"Duke, what do you think about the issue of nuclear energy conversion to fresh water that Prince Alewa just raised?" Cai Siqiang stretched out his hand and gently poked Duke in a daze, and asked.

"There is no problem, we can use nuclear energy to convert seawater into fresh water." Duke was startled and reacted, he hadn't forgotten Alewa's question, and replied very dryly.

"For the Lotus Reactor, this is just one of the application directions, just now I was inspired by the question of Prince Alewa, and I am thinking about the huge water vapor treatment problem of the Lotus Reactor nuclear power plant, and now we can consider that after the initial treatment of the seawater, it will be converted into water vapor through nuclear power heating, and then condensed into fresh water that can be directly consumed."

"In the middle of the process, I don't think it's too technically difficult. It is possible to transform the lotus pile into a desalination system. ”

Relatively speaking, due to the unique design of the Lotus reactor, it is easier to use nuclear energy to turn seawater into fresh water than to generate electricity, because the core design of the Lotus reactor is to completely separate the power generation steam circuit from nuclear radiation, and only need to recover the steam condensation to obtain fresh water.

Of course, it does not mean that the steam is simply condensed down to be drinkable fresh water, there are many things that need to be changed, such as the original design for the sake of power generation efficiency, the need to continuously pressurize the water vapor to make its temperature reach a very high state, so that it is inevitable that some other useless and even harmful substances in the seawater will be evaporated together, for power generation, this does not matter, anyway, the huge steam turbine unit needs a strong steam flow drive.

However, for drinking water, condensate with too many impurities cannot be directly discharged for use, and necessary filtration and other treatment measures must be carried out to remove these harmful substances to the human body.

It can be said that there are many things to deal with to get real drinking water, of course, desalination is not only to obtain drinking water, on the other hand, it is also to obtain irrigation water for plant growth, for the Gulf countries, most of the land is desertified land, there is not enough rainfall in the territory, there is no freshwater river, not to mention the cultivation of crops, even the greening water is very tight.

If Duke can use the lotus pile to produce these two kinds of fresh water efficiently and cheaply, it will definitely be a big business, not only in the Gulf countries, but also in our northern part of the country, which is very urgent, even if we have the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, which have huge runoff, it cannot stop the demand for even greater demand. The fact that the Yellow River is now regularly cut off is a testament to the extreme water shortage.

The famous South-to-North Water Diversion Project, which intercepted the water source of the Yangtze River basin at a huge cost, has now caused frequent droughts in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and now the rivers and lakes in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River often dry up, although there is no direct evidence to prove it, but these are the ones that began to appear frequently after the completion of the Three Gorges Project and the South-to-North Water Diversion Project.

If Duke's desalination costs are lower than the cost of freshwater from the South-to-North Water Transfer, it could not only add a stable source of fresh water to thirsty northern China, but could also make a difference to the current harsh climate.

"If your company is interested in exploring nuclear desalination of seawater, we in the United Arab Emirates are ready to work with you to complete this great project for the benefit of mankind." Prince Alewa said that this sounds like supporting Duke's research, but the business-sensitive Cai Siqiang found that this prince Alewa is not simple-minded, and seems to be interested in using Duke's lotus pile to enter the field of nuclear desalination of seawater.

The rich people in the Gulf countries always have a large amount of petrodollars in their hands, and they are rarely able to find stable investment channels that rely on appreciation, for them, these dollars in their hands do not want to increase in value, and they are very satisfied with maintaining their value to offset inflation, as long as the investment has a stable rate of return, it is good business for them.

They have seen the elegance and safety of the lotus pile, in terms of the low cost of long-term operation of nuclear power, if the safe lotus pile can be used for desalination, then this is obviously a pretty good business, Alewa comes from a country with extreme water shortage, he is very clear about this data, now there are at least forty or fifty countries in the world that are listed as very scarce water, and the population of water shortage is more than one billion, with the gradual increase of the earth's population and the expansion of people's water demand, the global freshwater resources will be larger and larger, some researchers believe that By 2025, the number of people living in water scarcity could even exceed 3 billion.

In the face of such a huge potential market, this business is not only good for Alewa, if he can intervene in such a big business, the future income that he can obtain from every dollar he invests now will be extremely considerable, and for people like Alewa who have become rich on petrodollars, they have to plan ahead for the day when the oil will run out in the future.

Now in front of him this freshwater project is a direction that can be invested in the layout, the initial investment in this industry is huge, there is no doubt that it is a capital-intensive project, it is Alewa they are good at, in the long run, it can not only absorb a large number of domestic surplus petrodollars, but also from the above to obtain stable and considerable income, and in the short term, it is also able to effectively solve the domestic freshwater supply problem, so for Alewa this is a great thing in one fell swoop.

Duke is not as sensitive as Cai Siqiang, and in this regard, he has at most a general impression that there are many water-scarce countries in the world, and he has little idea of the commercial value behind it. Now his main consideration is to be able to take the opportunity to deal with seawater and take the opportunity to solve the problem of refining nuclear fuel that Bilem needs.

Therefore, Duke agrees with Prince Alewa's willingness to invest in this thing, although this industry has broad prospects, but this is also a capital-intensive project, and the funds required for large-scale development are extremely large, even if Duke is confident that his company now has abundant cash flow, it can only be built in stages.

And these people with big turbans in front of them, who do not have tens of billions of dollars in their hands, so considering that the big work is inseparable from investors from all walks of life, Duke followed Prince Alewa's words and said: "We are very welcome to cooperate with various investors to jointly solve this desalination problem, as for specific business cooperation, you can talk to Mr. Cai next to me." ”

This kid, his head is not turning slowly now, Cai Siqiang next to him was quite surprised to see that Duke also took advantage of the situation to attract investment, and was pleased that Duke finally had a little business acumen this time.

To be honest, Cai Siqiang does not know much about this industry now for the development of seawater desalination proposed by Alewa, if he knew that the UAE would throw tens of billions of dollars into this every year, Cai Siqiang would have immediately had a "cordial and friendly" discussion with Alewa, but now, Cai Siqiang just nodded at Alewa reservedly, signaling everyone to come down and continue to talk.

However, after Cai Siqiang came down to let people study it, he quickly realized that a new huge business opportunity had emerged, on the one hand, he asked Duke to come up with a feasible plan and research and development plan, and on the other hand, he flew to the Gulf himself to start substantive cooperation negotiations with Prince Alewa and others.

According to Cai Siqiang's private story, "We don't have oil, but when we have the ability to turn seawater into fresh water, it is equivalent to having the ability to convert seawater into oil, so we will be the world's largest 'oil manufacturer' in the future!" ”

(Thank you to the book friend "liovaqu" for the reward, thank you brothers for your enthusiastic support!) ）