"Speaking of the mining area, sir, I have something I must report to you. www.qb5.com"
"What is it?" Charles leisurely rode his horse forward.
"You once requested an exploration of the potential mineral deposits within our one hundred thousand acres of land. After two months of surveying, the shallow-layer deposits have been mostly identified. For other deep-layer minerals, with current technology, we cannot yet draw effective conclusions."
"There's no need to rush with deep-layer minerals. In fact, even if they were discovered, the cost of development with current technology would be too high," Charles said nonchalantly. "The key is the shallow-layer minerals. How are they? Besides coal, are there any other minerals?"
"It's very regrettable, the main shallow-layer mineral is still coal. Only at the junction with others' land is there a iron ore deposit of little development value. There are some other minerals, but they are generally low-grade, small deposits, and their utilization value is limited," Jonathan reported with regret.
It was also because there were no rich mineral resources. If there had been a gold or silver mine, he would have reported it to Charles as soon as they met. As for coal mines, reports of large coal seams being discovered throughout Pittsburgh were already no longer big news.
"Haha! Since the main resource is coal, then my future steel smelting center should be located where coal and water transport are most convenient. Let's go, Jonathan, we'll continue to look for suitable land to establish a smelting workshop," Charles said with a helpless smile.
This was also within his expectations. Pittsburgh's most famous mineral has always been coal, and there are very few associated minerals with coal, so he had long anticipated that there could be no other high-value mineral deposits.
Charles's "territory" had a very good geographical location, adjacent to a river. The upstream of this river was near the Great Lakes region, and the downstream flowed into the Ohio River. Charles quickly chose a spot near the upstream section, not far from the original fishing port. It was about the same distance to the Great Lakes and the future Pennsylvania Canal, and there was also a large coal seam nearby.
At that time, iron ore could be transported from the Great Lakes, and coal could be directly dug from the nearby mine. Once the steel was refined, it could be directly shipped east by water. This was a very suitable location, and he planned to establish his future massive steel mill and industrial city here.
Next to the coal mine, a separate coking plant would be directly established. This coking plant would no longer be the kind of iron barrel coking used in the original iron smelting workshop. This time, the plan was not only to coke but also to try to collect the main by-products of coking, coal tar and coal gas. One was to reduce environmental pollution, and the other was for these two very important chemical substances.
Coal gas, needless to say, could be directly connected by pipes and used for burning. Charles didn't know much about coal tar, but he knew it was the main raw material for coal chemical industry. So he planned to collect these materials, take a portion to Kiel Laboratory in Philadelphia for analysis and research, and then develop and utilize them.
In fact, high-temperature coal tar is a black viscous liquid containing a large amount of asphalt, with other components being aromatic hydrocarbons and heterocyclic organic compounds. More than four hundred compounds have been identified. Industrially, centralized processing of coal tar is beneficial for separating and extracting compounds with very low content. The processing process first involves distillation and fractionation into various fractions based on boiling point range, and then further processing.
The processing of each fraction can yield products such as naphthalene and anthracene by crystallization; acidic phenolic compounds (called tar acids) or nitrogen-containing basic heterocyclic compounds (called tar bases) can be obtained by acid or alkali extraction. Tar acids and tar bases can then be further distilled and separated to obtain phenol, cresol, xylenol, and pyridine, methylpyridine, quinoline, respectively. These compounds are important raw materials for dyes, medicine, perfumes, and pesticides.
The distillate oils obtained from coal tar distillation can also be used directly without separation, such as asphaltenes which can be used to produce various important products such as electrode coke and carbon fiber; phenol oil can be used for wood preservation; wash oil is used as an absorbent for recovering crude benzene from coal gas; and light oil is combined with crude benzene for processing.
Low-temperature coal tar is also a black viscous liquid, differing from high-temperature coal tar in that its relative density is usually smaller, its aromatic hydrocarbon content is low, and its alkane content is high, with its composition related to the quality of the raw coal. Low-temperature dry distillation tar is one of the important sources of synthetic petroleum, yielding products such as gasoline and diesel after high-pressure hydrogenation.
After selecting the location, he immediately had the architectural designers and workers from the Pittsburgh iron smelting workshop research and design the buildings for both the ironworks and the coking plant.
Before designing, he specifically told the designers to leave room for future upgrades for things like steam engines. At the same time, he sent Jonathan to hire a group of vagrants from Pittsburgh to start construction of the factory buildings here.
These factory buildings would not only include the ironworks and coking plant but also machine factories for manufacturing steel products and steam engines, and even a shipyard capable of building inland steamships. He also told Greenspan to prepare for relocation; once the main buildings here were completed, the ironworks would immediately move here.
