Chapter 329: Freshwater from Lake Baikal

Just like what the netizens and investment analysts said, managing the desert was an investment with no return. Only saints or imbeciles would be willing to do so.

Commercial investment value was zero? Chen Jin was obviously no fool. He had conducted sufficient research beforehand, as well as simulations on the computer.

Commonly, these were the few main expenditures on managing desert land:

First would be the labor cost for flattening the desert land and the construction of roads and irrigation facilities totaling at about 2000 dollars per mu. Secondly would be the cost of purchasing seedlings, fertilizers, and agriculture machinery at around 1500 dollars per mu. Lastly would be water. Every mu of land would need more than a hundred tons of irrigation annually. The expenditure on the water for each mu of land would be at least a thousand dollars every year.

Moreover, it was compulsory to sustain efforts for 10 years and above to ensure some form of return. There would be no income generated in between. Comprehensively, according to traditional reforming means, transforming one mu of land would cost at least 15 thousand dollars and above.

After the reformation, the profit generated by plantations would hardly exceed 500 dollars for each mu of land. This would imply that the recovery period would be above 30 years. It would truly be more than 50 years before developers could expect some real income. Thus, this field was hailed as “the most unprofitable industry.” But if it were Xing Hai Technologies who was onto this course of action, the situation may be completely different.

Xing Hai Technologies’s contracted desert would not require any human labor as work would all be performed by robots, saving them more than 70% of labor costs. The costs of seedlings, fertilizers, and agricultural implements were basically the same.

Another thing would be water. The cost of water in the desert areas exceeded 10 dollars per ton with annual water consumption per mu of land at more than 100 cubic meters. This was the main expenditure that was almost impossible to cut short. However, Xing Hai Technologies have several ways to trim down this expenditure.

Lake Baikal, located in Russia, was the largest freshwater lake on the Eurasian continent and the deepest lake in the world with an average depth of 730 meters. The total freshwater resource that lake Baikal held was 23.6 trillion cubic meters, equivalent to the water volume of the five lakes in Northern M combined and exceeding that of the whole Baltic sea. The lake’s absolute reserves of clean water account for 20% of the world’s freshwater reserves and its water storage accounted for 85% of the total Russian lake water.

Based on 100 cubic meters of water per mu per year, 50 thousand square kilometers of desert land had water consumptions of not over 7.5 billion tons per year. Freshwater supplies of lake Baikal alone would suffice Chen Jin’s desert for 3146 years. Moreover, the water resources of the lake would be automatically replenished by rainfall, snowfall, and groundwater. Hence, it could be described as “inexhaustible.”

In addition, Lake Baikal was only some 1800 kilometers away from the northeast corner of the Taklimakan Desert. It was equivalent to pumping freshwater from water-rich provinces in the central region. Compared to siphoning seawater from nearby, it would still save on the cost of desalinating the seawater. Hence, Chen Jin’s sight was set on lake Baikal’s freshwater supplies.

“Go directly to the Russians for water. They should be fine with 10 cents per ton of water, I guess. 10 billion tons will be a billion dollars, a rather significant amount.

“For the construction costs of the 2000 kilometers pipeline, we will be using high-pressure carbon fiber pipelines which will cost us 10 million dollars per kilometer. 2000 kilometers would mean 20 billion dollars. Added up with high-power pumps, relay pumps, high-voltage cables and labor, manpower by robots, it would require us about 30 billion dollars comprehensively.

“The last thing remaining would be the electric bills generated during the water pumping process.” Pumping a ton of water should require a 10-kilowatt hour. Assuming that each kilowatt-hour costs 10 cents, the cost for pumping each ton of water would be one dollar.

“Summing them up with the costs of acquiring water and the pipeline construction fees, it is completely possible for us to push average transportation costs per ton of water to below three dollars! In that way, on water usage alone, Xing Hai Technologies will get to save 70% of the cost.”

In the end, the total cost held by Xing Hai Technologies for transforming each acre of desert land would only be at approximately 6000 to 7000 dollars. The cost was less than half compared to traditional methods.

