Reporting from the city of Yulei under the direct control of the Regency.
Yulian Utilities was a spin-off joint-venture between Macro-Engineering Industries and Legio Imperialis. Responsible for providing everything from power to water and sewage services to each of the four principalities, the company itself, while created as a new conglomerate, remains within the retainership’s purview as a public company.
Recently, with the breakthroughs by OneGrowth, there were silently other efforts being made by Xia & Company’s R&D divisions as financed by Yulian Utilities. Despite being a public company subject to public review, such expenditures were categorized as a “Miscellaneous Expense” on their company balance sheet.
We now understand why.
Announced with pride, with Xia & Co. executives behind him, Yulian Utilities’ CEO Zhun Yujin unveiled a greener future for Yukkirian trash: bacteria-fueled power plants.
“Today is a great day for us here at Yulian Utilities,” beamed Yujin, “today, I am announcing the largest trash processing project in all of the Regency. Fueled by specially cultured bacteria engineered by our friends at Xia & Company’s bioengineering specialists, this project will serve as the harbinger of a greener future for not just Southern Orientalis, but the world at large. The Regency will eventually become the trash capital of the world!”
Barring that unfortunate pun on the territory of New Katan, the project that Zhun Yujin spoke of will apparently cost the company a whooping 2.1 billion imperial banking notes, with Xia & Company, Legio Imperius, and Macro-Engineering all taking part in the financing of parts of the project.
Drawing on the collective specialty of not just those aforementioned companies, but even creating a large quantity of small business opportunities, the central processing center will aim to replace the current HQ located in the Yulian city of Houbei, and is expected to turn the already moderately large city, into a sprawling port metropolis. It is expected that in the city alone, it will create a jaw-dropping 60,000 jobs in the construction, service, and utilities industries.
Acknowledging how current efforts to dispose of trash are harmful to the environment, the bacteria fueled plant will work in three phases:
In the first step, trash is brought to the processing center by barge, truck, or train. The trash will be separated by material that can be fed to the bacteria and what can’t. Recyclables will be sent to a separate part of the plant which will process the recyclable materials into finished products.
The material that can be fed to the bacteria will be then loaded onto a conveyor belt which will then move the material to one of four large pits, with the concept essentially being the same as a composting pit but instead of worms, it’s bacteria.
The bacteria will create methane gas which is then vented to boilers which will then be used to create steam which will in turn, power turbines.
The bacteria will be self-sufficient, and will require little to no supervision, for as long as it is provided food, they will continue to replicate. The plant will create significantly less waste than other steam-powered plants while providing 3x the energy as plants of this type and size.
“The largest hurdle we had while engineering this bacteria was managing the microbiome in which the bacteria thrive,” remarked one of the scientists. “Specifically, predatory bacteria would feed on our bacteria, reducing gas output, thereby decreasing the efficiency of the process. How we eventually solved this problem was simply choosing a naturally omnivorous species, splicing into it the RNA sequences required for it to consume the trash we wanted it to eat, and then training the bacteria to eat the trash.”
“Due to breakthroughs by OneGrowth as it relates to the creation of biomes,” continued the scientists, “we were able to apply their methodology to our bacteria cultures, and now have a reliable source of this unique bacteria to assist in the creation of power plants just like the one in Houbei.”
If the concept proves successful, Yulian Utilities plans on opening up smaller similar power plants across the principalities of the Regency. This will drastically decrease the amount of pollution that the Regency produces, increase the health and well-being of the retainership as they are exposed to less pollutants, and assist in the preservation of the unique fauna native to each principality.
“We decided to go in with Yulian Utilities not just because we expect this investment to be a successful one, but because we ultimately believe that efforts like these will assist in the creation of the Regency as the greenest capital in the world,” remarked an executive from Macro-Engineering Industries.
Yulian Utilities, with the assistance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is currently seeking foreign involvement from the Regency’s commercial allies to fuel its appetite for trash by modifying or creating new commercial agreements.