The firmly closed door opened, and a middle-aged man in a suit and glasses walked out. Unlike the precedent, he was not in a wheelchair, nor was he holding a Bible in his hand.
In front of him, dozens of domestic and foreign reporters had formed a semicircle. He looked around naturally, as if he had expected this situation, and said.
"The air outside is indeed nice."
I said to him.
"You look healthy. It seems you've gained some weight."
He smiled and nodded.
"I weighed myself and I've gained 3 kilograms."
I held out a black plastic bag.
He took it and opened it. Inside was a block of white tofu. He ate the tofu in front of the reporters.
Right now, our appearance is being broadcast live to the world on CNN, BBC, CCTV, NHK, and others. Many foreigners must be wondering why he is eating tofu.
I opened the car door for him.
"Get in, senior."
"Thank you, junior."
We got into the back seat side by side.
Even without saying it, he would know full well that he was able to be released on bail because of me. And that there must be a good reason for it.
As the car started, Chairman Im Jin-yong looked at me and asked.
"So, what's the reason you got me out?"
I said to him.
"I was hoping you could make some batteries for me."
***
[Chairman Im Jin-yong Released on Bail Despite Guilty Verdict in First Trial]
[Bail Granted Swiftly After Meeting Between Kang Jin-hoo and President Heo Chang-min!]
[The Possibility of Kang Jin-hoo's Intervention in the Bail?]
[Judiciary Draws the Line, Says There Was No Preferential Treatment]
[Kang Jin-hoo Greets Chairman Im Jin-yong in Front of the Detention Center]
[Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice Strongly Criticizes the Bail of the Seosung Group Chairman as Chaebol Privilege]
The scene of Kang Jin-hoo and Im Jin-yong meeting in front of the detention center was reported in media all over the world.
Opinions were divided on the internet about Chairman Im Jin-yong's guilty verdict and the sudden granting of bail.
- What? Did Kang Jin-hoo really bribe Heo Chang-min to get Im Jin-yong released?
- LOL, of course. They're all the same.
- The chaebols have it good. No matter what crime they commit, they can get released as long as they pay money~
- He was found guilty in the first trial, so what's with the release?
- It's not a release, it's bail. Paying bail money doesn't make the crime go away.
- He'll have to go back to prison anyway if he's found guilty in the final trial.
- It's common for custody to be postponed until the final trial even with a guilty verdict in the first trial.
- What's the problem with granting bail for the sake of the national economy? Weren't the pro-North Korean leftists the ones who unreasonably detained an innocent businessman in the first place?
- Release Im Jin-yong, the most innocent businessman in history! And while you're at it, release Park Si-hyeong, the most incorruptible president in history!
- Did Kang Jin-hoo really ask for his release?
- Doesn't the fact that he met with Heo Chang-min beforehand and then blatantly came to the detention center and handed him tofu give you a clue?
- So why did Kang Jin-hoo do it? If he was going to get him out, he should have done it sooner. Why now?
- What on earth is Kang Jin-hoo thinking?
***
The car carrying Chairman Im Jin-yong arrived at the OTK Company headquarters.
The team leaders and above were already gathered in the conference room. Hyun-joo noona and Ellie had also come over, and Professor Kim Ho-min was there as well.
As it had been a while, Chairman Im Jin-yong greeted everyone warmly.
"We don't have much time, so let's get right to the point. The OTK Research Institute has succeeded in creating a new battery. I would like Seosung SB to use this battery to create a battery pack and a mass production line."
It's easy to think that the development of a technology is the end, but what's more important is whether it can be mass-produced. How many processes are needed, how much it costs, what the yield is, and so on.
As the saying goes, 'Even if you have three bushels of pearls, you have to string them to make a treasure.' No matter how good a technology is, if it fails in mass production, that's the end of it.
Chairman Im Jin-yong showed great interest.
"What kind of battery is it?"
The details of the JN Battery are top secret. Except for the researchers who participated in the development, only the people here know about it.
After hearing Professor Kim Ho-min's explanation, Chairman Im Jin-yong was beyond surprised; he was horrified.
