Becoming Rich with Daily Scavenging APP-Chapter 534: An Over-the-Top Environmental Organization
But I don’t know if leaving the cesspool has improved my personal qualities quite a bit.
In any case, this Indian-origin British official is quite reasonable.
We quickly settled on a cooperation framework.
"This project is one that the current ruling party has placed a lot of expectations on, so these officials won’t make things too difficult for partners."
Schaefer said to Chen Yiyang, "We just need to supply normally."
After finishing up, Chen Yiyang and Schaefer went out for a stroll.
The biggest tourist attraction in the United Kingdom right now should be the HS2 high-speed rail project.
This high-speed rail project, which cost billions of pounds, is still far from being completed.
The original idea of the UK’s HS2 high-speed rail project was to connect major cities like London, Birmingham, and Manchester to form a large metropolitan area.
A fast and convenient transportation system is critically important to the formation and prosperity of a large metropolitan area, and this is internationally recognized.
So back then, the UK also thought of building a high-speed rail to connect several major cities.
It’s just that the budget is a bit high.
Simply mentioning numbers might not convey the feeling.
But if you compare it with the budget for building high-speed rails domestically, the UK’s budget for constructing a line from London to Birmingham is enough for domestic high-speed rail to be built from the Imperial Capital to the Saudi capital in the Middle East.
But even when the budget has come to this point, this high-speed rail has been built for over ten years and still hasn’t been completed.
It’s ridiculously excessive.
"The UK Smith commissioners are still too short on money." Chen Yiyang joked to Schaefer, "Even when the budget is so high, they should first build a high-speed rail and open it to traffic once, so they can continue getting money later, right?"
"Do you think they’re fools who don’t know to build a high-speed rail first?" Schaefer heard Chen Yiyang’s teasing and responded from a different angle.
"I’ve dealt with many officials in Europe. Although many of these officials got into positions by relying on connections, they’re not all fools. Some are quite shrewd.
This high-speed rail is not completed, not just because the commissioners took too much money, but because there’s fundamentally no capability."
"How so?" Chen Yiyang asked curiously.
"Because now the UK faces not just the reality of being unable to build a high-speed rail, but also that supporting factories can’t be built, houses can’t be built, tunnels can’t be built.
Back in the day, I learned about this project, responsible for helping to build a batch of supporting apartments for workers and technical experts to reside in.
But even the apartment couldn’t be built. Because there’s an un-dying tree in the place designated for building apartments.
If you want to remove this tree, then you’d be targeted by environmental organizations for extortion. At that time, the person in charge hoped to focus funds on the tunnel first, so they gave up on building the apartments.
Then, while breaking through the tunnel, we encountered trouble again. Because the original tunnel planned route goes through a bat habitat, according to regulations, we have to build bat caves nearby for these bats.
So not even a meter of tunnel was excavated first, 4 billion pounds were spent to build two rows of bat caves on both sides of the tunnel, each cave was big enough for a person to live in."
"Wait a minute." Chen Yiyang stopped Schaefer. "How much did it cost to build two rows of bat caves? 4 billion pounds?!"
"You read that right, it was indeed 4 billion pounds." Schaefer shrugged and said, "But the money was quite worth it. After the bat caves were built, the local bat population doubled."
Alright, it was worth it from the global ecology perspective.
"By the way, why haven’t the supporting factories been built either? Factories can be found in deserted lands without flora and fauna, right?" Chen Yiyang continued to ask curiously.
"Let me give you a piece of advice, never think about building anything in the UK."
Schaefer began, "Because the UK has a very impressive environmental organization that demands that every project in the UK must achieve nutrient neutrality.
What does it mean? It’s that if you want to build a factory, or the factory is built and you want it to operate.
You can, but first you must prove that your project won’t increase phosphate, nitrate pollution in the rivers.
This requirement is impressive because such environmental reports, skipping the fact whether or not they can be produced, just the calculation costs alone are probably enough to drag down a factory.
Later on, forget factories, even building a house means submitting dozens of reports like terrain investigation, archaeological report, ecological assessment, various bird report, geotechnical investigation, landscape visual impact report, tree report, development framework report, etc."
Just listening to these terms made Chen Yiyang tired.
Not to mention those who actually need to prepare these things, how long it will take, and how much effort it would cost.
"Now you know why this high-speed rail can’t be built? Because even if the Smith commissioners want to first build one and continue to deceive funding, they couldn’t, with so many organizations and environmentalists blocking things. It’s better to just drag on."
Chen Yiyang is now immensely grateful that his visit to the UK is simply to sell some solar equipment.
If he were to invest in building a photovoltaic plant in the UK, it wouldn’t be completed even if he grew old here.
However, this visit to the UK also deeply illuminated for Chen Yiyang why Europe now prefers to promote politicians who only give speeches and entertain.
Because those who do practical things can’t achieve anything, it would be better to elect a few who can speak well and perform funny speeches.
Staying another night in the UK, Chen Yiyang received a bargain intelligence on his phone.
Today’s intelligence, antique chairs: A batch of antique chairs that once belonged to Madame Du Barry is being sold at an antique shop. Successful bargaining can be achieved with purchase now.
Relevant item pictures and location have been attached on the second page.
Antique chairs from Europe?
Chen Yiyang felt curious, so he dragged Schaefer and some bodyguards to check it out.
Madame Du Barry was the favored concubine of the famous French King Louis XV, considered a notable historical figure.
Upon arriving at the antique shop, Chen Yiyang saw those antique chairs displayed in a corner.
This batch of chairs is priced at about two thousand euros each.
Although quite expensive, comparing it with the historical value behind those chairs, it couldn’t have been cheaper.
Chen Yiyang first paid to buy this batch of chairs, then asked the store owner, "Why are these antique chairs sold so cheaply?"
"Because these are replicas." The shop owner, a somewhat chubby native Brit, replied.
After taking Chen Yiyang’s money, he deliberately pulled out a small tag from beneath the chairs.
The tag clearly stated that these chairs were imitation replicas.
"How dare you try to deceive me?" Seeing this, Schaefer directly wanted to confront the antique dealer with force.
"Wait a moment." Chen Yiyang stopped Schaefer, then curiously asked the antique dealer, "How are you sure that this batch of antique chairs is fake?"
