The higher-ups held meetings for a few days straight. Over the past few days, Lu Zhou didn't idle around. Under Academician Pan's recommendation, he met with many Chinese controllable nuclear fusion researchers.
Strictly speaking, there was no controllable nuclear fusion major in Chinese universities.
Most of the big names in this field were professors in the field of plasma physics or engineers in nuclear engineering.
The situation in China was different from Princeton. There was basically no stellarator research. When Lu Zhou was at the PPPL Research Institute, he could easily find a research team.
However, right now, he could only use Academician Pan's connections in this field to find talents.
Of course, other than talent, there was another key problem that he had to solve.
Now that he had rice and a chef, the only thing he was missing was a cooking pot.
Academician Pan handed a list of names to Lu Zhou and said, "If you plan on doing stellarator research, we don't have enough manpower and funding. We have to get a stellarator first. This problem is more important than anything you've mentioned. How do you plan on solving it? "
There were only eight stellarators in operation in the world, and this included the H1-Heliac that Yuhua University got from Australia. As for the "first quasi-symmetric ring stellarator" that China and Japan jointly built, the agreement was only signed last year, and it would take a few years for the project to be completed.
China could afford to wait, and so could the world. After all, controllable nuclear fusion itself was a century-long project.
However, Lu Zhou couldn't afford to wait.
If he couldn't successfully ignite the "DEMO" demonstration reactor before 2025, then the "Fusion Light" mission chain would be considered a failure. According to the System's principles, there was no such thing as asking him to spit out the EXP that he had already obtained. However, the final reward for completing the chain of missions would undoubtedly be goodbye to him.
Lu Zhou took the list from Academician Pan and thought for a bit. He then said, "Germany has a defunct stellarator, which is the WEGA. It's the prototype of the Wendelstein 7X. We don't have to build one from the beginning to the end. We can just get a ready-made one and then modify it. "
Academician Pan's expression changed as he asked in disbelief, "You plan to buy WEGA back?"
Lu Zhou nodded. "If you want to enter this industry, you can't save on tuition."
Lu Zhou thought that Academician Pan was feeling heartache for the country. After all, a stellarator wasn't cheap. Even if it was a decommissioned WEGA, it wouldn't be a small amount of money to buy it back.
However, Academician Pan wasn't worried about money at all.
"It's not about the tuition fees. Are they willing to sell this thing?"
Lu Zhou shook his head. "It's hard to say, but we can talk about it. I have some connections with scholars from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics. It shouldn't be a problem to convince them to sell the old equipment. "
In fact, WEGA had been shut down since 2013. The research focus of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics was on the Wendelstein 7-X. There was still hope to convince them to sell WEGA.
After pausing for a moment, Lu Zhou continued.
"Once everything here is settled, I will personally fly to Germany and try to negotiate with them."
Pan Changhong had an envious look on his face.
He didn't have much contact with the international academic community, so he couldn't be envious.
In order to fill the gap in China's stellarator research, Yuhua University organized three investigation teams to go to the Australian National University in 2017. They finally negotiated a cooperation and spent 35 million AUD to buy a "small" machine.
This was the so-called H1-Heliac.
Compared to Germany and Japan, Australia's stellarator research was obviously at the bottom of the list. The H1-Heliac, which was independently designed and assembled by Australian National University, was far from advanced.
If they had a choice, who would want to choose the H1-Heliac that was assembled by Australian National University?
If Lu Zhou really had the connections, he could buy the shut down WEGA in Germany.
This alone would be a huge contribution to China's controllable nuclear fusion industry.
…
When Lu Zhou returned to China this time, he brought two big gifts to China.
One of them was a Nobel Prize, and the other was a controllable nuclear fusion cake.
Even though this cake was still raw and everyone could only look at it but not eat it, Lu Zhou was confident that he could be a good chef and cook this cake well.
As for Lu Zhou's two big gifts, China responded with the utmost importance.
After half a month of meetings and discussions, the two academicians discussed and voted, and the stellarator research project was finally officially launched.
After consulting with Lu Zhou, the project was named "STAR". It was on the same level as the "EAST" tokamak controllable fusion reactor project.
As for the funding, the country was quite generous; it was a total of one billion US dollars.
Considering that a lot of the stellarator equipment had to be imported, the funding was obviously in US dollars …
Southwest Institute of Physics.
When Jia Liang heard the news, he couldn't help but click his tongue.
"One billion US dollars, they're not treating money like it's nothing."
Even though it was on the same level as the "EAST" project, in terms of funding, it was more than enough for several "EAST" projects.
Even if he won a Nobel Prize, it wouldn't be worth this much money, right?
Zhou Chengfu was sitting in the middle of his office, reading a newspaper. He didn't look up as he spoke with a blank expression.
"No matter how much money it is, it's earned by other people. It's none of our business."
That being said, it was impossible to say that it didn't affect the country at all.
The research of controllable nuclear fusion itself was a money-burning project, but the country's investment in this area wasn't unlimited.
Even though Academician Zhou's expression didn't change, Jia Liang could tell that the old man wasn't in a good mood.
After all, he was the one in charge of the controllable nuclear fusion research in China.
Now that a young man suddenly appeared out of nowhere and wanted to build a mountain next to him, it was impossible for him not to be unhappy.
But the aura of a Nobel Prize winner …
It was a bit dazzling.
Jia Liang guessed what the old man was thinking, so he continued, "Even though Academician Pan is a veteran of the China ITER cooperation team, he didn't get all the credit. Not to mention that he's already retired. You're now the person in charge of the controllable nuclear fusion project in China.
"This Lu Zhou wants to do controllable nuclear fusion, but he didn't come to Chengdu to visit you. Instead, he used Academician Pan's name to start a new project. Isn't this a bit too disrespectful?"
"Just focus on your work, you don't need to worry about these things."
Academician Zhou reprimanded Jia Liang in a low voice. He then looked at Jia Liang, who quickly shut his mouth and stopped talking.
"He's doing his own thing, we'll do ours. After all, the stellarator isn't our specialty. If we can work together, then we'll work together. If we can't, then it's because we have limited resources. It's not like he can blame us. "
Hearing this, Jia Liangcai immediately understood and smiled.
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