African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1040 Pumping Station Revolution
Province of Bohemia.

Kosa town, Kapolan city.

Kosa is a town in the western part of the Bohemia Province. The climate is relatively dry and the vegetation is mainly typical grassland and sand. Although the precipitation is relatively low, the agricultural development is very good.

Over the past two decades, the town of Kosa and surrounding towns have built a large number of water conservancy facilities in the area to divert water from the Zambezi River to irrigate the land. More than 20 years ago, this place was still a paradise for wildlife, and its natural landscape was no different from many areas in Africa.

Under the transformation of East Africa, large and small canals are neatly planned throughout the city of Kaporan, like a finely woven spider web, covering the land, and the water from the Zambezi River and its tributaries is introduced into the fields through these ditches, just like blood flowing in the blood vessels.

At this time, the Kosa Town Government was receiving the city government personnel responsible for the random inspection, and the mayor Tal led the staff of the Water Conservancy Bureau to the fifth branch canal for inspection.

Tal: "In order to successfully bring river water into the fields, we have built seven new pumping stations at the Fifth Branch Canal and other water sources to continuously pump river water out through water pumps. In the past, many of these pumping stations used steam engines as their main power source. Now, according to documents from the municipal government, we are connecting these pumping stations to power lines and energy supply methods."

The staff of the Water Conservancy Bureau looked at the small house standing beside the branch canal and said, "Mayor Tal, do you mind if we go in and take a look?"

Tal: "Of course there is no problem. When we built these pumping stations, we did it under the guidance of professionals, in full compliance with construction standards, and carried out regular maintenance work."

Then, under Tal's instructions, the town government staff took the key to the pump station and opened the door.

The pumping station is built in a small house. These houses are all brick and stone structures and look relatively sturdy. They stand on the edge of the fifth branch canal. A relatively thick metal pipe extends from the bottom of the pumping station to the bottom of the fifth branch canal.

There are wooden electric poles beside the canal. These poles were obviously built not long ago and are numbered. A small hole extends from the poles into the wall of the pumping station.

The door of the pumping station is made of wood and does not look very sturdy. However, apart from the water pumps, there is nothing valuable inside. Moreover, this kind of large water pump is not easy to move and is fixed on a concrete base.

After entering the pumping station, investigators from the Water Conservancy Bureau observed the internal structure of the entire pumping station and the appearance of the water pumps.

It can be seen that this pump station did not cut corners. The brick and stone walls are flat and orderly, and the cement on the ground is also in accordance with construction standards. If corners were cut, it would be obvious at a glance.

The water pump body is also very clean and tidy. Although there is some dust on the top, this is unavoidable. After all, it is impossible to clean it every few days.

The pump body is painted with conspicuous red paint. Judging from the paint spots that have fallen on the ground, it can be inferred that the town of Kosa must have painted the water pump again after the installation was completed.

The water pump was painted when it left the factory, but it was inevitably bumped during installation, or the people in Kosa Town were worried that the original paint would fall off, so they painted an extra layer.

"Mayor Tal, your Kosha Town has done a great job. Next we want to test their normal operations."

Tal naturally had no objection. He came to an electric switch embedded in the wall and pushed it up. Soon the motor made a loud noise, and then the fifth branch channel under the pumping station began to gurgle.

Because it is not time to release water yet, there is not much water in the fifth branch canal, but there is definitely no problem using it to test the working effect of the pumping station.

As the pump works, a steady stream of river water is pumped from the bottom through pipes into the pump house, and then flows through the outlet into the small canal outside the pump house that leads to the fields. The clear river water spreads along the canal to the surrounding fields. Of course, there are small gates between the fields and the canal. Only when these small gates are opened can the water flow into the corresponding fields.

"The effect is good. This new type of pumping station is mainly driven by electricity. As long as the power supply is stable, it is basically impossible to make big mistakes. The advantage is that it does not require fuel such as coal or diesel, and the pollution is relatively small."

Agricultural water diversion in East Africa has mainly gone through three periods: windmills, steam pumps and internal combustion engine pumps. This time, the Water Conservancy Bureau inspected the latest electric pumps.

Electric pumps have been around in East Africa for quite some time, but replacing traditional water pumps on a large scale will not happen overnight. However, this does not mean that electric pumps have no disadvantages.

The most important issue is the power supply. The power supply in East Africa is still relatively tight. If there is a power outage when the crops are short of water, it will be quite troublesome. Of course, the probability of such an incident happening is very small, but we must still prevent it.

So currently in East Africa, there are four forms of agricultural water diversion coexisting: windmills, steam pumps, internal combustion engine pumps and electric pumps.

The advantages of windmills are that they are environmentally friendly and their main power comes from wind energy, so they have almost no cost. However, no one can guarantee the size and time of the wind, so it is not stable.

At present, with the promotion of new water diversion technology, many windmills in East Africa have become "ruins" and no longer occupy a mainstream position. However, they can play a huge role when necessary, such as when there is a shortage of coal, oil and electricity at the same time.

Steam engine pumps are a huge improvement over windmills, but their efficiency is still relatively slow, and the coal combustion efficiency is not high, so there is a lot of smoke. In this case, many steam engine pump rooms in East Africa have to be built with chimneys, and the combustion of boilers will produce a lot of coal slag, which needs to be cleaned in time, which makes most of the steam engine pump rooms in East Africa look "dusty".

Internal combustion engine pumps are much better, with high efficiency, relatively less smoke, and no large amounts of coal slag. However, oil resources are not as easy to obtain as coal, and the cost is higher than coal.

Electric pumps have even more advantages. The only headache is the power supply. In East Africa in the 20th century, the power supply was relatively tight.

Not to mention remote towns like Kosa, even developed cities in East Africa such as Dar es Salaam may face power shortages at any time.

Of course, for the East African governments, the problem of power supply is not unsolvable. After all, new power plants are being built in East Africa every year, and with the advancement of technology, the loss of electricity in long-distance transportation is getting smaller and smaller. The construction of power infrastructure in East Africa has improved a lot compared to before the First Five-Year Plan. As time goes by, power shortages will only become less and less common in East Africa.

After all, even in relatively remote places like Kosa Town, there is sufficient electricity to power water pumps, which shows the great progress East Africa has made in promoting electricity.

The small pumping station reflects East Africa's continuous innovation and experimentation with new technologies in the fields of agriculture and water conservancy construction. It can be said to be a pumping station technology revolution.

"Mayor Tal, thank you for your help this time. We will report the construction status of the pump station in Kosa Town to the bureau truthfully. I believe the city will be quite satisfied with this."

Tal sighed and said, "That's good. I just conscientiously completed the task assigned by my superiors."

An investigator from the Water Conservancy Bureau said: "This is already very rare. We have found some serious problems in other towns. Not everyone can honestly complete the tasks assigned by the higher-ups, so this surprise inspection is still necessary."

He then said with emotion: "Now the national agricultural production is like the industrial production. The standards are becoming more and more stringent, which has indeed greatly improved the efficiency of agricultural production. This can be seen from the changes in our water conservancy department over the past decade. In the construction of water conservancy facilities, the standards are getting higher and higher, the implementation is becoming more standardized, and the supervision is becoming more and more strict."

(End of this chapter)