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At the end of the investment period and when the payback period dawned, with the technology in Xing Hai Technologies’s possession, there would be literally no difficulty for them to generate an average net profit of 700 dollars per acre of land. Hence, it would only take them ten years to expect a return. In only 20 years, Xing Hai Technologies would start to profit and become an agricultural giant.

“20 years. No other company would accept such a lengthy return cycle, but I can. I can afford to expend this little amount of time. I am willing to make a long-term investment and I can afford to play this kind of waiting game.”

Therefore, Chen Jin once again summoned Ling Jundong and dispatched him to Russia to negotiate about a “water purchasing” partnership.

Ling Jundong had his eyes wide opened. “10 cents for every ton?” He shook his head hard. “Mr. Chen, the Russians are no fools, they know the value of freshwater, it is impossible that they’ll sell them to us at 10 cents per ton. Mr. Chen, you are too oblivious about the Russian’s personality. They are not that generous!”

“I am wary of that.” Chen Jin said faintly, “With their personality, if they were to know that someone wants to buy their freshwater, buying it from them and them alone, they would definitely sell their freshwater at the price of oil. They will have no mercy for such a succulent lamb.”

“And you still want me to offer them 10 cents per ton? Won’t they directly throw me outside?” Ling Jundong shook his head. This was asking for trouble in the face of the battle-born!

However, Chen Jin was confident as he said, “Old Ling, the Russian’s economic development has been very fast over the past two years with a lot of achievements in science and technology. They’ve even come out with a genuine fifth-generation fighter jet. This means that they are using our intelligent learning machine, virtual factory, work assistant and other products I perhaps? And they manage to produce some results with our help.”

“Yes, the Russians are our biggest client. We have sold more than eight million learning machines and more than 100 virtual factories in Russia,” Ling Jundong nodded.

“There are more Russian players in the ‘100% Science Lab’ as well. Am I correct?”

“There are more than 2000 of them, closing in 3000. The best among them already has a C grade laboratory.” Ling Jundong was, too, very familiar in this matter.

“That’s why I think the Russians would agree to sell us their freshwater at 10 cents per ton.” Chen Jin said, “You’d just have to ask their leaders, would they like to buy the university level intelligent learning machine? Would they want the 99.99% simulation degree virtual factory?”

Speaking of the virtual factory, just recently, Xing Hai Technologies had successfully developed the million billion supercomputer “Supernova 3.” It was incorporated with the “Virtual Factory 3.0” and had simulation degrees of eight 9’s behind the numerator, which was more than two generations ahead from the previous four instances.

“Besides, about the ‘100% Science Lab,’ ask their leaders, are they lacking credits to extract their ‘technical data’? Now, they have another alternative to acquiring those credits. For every ton of water they sell us, they will be gifted 0.1 credits in game. 10 billion tons of water will translate into a billion credits… I assume that they are wary of the value of these credits.”

“One billion credits will definitely be more valuable than one billion dollars cash and they will definitely take this into account!”

“With these three trump cards, do you think they would comply with 10 cents per ton of freshwater from Lake Baikal?” Chen Jin asked.

“Uhm…” Ling Jundong had some thoughts. “I think any normal person would have agreed. But Mr. Chen, the Russians are not that normal. They can’t be on the losing end, if they were, some will riot and make things go south.” He still wasn’t that confident.

“If we can’t reach on a partnership, then we shall blacklist them! In the future, they will not be entitled to any upgrade services that other clients will get to enjoy. For the ‘Science Lab,’ hike their withdrawal prices to the maximum. We shall fulfill their wish and let them starve to death while holding onto all their treasure. It is not like we can’t get fresh water from elsewhere; it is just that it’ll cost more.”

“!!!” Ling Jundong’s face was covered in sweat. This was not simply asking for trouble; it would be them, pulling off a miracle. But who should the Russians blame that it was Xing Hai Technologies that had mastered the core technologies? They could do whatever they want with core technology at hand!