Chapter 90 Precious Metal Aluminum

"Besides that, Costebru, there is another job that may be assigned to you. Greece needs copper ore, and there should be a lot of copper ore in Congo," Constantine said to Costebru.

With the development of the power industry, the best means of transmitting electricity is copper wire, and arms also need copper, such as bullets and shells.

Greece needs more and more copper, but Greece itself does not have rich copper mines, so Constantine can only resort to Congo.

"Speaking of copper mines, Congo's copper mines are indeed rich, and a large amount of copper-cobalt ore has been discovered. Recently, explorers have discovered a copper belt that is hundreds of kilometers long and 60 kilometers wide in central Africa, mainly in Zambia and Katanga Province in Congo. It is more than enough to supply Greece, but" Costebru said here, a little embarrassed.

"Is it a transportation problem?" Constantine asked.

There are world-class copper mines in Africa, but Africa's transportation facilities are backward. Such a large amount of industrial raw materials, without supporting basic transportation, even if they are discovered, transportation is a problem.

"Katanga Province is located in central Africa. If you want to transport the copper ore here, you must build a railway. After that, you have to pass through a navigable river to Kinshasa. Through the Matadi-Kinshasa Railway, you can transport it out of Congo," said Costebru.

"Since such a copper belt has been discovered, the people of the Congo Railway Company should be ecstatic to build a railway. After all, these ores will be transported by their railways in the future. What's the problem with you?" Constantine asked curiously.

Katanga Province is almost in the center of southern Africa. Such a geographical location cannot be developed without building a railway.

"You also know that the situation in Congo, the news of the discovery of a large copper belt cannot be concealed at all. The British have set their sights on the copper ore there."

Constantine suddenly realized that this was the case. Zambia, which was controlled by the UK, was close to Katanga Province in Congo. Since a copper belt of hundreds of kilometers was discovered in Congo-Zambia, the British could not intervene.

There is no way to deal with this. After all, Congo was obtained through compromise by major powers. The big brother has spoken, and the little brother Greece has no ability to resist. Constantine does not bother about this.

"Then your Greek Congo Corporation should discuss with the British to establish a British-Greek joint venture to mine copper in the Katanga region of Congo."

"In any case, the equity cannot be less than half," Constantine said.

In fact, the area and reserves of this copper belt in Zambia are far greater than those in Congo, but since the British are interested, Constantine does not want to make trouble with the British just for the copper mine.

"Skarloy, the machinery factory under your steel plant is not only used to produce bicycles," Constantine turned and said to Skarloy beside him.

"After your reminder last time, I carefully considered that building a factory to produce guns and artillery for Greece alone would definitely lose money."

"But you also know that Greece only needs this machinery factory to produce guns at a specific time. If you can't get an order for arms, you can produce bicycles, of course, or other goods."

After that, he looked at Skarloy and waited for his reply.

This is also Constantine's inspiration for many factories that originally produced civilian goods. When the war comes, they can also be used to produce arms after modifying the production line.

After hearing Constantine's words, Skarloy was stunned, and then said: "It's not impossible, but it requires workers to master more skills, and because it is a machine prepared for different industrial products, when producing a certain industrial product, some of the machines will be idle, affecting efficiency."

"And such a factory, when a war breaks out, it takes a long time to switch to the production of guns and artillery," Skarloy said in advance.

Constantine was relieved to hear Skarloy's answer. For Greece now, as long as it can build a factory to produce arms, there is no room for nitpicking.

Seeing Skarloy holding a wine glass in his hand and thinking, he seemed to be hesitant to speak, Constantine thought that Skarloy might find it difficult to do so.

"If you feel embarrassed, it's okay for the machinery factory to specialize in bicycles," Constantine said hurriedly.

This is a steel plant management expert who was invited with great difficulty.

"It's not about the machinery factory," Skarloy tried to figure out how to express it to Constantine.

"Your Highness, Greece has a lot of bauxite mines, you know?" Skarloy asked.

To be honest, if there is any resource in Greece that can be said to be rich, it is bauxite. This kind of mineral has a reserve of billions of tons in Greece, which is the only resource that Greece can show off.

"That's right."

"Your Excellency, the Duke, as you know, aluminum is mainly smelted by electrolysis. Greece has recently built a large AC power station. I recently visited this power station. Congratulations, Your Highness."

At this point, Skarloy turned to Tesla: "And your erudition, Mr. Tesla."

"This is the world's first AC power station. It has been proven that AC is indeed more suitable for industrial production than DC, and its long-distance transmission efficiency completely surpasses DC."

"Almost half of the cost of electrolytic aluminum is in electricity, Your Highness, Mr. Tesla."

"What does this mean?" Skarloy kept it a secret and asked Constantine and Tesla.

Tesla looked at Skarloy blankly, not knowing what he meant.

Constantine was also confused and couldn't guess what Skarloy meant. What is the relationship between the cost of electrolytic aluminum and AC power station?

Seeing that the two of them were at a loss, Skarloy reminded them: "Your Highness, electrolytic aluminum is still a relatively expensive metal."

When Skarloy said this, Constantine finally realized what he meant.

Although in the 21st century, aluminum has become a metal used by humans on a large scale and can be seen everywhere in life, it seems to have nothing to do with expensiveness.

However, aluminum was indeed an expensive metal in the 19th century.

As the saying goes, things are precious because they are rare. People's assessment of the value of a metal depends largely on how easy it is to obtain.

Although aluminum is the only element in the earth's crust after oxygen and silicon, single aluminum does not exist in nature.

Since aluminum requires electricity, in an era when electricity was not easily available, humans had to pay a high price to obtain aluminum.

For example, once, Napoleon III held a dinner party. Except for himself, who used aluminum tableware, everyone else used gold and silver tableware to highlight his nobility.

At this time, aluminum was more valuable than gold and silver.