Agricultural giant since 1983

Jeff Cooper, the chief research and development expert of Green Plains, the third largest bioethanol producer in the United States, announced an explosive news. His R&D team has made a breakthrough in the field of using soybeans to produce ethanol. They have successfully mastered the advanced technology of using soybeans to produce ethanol efficiently. In the future, Green Plains will invest a lot of money in this field and build a large number of factories in the main soybean producing areas of the Midwest of the United States, so as to use the soybeans here to produce ethanol for sale.

And ADM, the largest bioethanol manufacturer in the United States, immediately followed up, saying that they have obtained the patent authorization from Green Plains, and they will also invest one billion US dollars to develop this emerging field; other bioethanol companies such as Langier, Valeno Energy, Flinders, etc. also responded one after another, expressing that they will negotiate with Green Plains as soon as possible in order to obtain authorization to open their own soybean ethanol factories.

The news came out that the price of soybean futures, which had been suppressed by Li Lei, skyrocketed again. The reason was simple. The previous price drop was because Li Lei exposed the lies of the United States and used conclusive evidence to prove that this year’s soybean harvest in the United States must be bumper.

But now, the four major grain merchants have given new reasons. Perhaps this year’s soybean harvest will indeed be bumper, but we have also found another use for soybeans. According to the news announced by Mr. Jeff Cooper at the press conference, we can clearly see that using soybeans to produce bioethanol is more efficient than corn and more profitable. If this is the case, we will definitely use a large amount of soybeans to produce ethanol and sell it for money.

Although the total output of soybeans has increased since then, because of new consumption channels, a large amount of soybeans will be sent to factories to be processed into ethanol, so the soybeans put into the international grain market will inevitably decrease, and the price rise will become a matter of course when the supply is less.

The leaders of China Grain Storage, COFCO and other related companies immediately called Li Lei to hold a meeting to discuss countermeasures. The first thing they had to do was to understand whether the news announced by the Americans was true or false.

Li Lei came to the conclusion decisively, "It must be fake! Now Americans probably haven't mastered the cost-effective technology of producing bioethanol from soybeans, and they are doing this just to push up the price of soybeans!"

Why is he so sure?The reason is simple, because even ten or twenty years later, there is no news that Americans use soybeans to produce ethanol on a large scale. Although the production of bioethanol in European and American countries continues to increase, most of them use crops with high yields and low prices such as corn and cassava.

Then Li Lei told them about the development history of the bioethanol industry in the United States. Humans have a long history of fermenting crops to produce alcohol. At the beginning of the 20th century, ethanol had new uses and began to be used as fuel for cars. In the 20s, it was used on a large scale as a renewable energy source.

Adding biofuel ethanol to gasoline in a certain proportion and blending it into ethanol gasoline can not only increase the octane number of ordinary gasoline, but also reduce pollutants in the exhaust gas (inhalable particulate matter, hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, etc.).

With the rise of environmentalism, more and more countries are aware of the advantages of biofuel ethanol, which is clean and environmentally friendly, and the importance of replacing gasoline and reducing fossil energy consumption. The global production of biofuel ethanol has grown rapidly since 2000, and now the total annual global production of bioethanol has exceeded 2000 million tons.

The United States is the world's largest producer of bioethanol, producing more than 70% of the world's total annual production of bioethanol. There are many reasons why they developed this technology. The direct cause was the second oil crisis in the [-]s. Due to the rising oil prices and dependence on other countries' oil, the United States finally decided to develop new energy sources, optimize the original energy structure, and ensure national energy security.

At the same time, there are many reasons such as environmentalism, improving the environment, promoting rural development, improving farmers' income levels, and regulating food supply and demand fluctuations, etc. These reasons together contributed to the rapid development of the bioethanol industry in the United States.

Bioethanol technology is also very beneficial to the agricultural groups headed by the four major grain merchants, because they can take advantage of this opportunity to extend their tentacles into the energy field they have long coveted, and at the same time push up food prices. Originally, the corn they produced can only be used as food and feed, and the growth rate of demand in this market is slow, and it is difficult for them to continue to increase prices.

But when bioethanol production technology is developed, it will be different. The corn they produce has another function—send it to the factory to produce ethanol, and then process it into ethanol gasoline and sell it to ordinary people. Then the price of corn will rise again. You think it is expensive to sell it as food and feed.

As a result, the four major grain merchants once again gained the upper hand in the game with buyers, increasing the production of bioethanol in case of a bumper harvest, and always ensuring a higher profit level; at the same time, they also created a number of large bioethanol producers, and ADM has become the overlord in this field. It consumes tens of millions of tons of corn every year and produces millions of tons of bioethanol for sale.

"The four major grain merchants have mastered the acquisition, storage and sales channels of corn in the United States. The rest of the bioethanol producers have to follow their faces, otherwise they will not be able to buy the raw material corn necessary for production, so it is very easy for them to find a group of experts to speak according to their ideas!" After the end of the science popularization, Li Lei made a judgment.

"Good guy, our country doesn't have enough corn for people to eat. Americans actually use corn to make gasoline. Their agriculture is so developed!" The leaders of China Grain Reserves and COFCO are envious of this. If they know that the United States will consume more than 1 million tons of corn every year to produce gasoline in the future, they will be even more surprised, right?

"Mr. Li, I still don't quite understand. Since corn can be used to produce bioethanol, why can't soybeans be used?" Some people still don't understand.

"Technically speaking, it is feasible to produce bioethanol from soybeans. Fermenting soybeans and then purifying them by distillation can obtain higher-purity ethanol; but commercially, no one will do this because it is not cost-effective!" Li Lei spread his hands.

