, hundreds of topics that relatively met the requirements were submitted.

Even if we exclude some empty and fake projects that are obviously designed to earn subsidies, there are still nearly 200 projects left that have real development prospects.

However, when Chang Haonan was once again invited by Li Zhongyi to the meeting room of the Construction Committee to review the contents of the application one by one, he still felt a little headache.

Anyone who has actually done research knows that, in most cases, a topic being "promising" and "being implementable" are two different things.

From the time a technology is proposed to the time it is finally available to users, the number of research topics involved can range from hundreds to countless.

Among them, there may be only a few or a dozen who can truly play a driving role and can be called the core.

As for the rest, it is like the change you pay when buying a house.

You certainly can't say they're useless.

But it can only be considered icing on the cake.

When the basic framework is already established, it can indeed play some auxiliary role.

But it is impossible to accomplish anything relying on these things alone.

Professor Chen Zuyu, another consultant to the Construction Committee, was the first to break the silence:

"In my opinion, the most useful technologies for Arab countries are those related to seawater desalination..."

"I checked the data before coming here today. Not only the UAE, but also countries in West Asia and North Africa such as Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Libya do not have a permanent natural river in their entire country. However, the conditions are relatively rich, and the demand for seawater desalination technology can be said to be the highest in the world..."

"..."

After hearing these words, the other people in the conference room all looked surprised.

It’s not because there’s anything wrong with the content.

But the person who said it is wrong.

Water shortage is not just a problem for Middle Eastern countries.

The same exists in China.

It’s just that it manifests itself in the form of uneven distribution of water resources.

Therefore, for a long time in the past, the ideas for solving the water shortage problem in northern China were divided into two camps: South-to-North Water Diversion and seawater desalination.

The former is a long-term project that has been tried and demonstrated since the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China. If it is to be carried out on a large scale, the amount of work will be unimaginable and it will inevitably cause large-scale immigration.

The latter is a technology that was developed later. It requires large capital investment and technical risks, but it is a research hotspot. In the 1960s and 1970s, there was a large-scale battle for seawater desalination, and some pilot projects have been carried out in several coastal cities such as Tianjin.

Chen Zuyu, an expert in water conservancy, hydropower and civil engineering who was just one step away from becoming an academician last year, has always been a strong promoter of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project.

To hear him express support for the desalination project is truly a stroke of luck.

Chen Zuyu probably saw what everyone was thinking, so he smiled in an unfathomable way:

"I am not a pedantic person... The reason why I was against desalination in the past was mainly because I wanted to solve the water shortage problem in the north. I am not really prejudiced against the technology itself... Now that there are wealthy families in the Middle East who want to use it, it can be regarded as an opportunity for the past research to be put to good use, haha..."

After saying this, he glanced in the direction of Chang Haonan with some deep meaning.

This somewhat abrupt look made the latter, who had not yet had the chance to speak, stunned. He thought that he and Professor Chen should never have had any disputes. He thought that the other party was trying to hint at something, so he looked back in the direction of his gaze.

Then he noticed Academician Gao Congjie sitting next to him.

It suddenly dawned on me.

As the saying goes, enemies never get together.

Academician Gao Congjie happens to be an expert in comprehensive utilization of seawater and membrane separation, and was one of the bigwigs who previously promoted the seawater desalination route.

In fact, with the review and approval of the "Overall Plan for the South-to-North Water Diversion Project" a year and a half ago, the dispute between the two sides ended with the South-to-North Water Diversion Project winning completely.

As for Chen Zuyu, who has already secured victory, he certainly doesn't mind showing some goodwill on such an occasion.

It can also help me eliminate some obstacles in the next academician selection.

Otherwise, if the two sides continue to confront each other like this, he may have to wait until the completion of the first phase of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project before he can accumulate enough hard contributions.

But the cycle of such a large project can easily be counted in decades...

The agony of waiting comes second.

The key is that we may not be able to wait until that day...

"Come on, Lao Chen, family members know their own business..."

Gao Congjie smiled and waved his hand:

"When we proposed desalination, we were planning to rely on the large number of coal-fired power plants in my country's coastal areas and the planned nuclear power plants to use waste heat for energy. It is impossible to burn coal in the Middle East, and my country is not good at the relevant technologies of oil and gas boilers..."

"Unless you can convince those oil-producing countries to build nuclear power plants on a large scale, even they won't be able to supply the energy for desalination..."

Although he said something ungrateful, Chang Haonan, who was sitting nearby, could see that his expression had relaxed a lot compared to before.

It seems that these two really don't have any personal grudges.

"Academician Gao, is it possible to transform the other party's existing power facilities..."

The opinions just put forward by the former have obviously been recognized by many people.

For example, Li Zhongyi, who was sitting in the first seat, quickly asked.

"It's hard."

This time, Gao Congjie's response was very decisive:

“The desalination of seawater in power plants needs to be considered from the early stage of design, and the boilers also need to be adapted specifically… The amount of work required to renovate an old power plant is almost the same as building a new one, and we can’t expect Siemens or General Electric to cooperate with us in this regard.”

But Li Zhongyi still had some hope:

"In recent years, Academician Chang and his colleagues have made some achievements in the field of gas turbines for power generation. Do you two think it is possible to cooperate with them..."

Chang Haonan, who was suddenly called out, quickly dispelled the other party's bold idea:

"On the one hand, the models we have put into production are all light-duty power generation engines used in oil fields or natural gas fields, which cannot meet the needs of large and medium-sized power plants... On the other hand, gas turbines and boilers are very different in terms of energy recovery and utilization, so it is impossible to directly transfer the technology of Academician Gao and others..."

