1855 United States Tycoon

Chapter 360: Morgan’s Big Laboratory

“Edison’s departure caused many researchers to worry about it. Now in the big laboratory, there is already a bit of a wave of popularity.” Dorothea said to Scrooge.

“How did the most important people react?” Scrooge asked.

The really important people mentioned by Scrooge refer to those important researchers who are conducting researches that have long-term significance in Scrooge’s view, including some researchers in the chemical industry, agriculture, and power industries. . In terms of their research, many times, Scrooge only knows roughly what kind of profitable products will be made later, but he knows much more about the development process and the related technology details. He simply didn’t understand a lot of content. This is not like a household appliance or something like that, he would have been exposed to it anytime and anywhere in his previous life.

Moreover, these studies take longer. Many of them, although there are no final results, have been achieved so far, although patents cannot be applied for, but they are already valuable and require high confidentiality. . Therefore, the mental state of the researchers who participated in these projects was particularly concerned by Scrooge.

“Don’t worry! We have done all of these key protection objects, and their emotions are quite stable.” Dorothea replied.

Dorothea sat down next to Scrooge and said, “They are actually much easier to dismiss than Edison. Because they are not clear about the importance of owning. In fact, except for a few people in the family, no one They think their projects are extremely important. Even they don’t know about them. They are still worried, if we are tight on funds, will they cut off their projects the first time.”

“A person’s talent is like a numerator, and his judgment of own is like a denominator. The smaller the denominator, the larger the score. Of course, this score refers to the value of the score for us.” Scrooge said. “It would be great if every researcher didn’t care how much money he took like Mr. Maxwell did!”

“I suddenly found that it is appropriate to describe you in a sentence you have said before.” Dorothea said suddenly.

“What are you talking about?”

“I want the horse to run, and I want the horse not to eat grass.” Dorothea replied with a smile.

…

It is not an easy task to arrange Edison. Edison brought a huge team. He almost brought out most of the researchers in the electrical research department. The corresponding nature requires a sufficiently high-end atmosphere. Class laboratory. Otherwise, Edison would not leave the Macdonald Consortium. Even in order to be able to overwhelm the Macdonald Consortium, this laboratory must not be inferior to the McDonald Consortium’s laboratory, at least not much worse than the Electrical Research Laboratory of the University of Cleveland Large Laboratory under the control of the MacDonald Consortium. .

However, it is not easy to do this. Because large laboratories have been in development for many years, even if they are just electrical laboratories, they are not comparable to ordinary laboratories. The Macdonald Consortium has invested more than 10 million yuan in fixed assets in large laboratories. Of course, these funds have been allocated to various classification laboratories, and the electrical laboratories are only part of them. But as one of the most important laboratories, the Macdonald Consortium has invested no less than US$4 million in this sub-laboratory. It is not easy to build a laboratory comparable to the electrical laboratory of the McDonald Consortium. It is not an easy task for even a financial crocodile such as the Morgan Consortium to take out more than four million funds at a time. Although Morgan has also made a lot of efforts, he eventually invested only one million US dollars for the first time, which was used to purchase land, build laboratory buildings and various instruments and equipment. As the first investment, the investment intensity is no less than that of Scrooge’s initial investment in the large laboratory as a whole. And Morgan also said that this is only the first phase of investment, if the laboratory can continue to obtain valuable results, then he will continue to add funds. Of course, this is only half a sentence, and Edison is also very clear about the remaining half sentence, that is, if the laboratory can’t produce valuable results that satisfy him, then don’t think about subsequent investment or anything.

Therefore, the overall scale of the laboratory that Morgan prepared for Edison’s team is much smaller than the large laboratory of the University of Cleveland of the Macdonald Consortium where they worked before. But because it is a new construction, plus, the experimental direction is strictly limited to the application, and any basic research content is excluded, and even the mid-to-long-term practical research that requires long-term investment research has been put aside, so On the premise of a much smaller scale, most of its equipment is newer and more advanced than the equipment in McDonald’s large laboratory.

This laboratory is located near the famous New York Central Park. Central Park is now one of the most important sights in New York, but at that time, when this huge park was just completed, it was almost abandoned due to government budget problems and changes in government parties. The Central Park Committee was disbanded, and almost all the gardening teams were disbanded. Today’s Central Park has become a shelter for all kinds of wild animals and homeless people.

