Chapter 253 Power Duo

"Give me back the air..."

"Give me back the air!"

"Give me back the source of water..."

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"Give me back the water!"

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At the gate of a large power plant in Detroit, a group of environmentalists are gathering here to protest. Although there were not many people participating in this protest, only a few thousand people, they blocked the entrance and exit of the power plant. On the road outside the power plant leading to the outside world, one car after another transporting coal was blocked on the road. From time to time, the drivers looked at the protesting crowd in front of them, praying that the group would get out of the way sooner and let them deliver the coal to the power plant.

As the most developed capitalist country in the world, electricity is the lifeline of American industry. However, because the American power system has been used to using coal as the main energy source for many years, the cost of using coal to generate electricity in the United States is much higher than that of natural gas. cost of electricity generation. For power plants in the United States, coal is still the most important fuel for power plants. Although the profits of power plants are generally very high, and the cost of natural gas is lower, but if the coal-fired generating set is to be transformed into a natural gas-driven generating set, it will cost a lot of transformation costs. Not only that, but the loss caused by the shutdown of the power plant during the transformation period is not a small expense. Therefore, most power plants do not have plans to use natural gas.

Seryozha now has a large amount of natural gas resources in his hands. For the Gorky Group, the more industrially developed regions such as the United States and Western Europe use natural gas as their main energy source, the more profits the Gorky Group will make. But how can these power plants spontaneously invest large sums of money to convert coal-fired units into natural gas units? From the perspective of the power plant, they certainly will not have this kind of power. That's why Seryozha funded those environmental protection groups to go to the gate of the power plant to protest and demonstrate.

Since the late 1980s, environmentalism has gradually begun to rise in developed Western Europe and North America, and has gradually become a force that can influence politics and votes. Especially in 1985, after the British Antarctic scientific expedition team observed and discovered the hole in the ozone layer at 60 degrees south latitude, it attracted the attention of the whole world. It also makes people pay attention to the air pollution.

Seryozha is not an environmentalist. Manipulating those environmental groups to seek benefits for himself is the ultimate goal of Seryozha. There is only one thing in the United States that allows politicians to be led by the nose, and that is votes. Since Seryozha has focused on the huge power market in the United States, on the one hand, Seryozha has continuously acquired natural gas fields in Texas and built large-scale natural gas pipelines; Groups, especially environmental groups concerned with air pollution, provide large sums of money.

Under Karim's arrangements, dozens of environmental protection groups began to pay attention to the pollution of American power plants. In particular, thermal power plants, which are now the main force, have become the prey of environmental protection groups.

The pollutants caused by thermal power plants are mainly exhaust gas, waste water, and waste residue. These three pollutants are not available in natural gas power generation. From the perspective of environmental protection, natural gas power generation has inherent advantages.

With Karim's help, the major media in the United States suddenly began to pay attention to the three wastes pollution of power plants. It is not difficult at all to keep an eye on a certain social hotspot.

It is under this subtle arrangement that the American media began to subtly convey a message to the audience in front of the TV, that is, thermal power generation is endangering our health and destroying our environment. Those shots of billowing black smoke from the tall chimneys are simply chilling, although most of those shots were taken in the 1950s and 1960s.

Because of the media's involvement, environmental groups' outrage against coal-fired power plants has sparked a huge response. In areas such as Detroit, where the U.S. auto industry is most developed, angry environmentalists began to gather in front of those large power plants.

They used their bodies to block the road in front of the power plant and block the transportation of coal vehicles. The normal work of many coal-fired power plants has been disrupted.

The national power grid is mainly composed of three parts: the Eastern United States Power System, the Western United States Power System, and the Texas Power System. These three power systems are independent of each other and do not interfere with each other. Under these three power systems, more than 180 power generation companies provide on-grid power. That is to say, although the power grid system has been integrated, the power generation companies are still in disarray. If Seryozha plans to take action, none of the more than 180 power generation companies is an opponent of Seryozha.

In order to avoid suspicion from the U.S. Department of Energy due to excessive monopoly, Seriosha arranged for two of his companies to participate in the acquisition of the power grid. One is that it has been deeply involved in the field of natural gas power generation for many years and already has its own natural gas. Gas Group for mines and pipelines, and British Electricity, which Serezha had bought years ago.

In order to obtain cost advantages and avoid the huge cost of transporting natural gas from Leningrad to the United States for thousands of miles, Serezha used his Occidental Petroleum Company to reach an agreement with BP, the world's largest oil company. The gas-for-gas exchange agreement, that is, to exchange the natural gas share obtained by Western Petroleum Corporation from the Soviet Union for the natural gas share of British Petroleum Corporation in North America. Natural gas reserves on the market.

Sergey, who had everything ready, quickly launched a buying frenzy in the U.S. power market. For those coal-fired power plants that were willing to sell, Sergey could satisfy the seller’s bid regardless of the cost. Then Enron Group’s natural gas pipeline It will be directly connected to this power plant, and for those power plants that are unwilling to sell, it is natural that environmental protection groups will come forward to disrupt their normal power generation activities. The British Electric Power Company went all the way west along the east coast of the United States, wantonly dumping American power production companies.

Due to the extremely low electricity prices of Enron Group, many large American manufacturing companies, such as Ford Motor, General Motors, and Chrysler Motors, have begun to sign power cooperation agreements with Enron Group and British Electric Power Company. The situation of double power companies is taking shape. ...