Sail across the sea

Chapter 396 There must be a brave man under the heavy reward
At the foot of a mountain in Youtang Township, on the outskirts of Gunan County.

A group of rare earth mine owners, each wearing three gold rings, stood in a row by a ditch, observing the water droplets seeping from the ditch wall while listening to a bespectacled man across from them explain what in-situ leaching technology is.

"In-situ leaching, also known as solution leaching mining, was invented as early as the Western Han Dynasty in my country. Simply put, it involves injecting a chemical solution into a natural ore body to leach out the useful elements in the ore body, and then recovering them through a recycling device."

"Everyone here has experience in rare earth mining. In the past, the method used was pond leaching, which required digging the ore from the mountain and transporting it down to the foot of the mountain for leaching. However, our Zeyan Institute's newly developed in-situ leaching method involves spraying brine directly onto the mountaintop. After the brine reacts with the rare earth, it forms a rare earth mother liquor, which flows directly down the mountain."

"The ditch you see now is the mother liquor recovery ditch. The water flowing into the ditch is rare earth mother liquor, and it will automatically flow into the mother liquor pool in front."

The bespectacled man was gesticulating wildly and spitting as he spoke, looking somewhat like a teacher possessed by a pyramid scheme perpetrator.

"Engineer Liu is in great shape today."

Not far away in the sun, Gao Fan and Pei Hengxue stood side by side. Gao Fan, with his hands tucked into his sleeves in a rather unseemly manner, said with a chuckle.

Pei Hengxue laughed and said, "A generous reward will surely bring forth brave men. After signing the contract for Hekeng Township yesterday, Lao Liu asked me at least 20 times if the commission promised by the office would count. I said it definitely would, and Lao Liu was so happy that snot was practically dripping from his nose."

"That must be from being out giving a lecture yesterday and getting chilled," Gao Fan commented unkindly.

The bespectacled man was Liu Yanlin, the deputy director of the Rare Earth Laboratory at the Zeyan Institute. He and a few others from the Rare Earth Laboratory built this demonstration mine in Youtang Township.

After Canghua Science and Trade signed a cooperation agreement with Zeyan Institute, it immediately disbursed the promised investment of 100 million yuan. The original Rare Earth Laboratory, which had already been renamed "Zeyan Company", sent Liu Yanlin and his team to Gunan County, which is richest in rare earth resources. They directly bid 30 yuan to acquire the mining rights to a mountain for 10 years, and then began industrial trials of the in-situ leaching process.

In-situ leaching is not a new technology in the mining industry, but its application in rare earth development is a first. Mining ion-adsorption rare earths in southern China using in-situ leaching is far easier than mining other minerals.

The engineers at Zeyan Institute had been researching this problem for several years, but they lacked a practical opportunity. Now, they had directly tackled a mountain, and everyone used their unique skills to build a demonstration mine in just a few months. The trial mining results were excellent.

When Zeyan Institute wants to build a mine, it's not enough to just see ore coming out; various assessments must be conducted. After a series of complex sampling, analysis, and calculations, Zeyan Institute finally concluded that using the in-situ leaching method, the leaching rate of rare earth elements can reach over 50%. The rare earth elements that have not yet been leached remain on the mountain, and theoretically, there is still the possibility of secondary development.

During this process, the engineers also tried using a new leaching solution, which incorporated ascorbic acid (vitamin C) provided free of charge by Gao Fan. As a result, they found that some rare earth elements in the colloidal and lattice phases that could not be leached before were also replaced, which undoubtedly increased the theoretical upper limit of the recovery rate.

According to the initial plan, after the industrial trial was successful, the next step would be to promote the technology. The Zeyan Institute brainstormed and painstakingly drafted a promotion plan, only to have it completely overturned by Gao Fan, who came all the way from Cangtang.

Zeyan Institute's plan is to follow the old working model: first contact the local government, then the local government will send a notice to the mine owner, and then Zeyan Institute will send people to the mine to teach technology and guide development.

Gao Fan proposed a simpler and more direct method, which can be summarized in three words: use money. First, instead of having the local government issue any official notices, hire salespeople, such as middle school students or government officials, to contact mine owners. The agreement would be a 50 yuan referral fee for each mine owner brought to Youtang. Furthermore, if the mine owner subsequently signs a technology service agreement with the Zeyan Institute, the referrer would receive a 1000 yuan commission.

Upon hearing the figure of 1000 yuan, everyone at Zeyan Institute was stunned. They immediately waved their hands, saying that the commission was too high and the financial procedures might not even be approved. Their real thought was that it was a waste of money; 30 or 50 yuan for introducing business was enough, why give 1000 yuan at once?
In the end, Gao Fan's words solved the problem:
"The cost is ultimately borne by the consumer. If we raise the service fee by 1000 yuan as commission, we won't lose a single penny."

Hearing that they wouldn't be paying for it themselves, everyone calmed down a bit, but another question immediately arose:
With such high commissions, why don't we earn them ourselves?

Therefore, Gao Fan proposed another suggestion: if the engineer who makes the presentation on-site can persuade the mine owner to sign the contract, he can also receive a commission of 1000 yuan.

Gao Fan said this in the rare earth laboratory's office. Before he finished speaking, all the engineers in the laboratory raised their hands in unison, all requesting to go to the site. Among them were many of those hardcore engineering nerds who would never leave the house even if they were whipped. This surprised Xiao Ping and Pei Hengxue so much that their glasses fell off.

Liu Yanlin, a bespectacled man, was a notorious oddball in the generally taciturn Zeyan Institute. When he was first assigned to give presentations to the mine owners, he practically read from a script, barely daring to look his audience in the eye. But after signing a service contract and learning that he had already secured a 1000 yuan commission, his taciturnity transformed like rare earth elements, subtly shifting towards becoming a chatterbox.

There's no such thing as a distinction between "i" and "e" in this world. So-called "i people" are just people who aren't tempted by external factors enough.

The mine owners were all savvy; once Liu Yanlin started, everyone realized the advantages of this method and began to discuss it amongst themselves.
"This is a great idea! We can spray the solution directly onto the mountain, saving us the trouble of carrying soil down the mountain. This will save us so much labor!"

"Carrying water up the mountain is just as strenuous, isn't it?"

"Are you stupid? Have you ever heard of a water pump?"

"We don't need to worry about where to dump the waste anymore."

"Yes, I don't even have anywhere to put the waste soil from my mine."

"I was lucky; there was a reservoir right next to me, and I just filled it in." (True story...)
"A sin!"

"Look at this mountain, not a single tree has been cut down, it's as if no mine has ever been mined."

"Hey, does this mean we don't have to pay the contract fee anymore? We can just sneak up to a hill and mine it, and nobody will be able to tell anyway."

"Second son, you've discovered the key point..."

(End of this chapter)