"The amount of water transferred from the east and middle routes of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project will not account for a large proportion of the total water resources in the water source area, and will not aggravate the drought in the south, nor will it cause a significant increase in precipitation in the north."
"The east-line project draws water from the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The annual water pumping volume is expected to be about 9 billion cubic meters, which only accounts for one percent of the average multi-year runoff of the Yangtze River main stream near the pumping point.
The middle line project transfers water from the Danjiangkou Reservoir in the upper reaches of the Hanjiang River, a first-level tributary of the Yangtze River. The average annual water transfer volume is expected to be no more than 10 billion cubic meters, accounting for approximately 27% of the average annual runoff into the reservoir, which is lower than the world-recognized upper limit of river water resources development rate. . "
"According to relevant research results, for every 100 units of water evaporated in the Haihe River Basin, only 17 units of water return to the ground through rainfall.
After the South-to-North Water Diversion Project opens water, it will increase precipitation in the north to a certain extent through water vapor circulation, but the impact will be limited. Even if precipitation increases, whether the region will move from a dry period to a humid period still needs to be verified by multiple parties. "
After the expert finished speaking, another expert took over and said: "Through some of our observation data, the thermal effect on the Tibetan Plateau seems to be strengthening.
The enhanced thermal effect causes the southerly airflow to transport water vapor to the Huaihe River and push it towards North China, causing an increase in summer precipitation in the north. It remains to be seen whether this will have an impact on the South-to-North Water Diversion Project. "
From what these experts say, there seems to be no obvious evidence to prove that it will have a major impact on the southern water system, nor will it have a serious impact on the northern climate.
But these are only the results based on the current data analysis. In fact, it is really hard to say. There may be enough water in the south now, so there is no big problem.
But you must know that the current family planning policy is much looser than in the past, and the population size will definitely increase further in the future, especially in the south. The population size is already large, and the population size will be even larger in the future.
Secondly, my country's current economic development is very fast. The current water volume in the south may be enough to meet the current level of economic development, but it is still unclear whether it will be able to meet the current level of economic development in the future.
"If a large amount of seawater desalination technology is adopted and a large amount of desalinated seawater is transported to cities in North China for industrial and residential use, can it alleviate the water shortage problem in the northern industrial towns?" Zhao Yi asked.
Now the seawater desalination plant built by Yaoguang Environmental Management Company has reduced the cost of seawater desalination to a low enough level and is worthy of large-scale use.
However, the cost is not only the cost of seawater desalination, but also the greater cost may come from transportation costs, and the cost for agricultural irrigation may still be too high.
His current idea is to desalinate seawater to supply daily water and industrial water for residents in these areas, so that part of the water resources can be saved to meet local agricultural irrigation needs.
“My idea is to use seawater desalination technology to meet the needs of residents and industrial and commercial development, because these people have a higher tolerance for water prices and can afford the cost of transporting water resources over long distances.
In this case, a lot of water resources will be freed up for the development of agriculture and soil and water conservation. According to my estimation, the affected areas include Kyoto, Tianjin, Henan, Hebei, Shandong, Liaoning and other places.
Even some areas in western China such as Shanxi can adopt this method to solve the problem of water shortage for residents and industries and solve the problem of water shortage in these areas.
Moreover, after these residential and industrial water are well treated, they are discharged into nature, which in disguise increases the surface water resources in these areas.
For example, if the population in areas where seawater desalination and transportation can be implemented is around 400 million, it is likely to be even more in the future. If the average annual water consumption per person is 500 cubic meters.
So only residential water use will save about 200 billion cubic meters of surface water resources. If industrial water use is similar to that of residents, almost 200 billion cubic meters of surface water resources can be saved.
As for the central and eastern routes of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project we discussed earlier, the total annual water diversion is less than 20 billion cubic meters. From this, it can be seen that seawater desalination is more operable than the South-to-North Water Diversion Project.
More importantly, seawater desalination does not affect the current water system conditions in the south, and the overall project investment is not necessarily higher than the total investment in the South-to-North Water Diversion Project.
The most important thing is that seawater desalination does not need to take excessive consideration of inland water resources. There is so much water in the sea that it can basically work all year round, and the water supply is more stable. "Zhao Yi continued.
Compared with the many issues that need to be considered and the many unknown issues that need to be considered in the South-to-North Water Diversion, in his opinion, seawater desalination is more trouble-free and has higher operability.
If seawater desalination technology is immature, South-to-North Water Diversion is indeed a more feasible solution, but Yaoguang Environmental Management Company's seawater desalination costs only 0.1 yuan per cubic meter.
And the water that comes out is already drinkable tap water. Even after long-distance transportation, the water source may be contaminated again and needs to be purified again, and the cost will not be higher than seawater desalination.
Of course, these are all based on the premise that seawater desalination plants are not profitable and the price of electricity drops further, but even so, the cost of pure seawater desalination is really not high.