"The first is yield. Soybean production per mu is considered high if it reaches [-]-[-] jin, while corn can easily exceed [-] jin. There is not much difference between these two crops in producing ethanol. If so, then I will definitely choose to use corn to produce ethanol instead of soybeans. Secondly, soybeans have more uses than corn and are more expensive. Using soybeans to produce ethanol is far less profitable than using them to extract oil and produce soybean meal!"

"So, the U.S. is bluffing again this time, and wants to keep raising the price of soybean futures!" Now everyone understands that it is more convincing that it is not cost-effective commercially than that it cannot be realized technically. Technically, Americans are more advanced than us. It is not surprising that we can do things that we cannot do, but if it is not commercially profitable, Americans will definitely not do this business.

"Yes, I just want us to believe that soybeans in the United States have new uses. After harvesting, there will definitely be fewer soybeans put into the market than last year, or even much less! Anyone who wants soybeans should buy them at a high price, or wait a while later, and they may not be able to buy them with money!" It is still the same as before, using fake news to create shortage expectations.

"Although it's fake news, it's not so easy to convince everyone. It's not like last time. Last time, we used a satellite scan to let people go to the United States to see what the soybeans in the field are like. But now, even if we say this business is not worthwhile, they can make up a set of algorithms to say that this business is promising, and the profit is higher than using corn to make soybeans." COFCO's Mr. Gao showed embarrassment.

"Yes, they can still start work everywhere, pretending to build factories. No, it doesn't matter if they actually build factories, because the bioethanol market in the United States will definitely grow bigger and bigger in the future. Building a factory now is also a good investment, but it is called a soybean ethanol factory. In fact, it is a corn ethanol factory. Ordinary people have no way to verify it. They can only see factories being built everywhere, and they take it for granted that the supply of soybeans will definitely decrease!" Li Lei added.

Then he came up with his own solution, "Since they have released good news, let's release bad news for hedging!"

"Oh? What bad news?" Everyone immediately became interested. In this war, they are now the only ones who follow Li Lei's lead. There is no way. Who will make Li Lei the most prepared and have the most funds and soybeans?He also knows the methods of the four major grain merchants the most. So far, every move made by the four major grain merchants has been within his expectations, and there has never been a single omission.

Li Lei distributed a piece of information to everyone, "Our Huinong actually started breeding, R&D and planting of saline-alkaline soybeans very early. We have made some good progress and obtained national permission. We have also tried large-scale planting for a while. So far, we have planted on more than 300 million mu of saline-alkali land, and the average yield per mu can reach 163 kilograms. Next year, the planting area is expected to hit 800 million mu."

"163 kilograms per mu, so 300 million mu is close to 50 tons? It will soon reach 5.00% of last year's total imports! But...how come I haven't seen such a breakthrough research and development achievement and such a large planting area in the news?" Mr. Gao looked at the data and calculated, and the result surprised him.

"This is all to catch the four major grain merchants by surprise! If we let them know in advance, they will definitely add this variable into the plan when making the plan, so they can't be caught by surprise! So I asked the research team to bear with it and not rush to publish papers. The harvested soybeans are either sent directly to our own feed mills and oil mills in Huinong for processing, or stored first, and have never been sold on the market, so everyone does not know yet!" Li Lei explained. It's beautiful.

"Okay, this is definitely good news! They invited experts to give us a platform, and we can hold a press conference to tell the good news to the people of the whole country! Now is the season for soybeans to mature. We will find a saline-alkaline soybean field with the best growth, call the reporter over, and hold a press conference in the field! Isn't this better than the nonsense of Jeff Cooper?" The leader of China Grain Reserve excitedly slapped the table. This news will definitely drive down the price of soybeans.

"Can we even place some satellites! Harvest on site, weigh on site, take the yield per mu of this land as the average yield per mu of all saline-alkali lands, and then add one in front of the planting area of ​​300 million mu to change it to 300 million mu! We calculate based on 300 kilograms per mu, and 260 million mu is [-] million tons. With so much supply at once, it's no wonder the price doesn't go down!" Mr. Gao is very familiar with the matter of releasing satellites.

"Mr. Gao is clever!" The leader of China Grain Storage gave a thumbs up, "We can not only increase the planting area this year, but also expand the planting area next year. This year, we planted 300 million mu, and next year's impact on 4000 million mu is not too much, right? Our country has more than one billion mu of saline-alkali land, of which there are more than 2 million mu with great potential for development. It is definitely not enough to set aside one-fifth to plant soybeans!"

"Let them publish papers that have been suppressed for several years, and find the best journals in China; by the way, I will help them apply for the National Science and Technology Progress Award!" Li Lei added, this is the honor that He Weimin and others deserve, and now it is time to make it up for them.

"Such an achievement is definitely worthy of the first prize of a country's scientific and technological progress. Lao Wang, our two families will also help push it together to try to win this honor! As for the paper, it is even easier. Find someone to jump in the queue for him and try to publish it in the next issue!" Mr. Gao said decisively, no matter whether the achievement is true or not, as long as it can fool the four major grain merchants, it is worth it.

"Then I will thank the bosses on their behalf!" Li Lei is also happy to see the results, because one National Science and Technology Progress Award or two National Science and Technology Progress Awards is a hard threshold for the selection of academicians. If Lin Weimin can get this honor, if he pushes hard after a few years, he may be promoted to the Academy of Engineering. This is definitely a great thing for Huinong.

"Then let's start preparing according to this plan. I'll contact the Docking Station and try to get a half-minute shot for the whole news. Lao Wang, you are familiar with several newspapers and ask them to arrange reporters. It's best to leave some space on the front page." Everyone discussed the details enthusiastically.