"Is that really true?"
I asked him.
"If the JN Battery is commercialized, will it sell well?"
"Is that even a question? If this is true, it could change not only the automobile industry but also all industrial fields such as electronics, machinery, aviation, medicine, and robotics. If you developed something like this, why on earth haven't you commercialized it until now?"
The OTK Battery, which only doubled the capacity of existing batteries, changed the landscape of the industry. But if you can make a battery with 20 times the capacity, that's nothing short of a revolution.
Chairman Im Jin-yong, who had been speaking, suddenly closed his mouth as if he had realized something, and then looked at us and asked.
"Is there some kind of problem?"
I nodded.
"As you said, there is one serious problem. The main raw material is Geratinium."
"Geratinium?"
"Yes. So, you could say this is a Geratinium battery, not a lithium-ion battery."
Seosung Electronics is the world's largest semiconductor company.
Since rare earth elements are essential in semiconductors, there is no way Chairman Im Jin-yong doesn't know what Geratinium is. He probably knows the price well too.
"To make a battery that goes into a car, you need about 100 kilograms."
At my words, he looked as if he was at a loss for words.
"Do you know how much that is?"
"Of course. At the current market price, it would be about $230 per gram."
The price of the Geratinium that goes into one car alone is about 30 billion won. If you really made an electric car with this, the price would make a Bugatti look cheap.
Professor Kim Ho-min added a word.
"The Geratinium that goes into the JN Battery must have a purity of at least 99.99 percent. If there are any impurities, defects will occur."
Chairman Im Jin-yong said, as if dumbfounded.
"In the end, if you can't obtain a large amount of pure Geratinium, isn't mass production impossible?"
"That's right."
Creating a battery production line costs a huge amount of money. Unless you're going to produce it just once and be done with it, the raw materials must be supplied continuously.
But looking at the Geratinium available on the market right now, even if you bought it all, you wouldn't be able to run the factory for even a week.
Senior Sang-yeop, who had been listening quietly with his arms crossed, asked.
"So where on earth are you going to get the Geratinium?"
The other people also had the same question on their faces. The only ones who knew this were Taek-gyu, Professor Kim Ho-min, and Hyun-joo noona.
I pressed the switch and turned off the lights. The conference room was instantly plunged into darkness, and I pointed out the window.
"From there."
Everyone looked confused.
Ellie raised her hand and asked.
"What's over there?"
"Do you see that bright light?"
Ellie nodded.
"Are you talking about the moon?"
"That's right."
I said to the people who still looked bewildered.
"We are going to mine Geratinium from the moon and bring it to Earth."
***
- Sea of Tranquility, Geratinium Mine Exists -
This was the foresight I had seen.
At first, when I saw 'Sea of Tranquility,' I thought it meant it was buried deep in the sea. But after searching, I found out that it refers to a location on the moon.
A long silence followed. Everyone just stared with their eyes wide open, speechless. It was as if I could see question marks floating in their minds.
After a moment, Ellie, who had come to her senses, stuttered and asked.
"The moon?"
"Yes."
"So, you don't mean it in a metaphorical sense, you're really going to mine on the moon?"
"That's right."
"You're going to go to the moon in a spaceship, load it with Geratinium, and come back to Earth?"
"Exactly. Ellie, you're a quick learner."
Ellie let out a hollow laugh.
"Does that even make sense?"
"Well..."
Surprisingly, it does.
Hyun-joo noona sighed deeply, and Senior Sang-yeop muttered with a look of despair.
"The moon? The moon? The round moon like a tray?"
The expressions of Team Leader Jung Gi-hong, Team Leader Seo Sang-won, and Team Leader Michael Lee were similar. There was even someone who was openly making a 'What kind of bullshit is this?' face.
I understand how they feel. I felt the same way.
Team Leader Seo Sang-won asked in a strained voice.
"May I ask a rude question?"
"Go ahead."
"Are you in your right mind?"
"Yes. I'm perfectly fine."
