846 On the Ocean

Oil crops weren't first created by Future Biology.

As early as the 1970s, Nobel Prize-winning scientist Melvin Calvin discovered a tall evergreen tree named Hevea brasiliensis in the tropical rain forest in Brazil. After drilling a small hole, it was possible to produce a small amount of oil similar to diesel.

In 1986, the UA took the lead in growing "oil crops." Subsequently, other countries also successively carried out researches on the applications of "oil crops", then established new environmentally-friendly oil production bases such as "oil botanical gardens" and "oil farms."

Unfortunately, as of today, this kind of green energy still has not been widely used.

Not because it wasn't easy to use but because of cost and production-related issues.

Let's talk about production first.

What was Saudi Arabia's oil production last year? According to data released by OPEC, this figure exceeded the historical peak of 12.5 million barrels in 2018...

Per day!

Yes, 12.5 million barrels per day! Think about the concept of this number?

In contrast, the UA, which was relatively advanced in the field of oil crop research, only harvested 140 barrels per hectare on "oil farms" per year. That was a more lenient calculation, even if its quality was equivalent to 120 barrels of crude oil. At present, there were only 100,000 hectares of oil crops in the UA and 12 million barrels of oil were produced each year.

Clear data intuitively explained the problem.

The production of oil crops in the UA was less than the amount of oil produced by OPEC countries in one day. Of course, it wasn't equal to the daily oil production of Texas.

It was obviously impractical for this level of production to challenge the status of crude oil.

Therefore, all countries only used this kind of "oil crops" as an alternative development project for their energy strategies. They subsidized these "farms" through various energy and environmental protection policies so they wouldn't die out. After all, no one could be certain what the future is.

Perhaps one day, the Middle East would drill out the last drop of oil and these oil crops might have hopes of becoming a life-saving straw to solve the energy crisis.

Of course, it was only a wishful thinking.

After all, this output was too little!

However, in Future Biology's labs, "oil palm" was different. With only one slice, more than 10 liters of sap would flow out from underneath the bark! A barrel of oil was equivalent to 159 liters and 16 trees could produce a barrel of oil. And this kind of sap could be collected once a week!

Assuming 100 "oil palms" could be grown on one acre of land, the average daily output of an acre of land would already be close to one barrel of oil!

100,000 acres would produce a daily output of 100,000 barrels of oil. It would only take one million acres of"oil palm" and several refineries that specifically refined this sap to meet the energy needs of Xin. It would also open up the possibility of exporting to major oil importing nations in the region.

After coming out from the lab, Jiang Chen immediately made an order to purchase all palm trees on the market and he asked hid CEO to urge the lab to do their utmost to perform induced differentiation on these acquired palm trees.

The former was a simple task. Palm trees were common in the region from New Guinea to even Xin. After a phone call from Jiang Chen, Santos immediately organized Moro peasants to head into the mountains, use trucks and tractors to pull millions of palms into the port and sell them to Future Group at a reasonable price.

This move was nothing for this island with rich resources. Santos was secretively ecstatic that he made a fortune. The amount of money Jiang Chen paid him was about 20 million US Dollar, and he only paid a million to the farmers.

Jiang Chen voted against the idea of growing oil palms in Country F plantations after some thoughtful consideration.

This kind of technology should remain in his own country. Although Country F became the de facto vassal of Celestial Trade, it was ultimately still an outsider. After the Cold War, the relationship between Nippon and the UA was strong, but Nippon-based companies still sold top machine beds to the Russians.

In order to ensure these oil crops could be produced at a low cost, all oil palms must be grown in the country, and plant cultivation techniques and DNA codes must be kept strictly confidential! Jiang Chen awarded these researchers high bonuses, especially Bill Sullivan, to keep their mouth shut.

However, 100,000 acres wasn't a small area. The entire area of Coro Island was only just above 100,000 acres, not to mention the millions of acres of oil palms needed to become an oil exporting country.

Submarine farms were good at farming crops, but it wouldn't be feasible to grow palm trees several meters tall.

For the first time, Jiang Chen was troubled about the size of his territory.

But in the end, he still came up with a solution.

Next to Penglai City, a plantation with an area approximately the size of Penglai was built.

These plantations wouldn't need to be built in accordance with the standards of the island. They only needed to build offshore platforms with a length of approximately 250 meters and a width of 250 meters, fill it with soil, and connect platforms with graphene cables to form a chessboard-like sea plantation.

Of course, he still needed to consult the experts about the feasibility of this idea.

However, Jiang Chen predicted it wouldn't be challenging. With the strength of graphene, it shouldn't be too difficult to withstand the force exerted by tides. This kind of floating farmland should have a much lower one-time investment than submarine farms.

As for how to deal with storms or other bad weather, this task was given to the scientists at Future Heavy Industrial. During Penglai's construction, they had accumulated a wealth of experience in offshore construction. This small issue shouldn't be challenging for them.

September soon passed and October came quietly.

Compared to the turbulence of the previous period, September could be described as stable and free of trouble. The government forces had the upper advantage in the Turkish Civil War with peace negotiations on the horizon.

In addition to the civil war in Madagascar that was ongoing, the Eastern European issue escalated because of pressure from Russia. The global situation seemed to be approaching winter in the northern hemisphere, however, they just welcomed a relatively calm period of time.

Of course, that was only relatively speaking.

The international crude oil market was still filled with the invisible smoke of chaos. An invisible hand was stirring up the market and casting a gloom over the global economy.

Future Group's business was also affected, but compared to other international companies, it still performed much better. Under the monopoly model, Future Group was producing industrial raw materials while producing products. Although the price of oil had driven up the price of resources such as ores and agricultural products, the influence on Future Group only came from the crude market.

These days, Jiang Chen's life followed a routine. During the daytime from Monday to Friday, he basically spent all his time at the office. On Saturdays, he took off half a day to teach those lovely students at Coro University.

He didn't expect them to learn anything substantial. After all, people who came to open elective classes didn't expect to learn anything. Jiang Chen only hoped that he could subtly change their perspectives with this method.

For the remainder of his time, he remained in the apocalypse.

He was the general after all. Maintaining his "attendance" was necessary to stabilize the military. Even if he wasn't required to control the overall situation, showing his face was still required.

In addition, he also wanted to spend time with his "family" there.

Since the crisis in Wanghai had been resolved, after the pace of expansion in the modern world accelerated, he had rarely focused on the apocalypse. Even if it was just a form of compensation, he wanted to spend more time with Sun Jia, Yao Yao and the rest of them.

They were very important in his life.