"Compared to this, it is better to hope that the international environment changes or that our country's nuclear energy utilization technology makes a breakthrough. By then, we can build nuclear power plants in Middle Eastern countries, and then seawater desalination technology will be a piece of cake..."

The gas power plant itself will have another set of waste heat boiler-steam turbine as a supplement, and even the rich and powerful cannot rely entirely on gas turbines to supply urban electricity.

In the end, Gao Congjie took the initiative to change the subject, so as to prevent Li Zhongyi from continuing to think in this unrealistic direction:

"If you ask me, Director Li, your old profession is more suitable..."

Such a sentence really drew the latter's attention instantly.

Seeing this, Gao Congjie simply continued speaking:

"For so many years, the Gulf countries have always been mainly exporting crude oil, with very little refined oil, let alone more complex oil industry products."

"But even if they have an oil field that can't be fully exploited for a century, they can't keep doing this forever... I saw that the report also talked about the demand for deep processing of oil..."

The report he mentioned was naturally the one that Chang Haonan had seen half a month ago.

The article does indeed devote a lot of space to mentioning investments in the chemical industry.

The only problem is that although big chemical industry looks simple, the internal technical difficulty is not low at all.

Even China's own petrochemical industry is heavily dependent on foreign countries for technology, equipment and funds, and there are not many areas that can be used for export projects.

Of course, one good thing about the chemical industry is that it has a very rich variety of product categories.

So the group did not immediately pour cold water on the idea. Instead, they each found several related research directions from the list and began to compare and analyze the feasibility.

Atmospheric and vacuum pressure, light hydrocarbon recovery, high propylene catalytic cracking, carbon two recovery, full density polyethylene, ethylene oxide/ethylene glycol...

Because of his research in computational materials science, Chang Haonan is somewhat familiar with the molecular properties of these basic organic compounds, but he is not an expert in the chemical industry after all.

So he didn't intend to get into anything too in-depth, just to take a quick look.

It mainly includes the basis for topic selection, research status, and technical route.

Just treat it as a story.

But even Chang Haonan himself did not expect that after taking this look, he could actually figure out something.

"The carboxyl group can form a strong chemical bond with the inorganic salt ions on the surface of the substrate..."

"The double bond structure of the vinyl group in the molecule makes the molecule more polar, making it easier to form hydrogen bonds with water molecules, showing hydrophilic characteristics. At the same time, the fatty acid group at the other end shows strong hydrophobicity..."

"..."

This paragraph is only mentioned casually in the application as research background. The real focus is the subsequent process part, which claims that it can reduce energy consumption by 45% compared with existing technology.

It is one of those projects that doesn't look very reliable at first glance.

But the previous words gave Chang Haonan a flash of inspiration -

Since the end of 2000, he has gathered several related research groups and started to conduct research on desert modification in western Mongolia.

Now that four years have passed, we can say that there has been some progress, but it is still quite a distance away from being practical.

The greatest value may be that it allowed Professor Zhuang Bingchang to stay in Jilin Province, and he did not die accidentally at the hands of two gangsters like in his previous life.

But other achievements are indeed lackluster.

Mainly in the very beginning of the theory, it was clearly stated that a solidifying agent with sufficiently special properties was needed to introduce an initial "universal binding constraint" to the discrete sand particles, and then transform it into a consolidation constraint that can recover autonomously through the action of plant roots.

But anything related to agronomy will inevitably be affected by the weather.

At the latitude of Meng Province, planting can only be carried out twice a year at most, and in four years, not many groups of comparative experiments can be carried out.

Therefore, the efficiency of screening curing agents like looking for a needle in a haystack is very slow.

But if we open our minds and actively design a polymer molecule so that it can have a long chain or a ring-shaped hydrophobic structure as the main chain, and at the same time have more hydrophilic groups and active groups at the end of the side chain, it can wrap and cross-link with the surface of soil particles, and play a role in strengthening the soil...

Let’s not talk about this technology anymore.

This is obviously quite attractive to countries that are almost entirely in the desert.

And technology that can interest oilmen will obviously not lack investment...

Thinking of this, Chang Haonan immediately put down the application in his hand:

"Director Li, I think the feasibility of these projects is not very high... But I personally have an idea."

In an instant, more than a dozen eyes were focused on him.

"Perhaps some comrades have heard that I have a research project on desert soil in Meng Province?"

This time, it was Luan Wenjie, the deputy director, who reacted first:

"I have the impression that..."

"When the Shenzhou II to Shenzhou IV missions were launched, it seems that they brought three batches of seeds into space for you?"

At the beginning, Zhuang Bingchang was forced to do space breeding, so Chang Haonan found Luan Wenjie for help.

It was also at that time that he took over the task of designing the screening algorithm for Ocean No. 1, thus beginning his indirect involvement in the aerospace field.

It's old news.

After being mentioned by Luan Wenjie, Li Zhongyi also nodded:

"But I remember that the project has not had much investment. Theoretically speaking, it seems to be in the feasibility study stage now..."

But Luan Wenjie's eyes lit up.

He knew very well that for Chang Haonan, it was not uncommon to get most of the work done before the project was officially launched.

At least that was the algorithm used by Ocean No. 1 back then.

"So... you have made some progress?"

"Not yet."

Chang Haonan quickly waved his hand:

"It's just that I suddenly got an inspiration, so I want to take a break to verify it..."