Tech startup: I really do make mobile phones!

Chapter 34 This Matter Has Become a Big Deal

"Look carefully!" Professor Jiang turned around, holding a stack of notes, the edges of which were curled and uneven.

The strokes of the characters on the top are very forceful; you can see the texture of the characters on the opposite side from the back.

Old Lin's head ached just looking at it.

Old Jiang hasn't changed his habits after all these years. Are you trying to plow the land on paper?

"The handwritten copy I made while staying up all night—even lithium iron phosphate batteries back then didn't get this kind of treatment!"

Alright! It matches up!
No wonder Lao Jiang was drinking tea so early in the morning; it turns out he had been staying up all night, "plowing" on paper!

A few days ago, the National Security Bureau conducted a thorough investigation of the photocopiers in these domestic research institutions that regularly sought opportunities to connect to the internet.

If you want to keep it secret, you still have to rely on the most primitive method—handwriting.

Old Lin raised an eyebrow, took the documents, and was about to unfold them when his gaze suddenly fixed on the cover: "Gaseous lithium-ion battery?"

"Old Jiang, are you kidding me?" He tapped the word "gaseous" with his fingertip: "You think I didn't read the solid-state battery review that group of people in North America published in Nature last year?"

Lin could understand solid-state batteries based on lithium ions, but gaseous lithium ions...
You old codger, an academician of both the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, have you been brainwashed by pseudo-scientists?
Old Jiang! Have you lost your mind?!
"You know how temperamental elemental lithium is. It explodes when it comes into contact with air at room temperature. How can it be a well-behaved baby in its ionic gaseous state?"

He glanced through the documents and saw the words "supercritical environment" again.

"Even if you put it in a pressure cooker to boil, the lithium metal polymer should have decomposed into lithium dendrites long ago, so how could it conduct ions at all!"
While quickly flipping through the documents, Lao Lin picked out the unreasonable parts that challenged his common sense, hoping to bring Lao Jiang to his senses.

Don't stand up and endorse the text just because of the students' little schemes; that could lead to irreparable regret.

Professor Jiang leaned back in the mahogany chair, leisurely picked up his Ru kiln cup, and took a sip of thirty-year-old tea. This old Lin just doesn't know what's good for him.

"The solid state is the trunk, and the gaseous state is the branches. When my student was studying in North America, he studied under Richard Harding, a leading figure in solid-state batteries, and he also worked on interfacial impedance research at Bell Labs for a period of time."

Yes! Based on the information sent by Xu Mingyuan, gaseous lithium-ion batteries are indeed based on solid-state battery cathode materials.

Professor Jiang's thinking is actually not wrong.

"Bell Labs? Interfacial resistance?" Old Lin sneered.

As a technocrat, he naturally understood that anyone who went to the core laboratory across from North America and was easily released had no access to any core technology.

Despite the loud pronouncements of "technology without borders" from domestic media, the other side doesn't act that way at all.

For truly talented researchers to return from North America, it is incredibly difficult!
Seeing that Lao Jiang was "unyielding," Lao Lin got a little angry. Why wouldn't this stubborn mule listen to reason?

It was a waste that you were elected as an academician of these two academies; you might as well have elected me!
"Then tell me, how is the ionic state maintained under normal pressure? Just by having your left hand pull your right hand, old Jiang?"

Professor Jiang suddenly sat up straight, his eyes shining behind his glasses.

"Twenty years ago, a paper published in Science by a German scholar discussed the ion conduction properties under supercritical conditions."

"Wait!" Old Lin suddenly looked up: "Is it Schmidt's paper? The one that was criticized by some physicists as 'science fiction' back then. Shouldn't we have let his paper be published in a scientific journal just because we sympathized with his advanced age?"

Professor Jiang hummed a little tune with a smug look and tapped the tea tray with the lid of his teapot.

"If Schmidt knew that someone could now use gaseous lithium ions to verify his theory, he would probably rise from his grave to thank him." This is the regret of most theoretical scientists: investing tens of thousands of dollars, developing a theory that couldn't be verified at the time, and dying in obscurity.

Years or decades later, someone finally proves your theory, but by then you're basically dead.

Subsequently, based on this theory with your name added to it, more than a dozen scholars in applied fields emerged, each more famous than you.

At that time, you also had to bear the pressure of wasting money without seeing any results.

The development of science is like using the stumbling steps of one generation to pave an invisible ladder for the next.

Those formulas that were shelved, those experimental notes that were covered in dust, and those "pipe dreams" that were questioned by most scholars at the time, will eventually become a ray of sunshine one morning, illuminating the way for those who come after to climb.

Just like Schmidt's supercritical theory, which had been dormant at the bottom of scientific research databases for twenty years, it has finally ushered in its era only now when the first wisp of lithium-ion mist emerges from a high-pressure autoclave.

Old Lin's fingers traced the cover of the document before he suddenly looked at Old Jiang with a serious expression.

"Old Jiang! Now, as the director of the standards committee, I'm asking you this—if this gets out, the national 30 billion yuan molten salt energy storage plan might have to be scrapped and restarted. Can you bear that responsibility?"

The National Energy Development Strategy Action Plan (2010), established this year, proposes to "build a safe, stable, economical and clean modern energy industry system" and requires strengthening the research and development and large-scale application of energy storage technology.

The energy storage plan for the next five years requires all types of non-fossil energy storage stations to maintain an annual growth rate of 180%, with a total cost of around 40 billion yuan.

Four large-scale energy storage centers will be built according to geographical divisions, replacing 1.5% of the domestic demand for petrochemical energy.

As the director of the National Energy Storage Technology Standardization Committee, Vice President Lin naturally knew that the four large-scale energy storage centers planned under the committee's guidance had a total scale of nearly 300 molten salt energy storage power stations, with a total cost of 360 billion yuan.

The first demonstration energy storage center in Qinghai Province has now begun planning and construction.

But if the gaseous lithium battery data that Jiang Zemin presented is genuine, it could overturn the original national energy strategic plan and directly halt the first demonstration energy storage center. This is definitely not a trivial matter.

If this gets out and it turns out to be just a hoax by amateur scientists, then not only will Jiang Zemin be implicated, but he himself will also suffer the consequences.

"What a joke!" Professor Jiang slammed his hand on the table and stood up, the tea in the purple clay teapot on the tray sloshing around the rim of the cup. "I vouch for it with my titles as an academician of both the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering! Besides..."

He suddenly lowered his voice: "Didn't you notice that this data shows the production process route? They're already prepared for mass production; they might have already made a battery prototype!"

Old Lin's pupils contracted sharply, and the documents in his hand rustled: "You mean it was done by your student's team?"

Professor Jiang gulped down a mouthful of tea.

"Anyway, the information is right here!" He tapped the handwritten document he had made with his finger. "If you don't dare take responsibility, I'll just submit it myself!"

Yes! As an academician of both the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Lao Jiang also has channels that allow him to directly reach top leaders.

However, since Lao Lin happens to be the chairman of the National Energy Storage Technology Standardization Committee, it's best to consult with him first.

In terms of technical skills, Lao Jiang felt that Lao Lin wasn't even qualified to carry his shoes, but when it came to getting things done, Lao Jiang was at a loss.

Even if Jiang Zemin is unreasonable, he knows that it's best not to bother the top leaders unnecessarily.

Chen Mo, who was in a remote laboratory, had no idea that the mistake of sending the wrong data on his gaseous lithium-ion battery had caused a huge uproar.

(End of this chapter)