Because the permeable membrane used in seawater desalination plants is an automatic biopermeable membrane, the cost is basically the cost of the biofilm and the cost of pumping seawater up.
To raise one ton of seawater by one meter only requires about 0.00272 kilowatt-hours of electricity, so this cost can basically be omitted.
Therefore, if the cost of water transportation is omitted and only the costs at both ends of the water transportation are calculated, clean and pollution-free water resources can be obtained at a price of less than 0.2 yuan per ton.
As for the cost of energy consumption in the water transportation process, we can also calculate it. Let’s take a larger calculation and calculate it based on an altitude of 100 meters, which is enough to transport water from the coast to most inland areas.
100 .
The total cost of these two items is about 0.234 yuan, and the rest is the cost of building the water pipeline, which is not particularly easy to calculate.
The cost of water pipelines needs to take into account not only the cost of construction materials, but also the cost of labor and even the service life, so the calculation is much more complicated.
However, Cornerstone Materials has begun to research polymer pipe network materials with ultra-long service life. If they are really developed, there will be no need to use metal water pipes, and the cost will definitely be reduced a lot.
If we calculate based on the annual desalination water supply of 500 billion cubic meters, we need to build pipelines with an average flow rate of about 15,800 cubic meters per second to meet all needs.
Zhao Yi silently calculated in his heart that the cost of pipelines is allocated to the water price, and the cost per ton will not increase by more than 0.1 yuan.
In other words, even if the entire water velocity reaches 100 meters, the overall cost per ton of water will not exceed 0.4 yuan. In fact, the altitude of most areas will not exceed 50 meters.
Therefore, based on the average door-to-door cost calculation, desalinated seawater only costs about 0.5 yuan per ton of water, which is cheaper than the price of tap water in almost all cities in the previous life.
After thinking about these situations clearly, Zhao Yiyi became more certain that the seawater desalination project he just proposed was superior to the South-to-North Water Diversion Project he just proposed.
When the leader heard about Zhao Yi's seawater desalination plan, he immediately became interested. Regardless of other things, at least the amount of water is almost unlimited, which is much better than having many restrictions on transferring water from the south.
The experts on site are more concerned about the cost issue. If the cost is too high, even an unlimited water supply will not help.
In fact, they also know that the seawater desalination technology of Fluolight Environmental Management Company is one of the few environmental protection projects in my country that can be exported, and it is running very well in Saudi Arabia.
However, judging from their operating costs in Saudi Arabia, they still felt that the cost was very high, so when they originally considered the plan, they directly filtered it out.
In fact, what they don't know is that Yaoguang Environmental Management Company's external quotation is very high, but the real cost is actually very low, so they have not disclosed any information in this regard to the outside world.
Because you disclose your true costs to the outside world, you will not be able to do export business. The only thing that will be damaged is your own interests. You only need to ensure that your export prices are cheaper than others.
However, the current price of tap water in China is not very expensive. In 1983, the price of tap water was only 0.1 yuan per ton. Later, due to the sharp increase in labor costs and the increase in demand, the current price is about 0.3 yuan per ton.
Compared with the 0.5 yuan or so calculated by Zhao Yi just now, the price is still lower, but such a low price is not sustainable because labor costs will further increase in the past two years and prices will be adjusted accordingly.
If we compare it with the price of tap water in previous generations, it definitely has a cost advantage. Converted to the exchange rate in later generations, the price of tap water per ton will not exceed 2 yuan.
So the leader asked directly: "Academician Zhao, your suggestion is a very small one, but as for the cost, have you carefully calculated it and is it feasible?"
Of course, Zhao Yi didn't want to make detailed calculations on site, so he gave a rather general answer, saying: "The specific costs have not been calculated in detail.
However, I made a rough calculation in my mind. Based on the pipeline construction cost of 2 million yuan per kilometer, the total mileage is about 100,000 kilometers, and the total pipeline construction cost alone is about 200 billion yuan.
The second is seawater desalination cost, transportation energy consumption cost, destination purification cost and urban pipe network transportation cost. Calculated based on the current technical level, the cost is within 0.8 yuan per ton. "
Hearing what Zhao Yi said, everyone at the scene turned pale. After all, compared with the current price of tap water, it is much higher. Even if they wanted to increase the price, they would not increase so sharply.
Once such water prices are announced, it is estimated that the relevant departments will be criticized by residents, and the cost of industrial water will increase rapidly, which will also reduce the profit margins of industrial enterprises.
He saw that everyone at the scene looked unhappy, so he didn't pay too much attention. He continued: "However, with the use of more advanced technologies and the further decline in electricity prices, there is still some room for price reduction."
Without more detailed calculations, even Zhao Yi himself did not dare to draw conclusions easily, so he only gave a relatively general price range.
"Have you ever calculated the total investment cost?" the leader asked.
"There are two main aspects of fixed investment costs. The first is the construction cost of long-distance transmission pipelines, and the second is the construction cost of seawater desalination plants.
