The power revolution is not just lighting, but some small electrical appliances with little technical content have also begun to emerge.

For example: an electric fan is one of the unexpected products, and the inventor is a technical worker.

The reason was to cool down the equipment. He disliked the inadequate use of mechanical fans and wanted to create a fan that was not operated by manpower.

With a sudden inspiration, an iron piece was added to the motor, and the blades rotated quickly after connecting to the power supply, and the earliest electric fan was born.

Originally, Franz thought that another great scientist was born. After investigation, he found that this was an ordinary skilled worker. Apart from accidentally inventing the electric fan, he did not have the talent for scientific research.

Real cases once again prove that technological inventions are full of coincidences. There are many similar cases, and many practical technological inventions were created by ordinary people.

This strengthened Franz's determination to increase his training in education to cultivate hands-on skills, so starting from 1871, Austrian students had another practical lesson.

Just like a joke in later generations: A true academic master is able to build a nuclear reactor in his own garage.

This kind of talent is what Austria needs most. It has reached the forefront of the scientific and technological revolution. Now Austria has no object to copy. The original copycat empire now has to carry out independent innovation.

Franz rarely intervenes in this regard. If a country wants to be truly strong, it must have the ability to develop independently, rather than being led by the emperor, as he.

Although the achievements of the previous life can be used to avoid detours, for a country, this can only be used as an auxiliary. Once it becomes a dependence, it is a disaster.

Usually Franz just asks for demand, and how to achieve it is the job of scientists. It is good to succeed, but it doesn’t matter if it fails. Scientific research has never been smooth sailing, and it is impossible to go through the wind and rain.

Of course, this is also related to Franz's poor academic attributes in his previous life. As an ordinary person, he has always just enjoyed the convenience brought by technology. Who cares about how these technological products are made?

Just relying on the little knowledge I saw online, it would be fine if I didn’t take it out. If I really took it out, it would be a bad thing.

The economic conference is still continuing, and at this time everyone is discussing how to promote the popularization of power technology. In summary, there are two points:

First, reduce taxes to enterprises engaged in the power industry, and in this way, reduce the operating costs of power companies;

The second is to reduce the price of raw materials, or the prices of copper and rubber, thereby reducing the costs in the power promotion process.

The means are so rough and do not have that much technical content. The first problem to face in any new technology promotion is cost.

Only when the cost is within a controllable range can there be economic value; only when the economic value is first can it be promoted in the market.

Electricity has been born for many years, so why has it started to be promoted now? It is not because of the birth of high-power generators that have reduced the cost of power generation to the market.

Now only 500 grams of coal is needed to burn coal at one kilowatt-hour. If it is high-calorie coal, the consumption is smaller and the cost is already within the market's acceptance range.

Seeing the controversy over the crowd, Franz couldn't help but want to speak. But he still held back. During the halftime break, Franz summoned the Prime Minister alone.

Austria is not short of coal. In terms of reserves alone, on the European continent, this is the benefit of a large territory. However, the quality of these coals is hard to say.

"Prime Minister, I suddenly discovered a problem. Most of the domestic coal mines are lignite. These coals are good for making fires or generating electricity, but they are not good for making steel.

Now the domestic demand for steel is growing, and the demand for bituminous coal will also increase sharply in the future. For long-term development, it is necessary for us to subdivide the types of industrial coal."

(Note: There is only a small amount of coking coal in nature, which can be directly used for steelmaking. Most of them are produced after processing of bituminous coal)

After thinking about it, Prime Minister Felix shook his head and said, "Your Majesty, it's not! The domestic coal reserves are still quite abundant. At the current consumption rate, it will be enough for five hundred years.

Although the reserves of bituminous coal used for steelmaking are not too high, that is enough. Even if the demand for steel increases tenfold, these coals will be enough for hundreds of years to be used. There is still so long that we are considering these issues too early.

Now the forced classification of industrial coal is involved in many issues. Many areas that produce bituminous coal have to buy lignite from the outside world at a high price, which increases industrial production costs and is not conducive to economic development."

This is a practical problem. If coal is forced to be classified, you have to face this economic problem.

In this era, the demand for coal resources is not too high, and energy issues have not yet entered the public's attention.

Besides, don’t look at steel often connected together. In fact, coal is used for “steel making” and “iron making”.

Now Austria produces more than 6 million steel every year. In fact, the first six million tons are all iron, and only the rear hundreds of thousands of tons are steel.

With such a low steel output, the demand for bituminous coal is naturally lower. Even if it increases ten times, the steel output is actually only a few million tons, and this amount of steel does not consume much coal.

Franz began to hesitate. The actual situation seemed to be a little beyond expectations. Austria's bituminous coal reserves were not too high, but the industrial demand was smaller.

After a little thought, Franz decided to continue to promote the classification of industrial coal, but the method changed a little and was less radical.

This is not a matter of course, but a decision made by Franz after careful consideration. He believes that Austria's demand for steel will rise rapidly in the future, and perhaps this demand will exceed tens of millions of tons by the end of this century.

Then the demand for bituminous coal must also increase accordingly. If before that, we successfully obtain the Rhineland region and have the coal resources supplemented in the Ruhr region, we will naturally have no shortage of coal.

But there are accidents. If something happens in the middle and Austria gets the coal mine in the Ruhr area in a short time, can the domestic bituminous coal production meet the demand?

No one can answer this question. Since that is the case, Franz certainly has to prepare for the future. Even if he has done useless work, it will be better than when he needs it, and he actually found that the supply of high-quality bituminous coal is insufficient.