I asked Team Leader Jung Gi-hong, who was still staring with his eyes wide open and his mouth agape.
"What are you thinking?"
"Uh, well. I was just thinking about why I joined this company."
It seems he wants to go home.
Hyun-joo noona, as if she had a headache, pressed her forehead with her hand and muttered.
"I wondered what you two were up to again. To think it would come to the moon."
Taek-gyu said with a silly grin.
"At least it's not Mars, right?"
"Shut up."
After another silence, Senior Sang-yeop, who had struggled to regain his composure, asked.
"So, Chairman, are you sure that there is Geratinium buried on the moon?"
"Yes. There are various rare earth elements buried on the moon, and Geratinium is one of them. And due to the nature of the moon, it's in its pure form."
No matter how much I talk, it lacks credibility. In times like this, an expert has to step up, right?
Professor Kim Ho-min came forward in my place.
"After I heard the story, I looked up some related papers. As some of you may know, there are various elements in space that do not exist on Earth. And on the moon, there are large deposits of rare elements that are almost nonexistent on Earth."
Everyone fell silent and listened to Professor Kim Ho-min's explanation.
Rare earth elements are literally elements that are rarely mixed in the soil. These are not substances that originally existed on Earth, but things that flew in from space through meteorites and so on.
In the case of Earth, they are lost or transformed during the process of entering the atmosphere, and even after that, weathering such as rain and wind occurs. But on the moon, these weather phenomena do not exist, and there are many cryogenic regions, so the meteorites that have fallen on the moon's surface have accumulated with their original components intact.
If you can dig this up and bring it to Earth, it will be worth a huge amount of money. That's why NASA also established a plan to mine resources from the moon, and for this, the US made a law that allows anyone to collect resources in space.
Although only the US has sent a manned spacecraft to the moon, other countries have also sent unmanned spacecraft several times.
With current technology, sending a spacecraft to the moon is not a big difficulty. As the moon mining business has a high potential to become a cash cow for the space industry, which is a money-eating hippo, various companies have shown interest.
The most active in this is the private space company, SpaceX.
Allen Eberhardt pushed the 'Moon Mining Project' and publicly announced that he would send a probe this year to create a resource map of the moon's deposits.
I said.
"When I asked Allen Eberhardt directly, he showed confidence that it is sufficiently possible even now if we set our minds to it."
Allen Eberhardt, the founder of Nikola and SpaceX, can be called the top expert in this field. Although their expressions were still half-doubting, it would be hard not to believe after I had said this much.
Chairman Im Jin-yong, who had a look of forced understanding, opened his mouth.
"Alright. Let's say there is Geratinium on the moon, and we can mine it and bring it back. But what about the mining and transportation costs?"
No matter how much the cost has been reduced by recovering and reusing rockets, sending a spacecraft once costs a huge amount of money. And if we go ahead with it, there's no telling how much more the cost will increase.
So, from the beginning, the plan was to mine expensive minerals like rare earth elements or platinum to make it profitable.
What's the use if it costs 2 million won to mine 1 million won worth of gold?
"Everything is difficult at the beginning. If the JN Battery is also used in the space field, won't the launch costs also continue to decrease?"
The majority of a spacecraft's weight is fuel. But the JN Battery has 20 times the capacity of the OTK Battery in the same volume and weight.
If we make good use of this, we might be able to reduce the cost of launching a spacecraft to the level of flying an airplane.
At my words, everyone's eyes lit up. They were probably confused as the scale suddenly expanded to space, but they had an intuition of how huge a thing this was.
Their minds must be complicated, thinking about what kind of results it would bring if it succeeded, how much money they would make, and what kind of impact it would have on the industry in the future.
Chairman Im Jin-yong burst out laughing.
"I've heard the words 'Fourth Industrial Revolution' a lot, but today I feel like I'm right in the middle of it."
I chuckled and said.
"I'm telling you in advance, there's no guarantee that your sentence will be reduced just because this succeeds, you know?"
His eyes shone from behind his glasses.
"It doesn't matter. I'll do my best to give it a try."
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter