Chapter 469: Just Buy One

Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee Translations

The high-ranking officials at the government spent multiple days holding meetings. Over these few days, Lu Zhou had been busy as well. He had met many Chinese controllable nuclear fusion scholars that were recommended by Academician Pan.

Strictly speaking, Chinese universities didn’t have a controllable nuclear fusion major.

Most experts in this field were professors in plasma physics or nuclear engineers.

The situation in China was different than that of Princeton; the research institute that did research on the stellarator device basically didn’t exist. When Lu Zhou was at PPPL, he could easily assemble a research team.

But now, he had to utilize his connections with Academician Pan to find talents scattered around the city.

Of course, other than human resources, there was also another important problem he had to solve.

He had the rice, and he had the chef; the only thing he lacked was a cooking pan.

Academician Pan gave Lu Zhou an organized list of names and said, “If you plan on researching the stellarator, having just talents and funding isn’t enough. We need to get our hands on a stellarator device first. This is more crucial than anything else. How do you plan on solving this problem?”

There were only eight stellarators in operation around the world, including the H1-Heliac that Yuhua University got from Australia. As for the “first cyclic symmetrical stellarator” project by China and Japan, they only signed the contract last year and would take several more years for the construction to begin.

China could wait, and the world could also wait. After all, controllable nuclear fusion was a hundred-year long project.

However, Lu Zhou couldn’t wait.

If he couldn’t successfully implement the DEMO machine by 2025, then he would have failed his Fusion Light mission chain. The high-tech system had been relatively fair, and he wouldn’t lose the experience points he already gained from the branch missions, but there would be no doubt that he would have to say goodbye to the mission chain’s final reward.

Lu Zhou accepted Academician Pan’s list of names and thought for a bit. He then said, “Germany has a discontinued stellarator—the WEGA. It’s the prototype for the Wendelstein 7-X. We don’t have to build one from scratch. We can buy one and modify it.”

Academician Pan was in disbelief. “You plan on buying the WEGA?”

Lu Zhou nodded and said, “Spending money is a must in this field.”

Lu Zhou originally thought Academician Pan didn’t want the country to waste money. After all, a stellarator wasn’t cheap at all; even the retired WEGA would cost quite a bit.

However, Academician Pan wasn’t worried about money at all.

“This isn’t about money. Is this something they’re willing to sell?”

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, “Hard to say, but we can negotiate with them. I have some connections with the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, so convincing them to sell their retired equipment shouldn’t be a big problem.”

Actually, the WEGA machine had been unused since 2013. The Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics put all of their research focus onto the new Wendelstein 7-X. As such, there was hope in convincing them to sell the WEGA.

Lu Zhou paused for a second before he continued, “After everything is settled here, I’ll personally fly to Germany and try to get this done.”

Pan Changhong looked envious.

He didn’t have many international connections in academia.

In order to fill in their blank page on the stellarator, in 2017, Yuhua University had to send inspection teams on three occasions to The Australian National University. They finally came to an agreement and spent AU$35 million buying the “small” machine.

Which was the so-called H1-Heliac…

Australia’s research on the stellarator was definitely behind that of Japan and Germany’s research. The H1-Heliac was designed and assembled by The Australian National University; therefore, it was far from being advanced.

If they could choose, they wouldn’t have chosen the H1-Heliac machine. However, they had no choice.

If somehow, Lu Zhou was able to buy the retired WEGA from Germany…

This thing alone would be considered a great achievement for the Chinese nuclear fusion community.

…

Lu Zhou brought two huge gifts when he came back to China.

The first was the Nobel Prize, and the other was a piece of the nuclear fusion pie.

However, this pie was still uncooked. Everyone could look at it but couldn’t eat it. However, Lu Zhou was confident he could cook this pie well.

China welcomed Lu Zhou’s two gifts and responded with their greatest attention.

After more than 2 weeks of discussions, the two academicians decided to give the green light for the stellarator research project.

After consulting Lu Zhou’s opinion, the project team would be named “STAR” and would continue in parallel to the EAST tokamak controllable fusion reactor program.

The state was quite generous with its funds, with a total of one billion.

Since most of the stellarator equipment had to be imported, this one billion was obviously in USD…

Southwestern Institute of Physics.

When Jiang Liang heard the news, he couldn’t help but grumble.

“A billion USD, that’s too much money.”

Even though the project was the same level as that of EAST, this was enough to fund several EAST projects.

A Nobel Prize isn’t worth that much, right?

Zhou Chengfu sat in the middle of the office reading newspapers. He didn’t look up when he spoke with a blank expression.

“Regardless of how much money it is, he earned it himself. It’s none of our business.”

Even though this was true, this still affected Jiang Liang’s mental condition.

Researching controllable nuclear fusion was a money-hungry project, but the country’s funding still had a limit.

Even though Academician Zhou’s expression didn’t change, Jiang Liang could still tell that the old man wasn’t in a good mood.

After all, he used the be the leader of China’s controllable nuclear fusion field.

But suddenly, there was a young man that came from nowhere, fighting for his throne. Obviously, he couldn’t help but feel displeased.

However, this Nobel Prize laureate’s aura was… a bit too dazzling.

Jiang Liang could guess what the old man was thinking, so he said, “About Academician Pan, even though he’s a veteran of the ITER cooperation team, the efforts weren’t done by him alone. Not to mention he’s retired now. You should be the main person in charge of the controllable nuclear fusion project.

“Lu Zhou wants to engage in controllable nuclear fusion but doesn’t consult you. Instead, he went to Academician Pan. Isn’t that a bit disrespectful?”

“Go do your own work, this is none of your concern.”

Once Academician Zhou saw Jiang Liang shut his mouth, he continued to speak without hesitation.

“He can do his own thing, and we’ll do our thing. The stellarator is not part of our expertise anyway. If we can, we’ll cooperate with them, and if we can’t, then it’s not our problem. We have our own conditions. What? Is he going to blame us?”

Jiang Liang understood. He then smiled as he replied, “Dean Zhou, you’re correct, I get it now!”

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