After nullifying his power, Franz reluctantly convinced Prime Minister Felix. Perhaps now Felix feels that this is a mediocre person, but only accepts it due to the emperor's face.

This doesn't matter, and Franz only focuses on the results. As long as the purpose is achieved, it doesn't matter if the process is somewhat tortuous.

Naturally no one knew what the two talked about. Because of this little episode, the halftime break of the meeting was extended.

The emperor and the prime minister were absent, so the meeting naturally could not continue. This was similar to an ordinary meeting, and it was necessary to wait for the important leaders to arrive before it could start.

The staff were very eye-catching and delivered coffee and pastries to everyone during the break, as well as the newspaper that just posted today.

Perhaps they felt it was not good to let so many people wait. After about twenty minutes, the two walked into the conference room and the meeting continued.

At the end of the meeting, Prime Minister Felix said with a depressed look on his face:

"Everyone, don't forget that coal is used to generate electricity. Although the domestic coal production is quite large, we must also give priority to steelmaking.

In the future, domestic demand for steel will usher in a surge. More than 80% of domestic coal production are lignite, and the production of bituminous coal suitable for steelmaking is less than 20%, of which less than 5% of high-quality coal is less than 5%.

It is now necessary to introduce an energy law to ensure the safety of coal for steelmaking. Of course, this cannot be forced by administrative means, and it mainly depends on economic means to regulate market supply.

In short, it is to use all the coal that is most suitable for steelmaking in order to produce the best quality steel and let the remaining ordinary coal flow into the market."

It can be seen that Prime Minister Felix did not petition so much. Of course, this is limited to Franz. In the eyes of different people, the answers they see are also different. Many officials directly understand that this is "worry", because they are worried about this problem and have this expression.

This statement is still a bit far-fetched, but it is more acceptable than Franz's statement. Only the best coal can produce the best steel. This is basic common sense.

Economic means of regulation are very simple and crude. The Vienna government has similar successful experience, which is to increase taxes on high-quality coal.

If these high-quality coal flows into steelmaking in steel plants, then tax refund will be made; if it flows into other fields, it will naturally not enjoy tax refunds.

The advantage of doing this is very obvious, which is that it increases the price of high-quality coal. When the price is high, the market competitiveness will be lower. At least the power plant will not buy these high-quality coal.

Under the stimulation of interests, capitalists will conduct market regulation on their own. The only problem is supervision, and they cannot evade taxes.

In contrast, these are all small problems. Having a law or not is two different concepts. Even if tax evasion is secretly evading, it is only a small-scale.

Only when the number of participants is small can confidentiality be kept. If the scale is large, it will be difficult to escape the supervision of the tax authorities.

Besides, even if the coal seller is willing to take risks, the coal buyer may not be willing?

Even if tax evasion is used, the price of high-quality coal cannot be lower than that of ordinary coal. It is not very different for many people, but the risks are very large.

If you can't catch it, it's fine. Once you are caught, the consequences will be serious. If you are punished and you will lose everything, it is common. Maybe you have to go to prison to reflect.

Prime Minister Felix's proposal was very opposed, but it was barely approved at the meeting. Franz's small move was almost impossible to say that the emperor supported the proposal.

Putting this issue out at economic conferences is actually to share the pressure. As usual, all high-level meeting contents in Austria are kept confidential.

The officials attending the meeting cannot announce to the outside world: I am against the xxxx law. All of them have become laws. Where is an official qualified to oppose it? All he can do is abide by.

The outside world is not clear about how loud the opposition exists in the government, which will cause many people to misjudgment. The resentment of those who have suffered losses will be carried by everyone.

There are too many officials involved, but no one dares to act evil. This policy has no impact on ordinary people, and they have always been loyal users of cheap coal.

Except for the coal boss, almost no one will be affected. After all, the government only regulates the best-quality bituminous coal, and will not affect the interests of others.

If you want to talk about the loss, it was Franz himself who suffered the biggest loss. Unconsciously, he had become Austria's largest coal supplier.

This is the benefit of buying and buying at the beginning. The railway was not yet built, and the mines in the deep mountains and forests were not worth the money.

However, with the completion of the large railway plan, railways have appeared in every city in Austria, and the original traffic problems are no longer a problem.

The transportation problem was solved and the minerals could be transported out, which made many mines buried in the mountains and forests have economic value, and the mining tycoon was developed in this way.

Franz doesn't care about this loss, after all, there are beneficiaries of this policy - steel companies, with the problem of left hand turning to right hand.

The losses from the coal mine were taken back from the steel company, and he also secretly invested in heavy industry.

This is the terrible thing about the consortium. It has a complete industrial chain and its risk resistance is far superior to that of ordinary enterprises.

To this day, a huge royal consortium has lurked in Austria. If all the assets are exposed, it will be enough to make all the consortiums in the world ashamed.

Obviously this is impossible to expose, and the deeper the trump card, the better. Although the royal consortium is connected together, it has actually existed in several parts, or in other words, it exists several consortiums.

Franz was just secretly controlling the remote control. These separate consortiums also had a large group of sub-allies, forming a community of interests.

On the surface, some consortiums are still opposite each other and often fight for interests. If they are to say that they are a family, even if the evidence is placed in front of them, few people will probably believe it.

This is still the beginning. With the rise of emerging industries, these consortiums will continue to grow like a snowball in the future, increasing Franz's control over the country.

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Chapter completed!