As mentioned before, the cost of long-distance transportation pipelines is about 200 billion yuan. The construction cost of building a desalination plant with a daily processing capacity of 10 million tons is about 500 million yuan.
To meet the demand for residential and industrial water for a population of 500 million, approximately 130 such desalination plants need to be built, so the total investment in desalination plants is about 65 billion yuan. " Zhao Yi replied.
In fact, fixed investment is not bad for Zhao Yi. He can still get the money by himself. After all, the value of the gold he dug out of the sea is more than this.
However, it is a huge amount of money for the government. Although the government collects a lot of taxes every year, maintaining huge government expenditures is not low. It also needs to spend a certain amount of money every year to pay for welfare, non-commercial Infrastructure and so on.
There are many more places where money is spent than where it comes from, so the balance is not large. In order to keep the infrastructure in line with the needs of economic development, there will occasionally be fiscal deficits.
In fact, this is nothing. If this project has great profits and adopts a commercial operation model, whether it is social financing or bank loans, it can be solved.
The problem is that the water price he just mentioned is too high. The current tap water price is not competitive at all. If you invest now, you will not make any money at all and will suffer serious losses.
In fact, with the current water price of 0.3 yuan, the water company is actually not making money. It is in a state of losing money. It is just a question of how much it loses and how much it loses.
If the cost is really about 0.8 yuan as he said, then the loss is really too big. Even if it is a financial subsidy loss, it cannot be afforded. No one or any institution can afford the annual subsidy of nearly 100 billion yuan. .
However, when the leader thought about it, he discovered that there was a huge loophole in it, that is, the cost reduction efficiency brought about by technological progress, which only Zhao Yi could achieve.
When it first implemented a nationwide free education, free medical care and a comprehensive pension system, the government also felt that it was impossible to complete and the finances could not bear the burden.
If Zhao Yi had not been responsible for the difference in losses, the government would never have agreed to implement this welfare system. Many people were even worried that he would lose his pants.
That's why the tax exemption policy was given to Chinese pharmaceutical companies to further reduce their burden and prevent them from going bankrupt, which would seriously affect the domestic economy and also affect the stable implementation of the welfare system.
Unexpectedly, in just over a year, the welfare system under Zhao Yi's leadership has stabilized its position. Although a slight loss is inevitable, if Chinese pharmaceutical companies are included, it is generally profitable.
In other words, for Zhao Yi, the entire welfare system not only did not suffer losses, but also made him a lot of money. This situation was unexpected by everyone.
Of course, it is not that no one is jealous of the huge benefits involved, but they have no way, because only he can complete the maintenance of this system, and no one else can do it.
The fundamental reason why he is able to do this is determined by his super technical strength. How could he maintain such a huge medical system without so much medical research and development capabilities.
Without the artificial intelligence technology related to smart teachers, it would be impossible to achieve free compulsory education covering the whole country, and the cost and teaching quality would be very different.
So the leader turned his attention to Zhao Yi. Although his academic achievements are obvious to all, what cannot be ignored is that he is also a super rich man himself.
If an outsider were to do this, it is estimated that he would not be very motivated and would not put too much energy into reducing costs.
If this task was handed over to him, it would probably be a different situation. On the one hand, he has the strength to build such a huge water supply system.
On the other hand, it is his own business. In order to avoid large-scale losses, he must use all his energy to solve the problem of high costs, otherwise he will be unable to make ends meet with his own money.
It's just that these thoughts cannot be expressed face to face here. Regarding Zhao Yi's wealth and identity, it is still relatively confidential to the outside world. At least only those at ministerial level and above are qualified to know.
The experts on site were not high enough and there were too many people talking, so the leader did not ask Zhao Yi for his opinion on the spot. He just said: "This is a good suggestion and can be used as a reference. It will be discussed later after detailed demonstration."
Hearing what the leader said, the experts on the scene also nodded. If the cost is really as high as Zhao Yi said, is it a good plan? Although it sounds good, it is currently feasible to implement. of.
"Next we need to discuss the water shortage problem in the northwest. In addition to the western route project of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project mentioned earlier, are there any other ways to solve this problem?" the leader asked.
To be honest, the construction of the west line project is more difficult, the route is longer, and the address stability is worse. Therefore, the investment scale is the largest among the three lines. It is somewhat similar to the Hongqi River plan mentioned above.
So the leader asked if there were any other ways to solve the water shortage problem in the northwest region. After all, everyone wants a better solution.
Many experts fell silent after listening to the leader's inquiry. This was really a bit difficult for them. Apart from transferring water, there was really no other way to solve various problems. After all, water would not appear out of thin air.
Not to mention them, even Zhao Yi has never heard of other ways to solve the water shortage problem in the northwest. Is it really necessary to transfer water from Lake Baikal
Even if we don't care about the cost issue, the polar bears will not agree to this plan, and the journey is also very long and needs to pass through the entire Mongolia. Moreover, our relationship with the north is not very good now, and it is basically unenforceable. (End of chapter)