After many years, it will be very, very difficult to occupy the land in Central Park. But in this era, when New York City increasingly regards Central Park as a big burden, it is really not difficult. Morgan only took out tens of thousands of dollars and obtained the right to use a large piece of land for a 40-year period, so this laboratory was built here.

In this laboratory, at present, the most important research project is “nickel-iron alkaline battery”. This plan is a research plan proposed by Edison to Scrooge recently, two days before Scrooge’s attack. At that time, Scrooge had just issued a plan for the development of batteries to the large laboratory, and planned to use the development of batteries for car lights, engine starting, and electric bicycles. Scrooge believes that this kind of gadget that will be popular in later generations of China, because of its lower cost, should also have a market in the United States cities of this era.

However, before Scrooge had time to review Edison’s plan, he was “stuck in a coma.” So naturally there was no time to give Edison a reply. So, at this time, Edison directly informed Morgan of the project and told him that the project should have a very good financial outlook. Because this was the task given by Scrooge.

Morgan was not good at scientific research, so it was naturally impossible for him, like Scrooge, to directly reject Edison’s plan to develop a “nickel-iron alkaline battery” and tell him that honestly improving lead-acid batteries is enough. Because the history of the following hundred years has proved that the “nickel-iron alkaline storage battery” has no prospects for development in a considerable period of time. Although it can be continuously charged and stored for about 20 years, it can still work; (by contrast, at that time, lead-acid batteries would be scrapped after two years) although it can withstand a certain degree of use accidents (including overcharging, Excessive discharge, short circuit, overheating), and can still maintain a long life after suffering the above-mentioned damage; but some terrible shortcomings make it have no extensive market “money scene” at all.

The cost of this kind of battery is too high, coupled with its poor power storage capacity (small power stored in the same volume and weight) low temperature performance, (under low temperature conditions, no electricity can be discharged. In fact, almost all batteries have similar problems. Everyone who has ridden an electric car knows that in winter, the power performance of the electric car’s trip will be significantly reduced. However, the problem of nickel-iron alkaline batteries in this aspect is more serious) In addition, the charging is slow and the discharging is slower. When charging, it can only be charged slowly with a long flow of water. It is too inconvenient to charge for a whole day. What’s more terrible is that the discharge is slower, and it is not bad for lighting of electric lights. It is used for starting the engine? This kind of battery discharge power is very low, you need a lot of battery packs, and this kind of battery is also very expensive. As for the use of electric bicycles, are you really sure to use this product? Are you really planning to ride an electric bike like this? Are you not afraid that as long as you encounter a small slope on the road, you have to become it and ride you?

Therefore, if Scrooge is replaced, Edison’s plan will definitely be rejected directly, and he will be required to focus on the improvement of lead-acid batteries. Because the history of later generations has proved that lead-acid batteries are the kingly way for at least one hundred years.

However, Morgan doesn’t know this, and the performance of the original lead-acid battery in this era has not been fully developed. No one knows how much space it has for development, except for Scrooge. So in the original history, after Edison invented the nickel-iron alkaline battery, he really made a lot of money by relying on it, until later, the efficiency ascending lead-acid battery was re-ejected from most of the market. .

After studying the market, Morgan also determined that this invention should make a lot of money. So more than two months later, before the Central Park Laboratory could be fully completed, Edison’s research plan began to be fully developed.

…

“Morgan has started to build laboratories.” Scrooge proudly threw aside the information in his hand and said to Carol and Dorothea.

“How much did you invest?” Carol asked quickly.

“According to the newspaper, it is about 1.2 million U.S. dollars. Morgan Bank and several other banks have invested a total of one million. In addition, Mr. Edison himself also put out all his savings as investment, and there are about Three hundred thousand dollars,” Dorothea replied.

“Our intelligence agency also confirmed this.” Scrooge added. Although intelligence agencies and violent agencies are not the most profitable agencies of the Macdonald Consortium, they are the only branches in this big event where anyone knows the truth, and they are also the agencies that Scrooge believes must be caught in his own hands.

“Too little,” Carroll said. “Even if all the money is lost, it won’t be a real blow to Morgan’s system.”

“Don’t worry, Carol,” Scrooge said. “There will be more and more.”