At this time, steel mill construction was relatively simple. Difficult items like boilers, molds, and crushing equipment were basically designed and built by the senior workers in those steel mills. The architect would only build the external housing and the tall chimney, and cooperate with the steelmaking requirements in the main factory building.
The biggest difference of the new factory building was its greatly increased scale and output. Charles roughly estimated that the new steel mill could simultaneously use ten steelmaking crucibles, with an output five times that of the original workshop. This increase in output was not only reflected in the quantity of steel but also expanded the range of items that could be manufactured.
Previously, due to the limited number of crucibles, the amount of molten iron produced at one time was limited, and a single casting could only produce small items. It was even difficult for Charles to cast a train rail.
Now that the output had increased fivefold, the number of items that could be cast naturally increased significantly. Not to mention rails, even things like fortress cannons and heavy artillery could now be cast and produced, as long as there were molds and blueprints.
He had initially worried that such a factory would be too expensive and might affect the construction of his "White House." However, when he asked the architectural designer, he was told that several factory buildings, plus newer equipment for smelting pig iron, hydraulic blowing, forging, and crushing, would not cost more than three thousand pounds, and construction time would not exceed two months. This, of course, was due to the fact that most materials and labor were self-supplied, but the small scale of the factory buildings was the main reason.
However, even with such a small ironworks, Charles was confident that its smelting technology had already reached the "international advanced level" of the time, on par with the most advanced ironworks in Europe. Once the first phase of the new factory's construction was completed, he would have the construction workers continue building. The second, third, and even Nth phases of the ironworks would all be lined up one by one.
The demand for steel at this time was endless. He still remembered when Pittsburgh was called the Steel City, they would produce rails on one side and have trains carry them forward to lay them, eventually connecting the entire America. The biggest steel business in the nineteenth century was selling rails. It had low technical requirements and very good profits, making it an absolutely worthwhile business.
As for the coking plant and machinery factory, they would certainly be at the "world's leading advanced level," and steamships and possible steam locomotives would be even more ahead of their time.
After planning all these matters, Charles realized that his funds were almost fully allocated.
The "White House" that was soon to be built was undoubtedly a bottomless pit. After the house was built, he would still need to buy high-end household items and artworks, which would continuously demand money, requiring tens of thousands of pounds.
After deducting those tens of thousands of pounds, most of the remaining money would be spent on the construction of these factory buildings. It was estimated that another sum would be needed when formal production began, so the 50,000 pounds would not leave much surplus. If the money for building the "White House" were spent all at once, it might even affect the bank's capital turnover.
Fortunately, after securing 50,000 pounds in startup capital in Philadelphia, the priority was to establish a bank. Now, the overall industry had formed a virtuous cycle, continuously supplying money to the bank, and the bank itself was constantly generating profits and enriching its capital.
All industries were already on the right track, especially the steel smelting workshop. If it weren't for having to allocate a portion of steel and iron to Bergnan for manufacturing guns and cannons every day, the pure daily income alone would not be less than dozens of pounds.
However, selling guns and cannons to the militia also made money; it was just that due to the performance issues of the current guns and cannons, they could only earn the cost of production, without generating additional value-added benefits. Steel and weapons were indeed the least likely things to be lacking in Pittsburgh and America at this time.
In the short term, the construction of the Pennsylvania Canal and the development of Pittsburgh would definitely require a large amount of steel. In the long term, with the opening of the canal, the developed commercial areas in the East would certainly need Pittsburgh's relatively cheap steel.
The ongoing war of Independence also required new and powerful weapons; with the use of steam locomotives, steel rails would be continuously laid in the future; even if the war of Independence was victorious in the future, with the expansion of the Westward Movement, and even the future Second American-British war, etc., a large amount of steel and weapons would be needed.
Therefore, developing steel and weapon manufacturing was absolutely correct. In fact, from ancient times to the present, steel and weapons have always been the most marketable commodities; the key is whether one can master and utilize them.
In addition, income from grain trading, those trashy fabrics from steam-powered textile mills, and shipbuilding also constituted a considerable sum, roughly amounting to tens of thousands of pounds in annual revenue. As long as he didn't undertake luxurious projects like building castles, the annual income, after covering various expenses, would still leave a substantial surplus.
Charles did not stay long at Scarlet Manor. The leisurely life at the manor made him somewhat reluctant to go to Philadelphia, but he knew that the Continental Congress was about to draft the Declaration of Independence, which was very relevant to his future.
So, although he was a little unwilling, after resting for a few days at Scarlet Manor, he resolutely embarked on the road back to the city.