"Cough —"
On the lunar rover, the man sitting next to him heard the light cough coming from the communication channel. He looked at Lu Zhou and asked with concern.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing, my nose is just a little itchy …"
Through the spacesuit mask, Lu Zhou, who couldn't touch his nose, sniffed awkwardly. He wanted to sneeze, but he couldn't. This feeling was really uncomfortable.
I don't know who's thinking about me.
Putting this matter aside for the time being, Lu Zhou cast his gaze out of the window and looked at the city leaning against the edge of the crater not far away. He couldn't help but feel a little emotional in his heart.
"I designed that blueprint, but I didn't expect that after a hundred years, this place would be so prosperous."
The man sitting next to him smiled and spoke.
"It seems that everything you expected has been realized."
Lu Zhou nodded.
"Sort of, at least half of it has been realized."
At this moment, the man sitting next to him in his early thirties was named Ye He, the mayor of Guanghan City. After hearing that the East Asia Power's investigation team for the second-generation controllable fusion reactor site was led by him, Mayor Ye personally came out to receive them.
After hearing Lu Zhou's words, Ye He said in a joking tone, "Can I ask what the other half is? Academician Lu, please enlighten me. "
Lu Zhou: "Energy."
The moment he heard these two words, Ye He was slightly stunned, and a trace of obvious surprise appeared in his eyes.
Although this was not a secret, for a scholar from a hundred years ago who had just woken up from a dormant cabin last month, it was inevitable that he could point out the biggest bottleneck facing the development of Guanghan City in one sentence. It was a little surprising.
"You can see it?"
Lu Zhou smiled faintly.
"Sort of."
Strictly speaking, the moon was not suitable for the development of population-intensive cities. Single resources and excessive maintenance costs seriously limited the industrial development threshold here.
Unlike on Earth, where controllable fusion technology had blossomed everywhere, the energy cost of the Guanghan Special Economic Zone, which was still using solar energy, could be said to be quite high.
It wasn't that the people here didn't want to popularize controllable fusion technology, it was because it was too difficult to build a nuclear fusion reactor on the Moon.
One of the most troublesome problems was the problem of heat accumulation in a vacuum. According to a rough estimate, the heat dissipation plates needed to build a first-generation fusion reactor could cover almost half of the moon.
Lu Zhou estimated that without the support of second-generation controllable fusion technology, the development of Guanghan City to its current scale would basically be the end of the world.
Unlike on Earth, the entire artificial ecosystem and life-support facilities were completely sustained by energy. In other words, from the moment humans set foot on the moon, they were consuming precious energy.
In the early days, there were not many people in Guanghan City. It was only the size of a scientific research station. A solar array the size of a crater and an energy storage facility the size of a scientific research base could fully meet the needs of a day and night rotation of the entire colony.
However, now, the entire Guanghan City had at least 100,000 permanent residents. As the tourism, commercial, and scientific research center of the Earth-Moon system, the floating population here was ten times higher.
The daily energy consumption was astronomical, and most of this energy gap had to be filled by solar energy facilities. So the urban planning of the entire Guanghan City was designed to be very compact. In order to leave room for solar energy facilities, it had almost reached the peak of minimalist architectural style.
This was also the reason why most countries simply skipped the moon and moved directly to Mars.
There had been no hope for the second-generation controllable fusion. Whether the helium-3 buried in the lunar soil could be used as a strategic material in the space age was a question mark. If it was only for titanium ore and rare earth resources, the asteroid belt could completely meet the supply of Mars and the Earth-Moon system. There was really no need to bite the hard bone of the moon.
After arriving at the destination, the group got out of the car.
Looking at the crater in front of him, Lu Zhou nodded with satisfaction.
The terrain was perfect, and the angle facing the Earth was also good. The next step was to analyze the geological composition. As long as the geological structure of the lunar soil below was not loose and porous, it would not be a problem to choose the location of the experimental reactor here.
"The conditions here are quite suitable. If there are no problems on your side, I plan to build the second-generation controllable fusion experimental reactor here.
"To be honest, according to the blueprint I designed back then, if there is no second-generation controllable fusion technology, a population of 100,000 is almost the limit of Guanghan City. The reason why I circled so many helium-3 mines was because of this.
"The result was beyond my expectations. I originally thought that these good things would definitely benefit my compatriots a hundred years later. I didn't expect that you wouldn't even get to drink the broth."
Listening to Lu Zhou's teasing, Ye He's expression was a little awkward. He coughed lightly and spoke.
"This … Whether the second-generation controllable fusion technology can be solved is not up to me. And I have a question here, I don't know if it is appropriate to ask. "
Lu Zhou smiled and said, "If you don't understand, just ask. There's nothing inappropriate about it."
Mayor Ye said seriously, "First-generation controllable fusion has the problem of heat accumulation. Does the second-generation controllable fusion not have similar problems? I don't quite understand why you chose to build a fusion power station on the Moon. Since there is a means of long-distance power transmission … Why not build a power station on Earth and then transmit electricity directly here? "
Lu Zhou: "Heat accumulation is indeed a problem, but it can be solved for the second-generation controllable fusion. Let's put it this way. Because the first-generation controllable fusion will produce extra neutrons, the design idea of the reactor shell is to recover the extra neutrons, such as liquid lithium neutron recovery technology. Although these designs can effectively recover neutrons, they do not solve the problem of overheating the nuclear core, and it occupies at least 70% of the design space. "
"In other words, because the second-generation controllable fusion does not produce extra neutrons, you can omit a lot of cumbersome designs and leave more design space to solve the problem of heat accumulation?" Ye He touched his chin thoughtfully and nodded. "I seem to understand what you mean."
Lu Zhou nodded approvingly.
"You are very perceptive —"
"Heh, don't be fooled by his nonsense!"
At this moment, a discordant voice suddenly came from the communication channel.
After hearing these words, the group subconsciously looked behind them and saw an old man in a spacesuit walking towards them with large strides.
Behind him, there was a young man following the old man's footsteps with a wry smile on his face.
Mayor Ye recognized that the young man was his secretary, but he did not recognize who the old man in front of him was. He frowned slightly but still maintained his demeanor.
"May I ask who you are?"
The old man glanced at Lu Zhou with an unkind look, then looked at Ye He and spoke unhappily.
"Qiu Mingrui! You invited me here, don't you know who I am? "
Hearing the old man's name, Mayor Ye's face suddenly showed a hint of realization, then he smiled and spoke.
"It turns out to be Academician Qiu, sorry for the disrespect. But why are you here today? "
Qiu Mingrui said with a smile.
"If I came a little later, you guys would have been fooled by this guy."
It's okay to be fooled …
Do people in the 22nd century also know this old joke?
Looking at the old man who was inexplicably hostile to him, Lu Zhou asked curiously.
"Who is this?"
"This is Academician Qiu Mingrui, an expert from the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Pan-Asian Academy of Engineering!" Mayor Ye said with a smile, "We invited the old man to do a feasibility assessment of the project. After all, you are taking such a large piece of land, and there are certain security risks. This is a normal procedure."
"Of course." Lu Zhou nodded, then looked at Academician Qiu, who had an unkind look. After thinking for a few seconds, he said, "It seems that you are here to stop me. In that case, go straight to the point."
Lu Zhou didn't know where his anger came from, or he was a hot-tempered person.
After the old man in the spacesuit heard these words, he stared at Lu Zhou and said aggressively, "Don't talk nonsense.
"Don't talk nonsense. I'll ask you three questions. Do you dare to answer them?"
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