Chapter 97 Bioaccumulation
Lambi Island.
This is an island full of tropical atmosphere, roughly located at 11 degrees north latitude and 98 degrees east longitude.
The entire island is oriented northwest-southeast, with a north-south length of 31.8 kilometers and an east-west width of 4 to 24 kilometers. The island's terrain resembles a small hoe.
The reason for choosing this place is that the island is large enough, with an area of 188 square kilometers, and it is also remote enough.
On the other hand, due to the terrain of the island, a semi-enclosed bay with an area of nearly 200 square kilometers was formed.
This terrain makes it convenient for the Aoba Group to build some secret industries inside the bay.
The name of Lambie Island's external project is Lambie Island Seaweed Breeding Base. This is not a false name, but a real seaweed breeding base.
It’s just that the seaweed cultivated here is of a special variety.
After Kevin and a group of Blood Blade special forces and ordinary soldiers arrived here, they immediately put on special biological protective suits.
The factory buildings, breeding ponds and wave-breaking walls have been completed, and some secret facilities are built on the mountain and underground.
Kevin passed by the pond and looked at the rows of seaweed soaked in seawater. He quickly instructed the soldier in charge of the place, "Change the entrance and exit route. Don't go directly through the seaweed pond."
"yes."
Then, deep inside the factory, the seaweed particles are crushed by conveyor belts and sent into methane fermentation tanks to produce methane gas.
The methane gas is stored in storage tanks made of crystal sponges and used to generate electricity and power equipment on the island.
The residue after fermentation is the real purpose of Kevin's visit this time.
Inside the mountain, there is a thick cement protective layer and a lead plate barrier layer.
The fermented seaweed residues are dried at high temperatures and then stored in lead cans inside the mountain.
“What is the current production volume?”
The soldier manager replied coldly: "We can produce 300 tons of dry feed every month. If we expand the area of the breeding restaurant, we can continue to increase the output."
Kevin touched his chin and said, "300 tons of dry materials? What is the average abundance?"
"The average abundance is between 0.73% and 0.88%." The soldier manager replied.
"In other words, 300 tons of dry materials can produce 2.1 to 2.4 tons of uranium oxide?" Kevin roughly estimated the number.
"Yes, but the proportion of uranium 235 in these uranium oxides is only about 0.7%."
Kevin was not disappointed, after all, this was just the beginning.
He was sent to Dawei Port, and one of his core tasks was to secretly build a uranium refining base here.
The Lambie Island base was established for this purpose.
In fact, the uranium abundance of seaweed fermentation residue is already very high, at least one order of magnitude higher than that of general-grade uranium ore, which has an abundance of approximately 0.05% to 0.2%.
As for things like uranium, the great powers are well aware of the mines on land and they even monitor them at all times.
You can use laboratory research as an excuse for purchasing small quantities, but it is simply impossible to purchase large quantities.
Previously, when Li Qingye was developing seaweed technology, he had produced many by-products, such as potassium salt seaweed used to extract potassium salt.
In addition, there are scientists in the world who are working on using seaweed to extract uranium. Li Qingye used his biotechnology advantages to transform uranium-rich seaweed that can specifically absorb uranium.
You should know that the total amount of uranium in the ocean is more than 2,000 times the uranium mines currently discovered on land, with total reserves reaching 4.5 billion tons.
Instead of looking for minerals on land, it is better to extract them directly from the ocean.
The advantages of doing this are, first, low cost, and second, better concealment.
Of course, the crude product extracted from seaweed can only be stored in the underground warehouse on Lambie Island and there is no way to purify it.
The main reason is that uranium enrichment requires large centrifuges and massive amounts of electricity, and large centrifuges are equipment that the great powers guard closely.
Li Qingye does not want to be the focus of attention of the great powers now, so naturally he will not purchase centrifuges or develop centrifuges.
But the absence of centrifuges does not mean that uranium enrichment cannot be carried out.
In fact, the bioenrichment method can also purify uranium and separate uranium 235 from it.
Li Qingye calls this technology reverse biological purification. It uses the different weights of uranium 238, uranium 235, and uranium 234 to cultivate bacteria that only absorb uranium 238.
Once the uranium 238 is separated, what remains is uranium 235 and very low levels of uranium 234.
At this time, the purity of uranium 235 among the remaining uranium compounds will reach more than 99.9%, which is directly weapons grade.
Moreover, this technology has very low energy consumption and is very concealed. It basically does not require a series of large centrifuges and power stations. Even a small workshop can complete the purification work.
However, this technology is only a concept at this time, because Li Qingye has only cultivated a few semi-finished products of bacteria that specifically absorb uranium 238, and the recognition rate between the three uranium isotopes is relatively low.
In addition, uranium itself has nuclear radiation, which has a great impact on bacteria.
But Li Qingye was not in a hurry. As soon as this technology was completed, he would be able to obtain a large amount of high-purity uranium 235 quickly with the large amount of artificial uranium ore on hand.
Therefore, the current mission of the Lambie Island base is to continuously produce uranium-rich seaweed and store these uranium-containing residues.
However, the Lambie Island base is not the only uranium production base. There is also a hidden island in the Luzon Islands that is doing the same work.
The technology of bioenrichment is definitely a cutting-edge technology with great potential.
The ocean is a huge resource library.
As the world's land resources have long been divided up, the Homo sapiens company can only obtain resources from the ocean to complete its early stage of development.
After Kevin inspected the Lambie Island base, he planned to continue to strengthen the infrastructure here, at least to increase the dry material production of seaweed residue to about 1,000 tons per month.
In fact, Kevin and other Spider Web Managers take nuclear weapons more seriously than Li Qingye.
After all, they are deeply tied to the Sapiens company. If they don't want to be controlled and destroyed by the great powers in the future, they must not only have enough strength in conventional weapons, but also be able to fight against the enemy in super-conventional weapons.
As the best of unconventional weapons, nuclear weapons are very moderate as a strategic deterrent and are not as terrifying as biological weapons.
After all, nuclear weapons can be tested to let others know that you have them, but biological weapons cannot be tested openly.
Kevin now wishes that Sapiens could develop nuclear weapons immediately so that they don't have to hide in the dark.
After he secretly returned to Dawei Port, he quickly reported to the branch via the internal optical cable on the situation of the Lambie Island base and the funds and resources needed for subsequent expansion.
In response, Ma Chi directly approved the expansion plan.
At this time, with the entry of Aoba Group, Touzhi began to transform from a backward agricultural city to an industrial city.
In other words, the entire Shan Plateau is changing, including the Golden Triangle, which has been in a state of chaos and is now strangely calm.
However, the outside world does not know much about this calmness at this time.
On the one hand, it is because Hongsavadi has very limited external channels.
On the other hand, the gangs in the Golden Triangle were all dealt with by Yang Mengjiao and Domino. They were either swallowed up or turned into fertilizer for the rainforest.
Under such circumstances, naturally very little news would leak out.
