Chapter 541: Tianwan

Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee Translations

From his Institute of Materials exchange visa being revoked to China leaving ITER, Xiao Le’s mood this month was like a slide, sliding all the way to the bottom.

Xiao Le waited for a month at home; he basically wasted the entire month. Every day, he’d browse arXiv, track the latest major research institute trends, or help his mom walk the dog.

He was the only one that could understand the pain of being pulled out of unfinished research.

He hadn’t heard any news from Professor Li yet. He didn’t know if Professor Li hadn’t found a new research project for him to do or just temporarily forgot about him.

The Institute of Materials had no further arrangements for the PhDs that were sent back from General Atomics. It seemed like they didn’t have a plan for what they should do.

After all, after the withdrawal from ITER, many collaborative ITER research projects were suspended. There were a lot of people who had to reschedule their work.

Unfortunately, the state had tightened its investment in the tokamak field. Their existing funds simply couldn’t support so many research projects…

Apparently, the institute was in chaos right now. Xiao Le wasn’t sure if he wanted to go back or not. However, he still decided to rest for a few days and then go to Lu Yang.

After all, his brain was rusting from staying at home all day…

However, after he packed his bags and even bought the train ticket, he suddenly received a call from the institute.

“Where are you now?”

“Beijing… Did Professor Li ask you to contact me?” Xiao Le quickly responded to the phone.

“We’ve already contact Professor Li. He’s the one that recommended you to us. There’s a research position in Jiangsu that is a good fit, we want to know if you are interested.”

Xiao Le was muddled. “Wait a second, I don’t understand what you’re saying. Research position? In Jiangsu?”

“Yeah.” The man on the other side of the phone wasn’t impatient at all, and he said, “It’s in Jiangsu, and it’s about the controllable nuclear fusion.”

Xiao Le asked, “STAR research institute?”

“No comment.”

Xiao Le was confused, and he said, “The nuclear fusion field is too broad. You should at least tell me what exactly the research is and the research location.”

“The specific research is undetermined yet, the research location is still in a confidential period,” the man said. “You just need to say if you’re going or not.”

This… is really a difficult request.

Xiao Le smiled and shook his head.

However, he only contemplated for two seconds before answering…

“I’m going.”

This kind of opportunity was once in a lifetime.

His intuition told him that this was the only time he would have an opportunity like this.

The man on the phone replied, “Ok, I’ll help you with the procedure. Also, your train ticket has been changed, remember to take the train at 3 pm tomorrow.”

After that, he hung up the call.

Xiao Le looked at the phone in his hand with a weird expression.

Not only did the guy know about his train ticket, but he even changed his ticket destination. The person behind the call must be a powerful figure…

At least, it wasn’t anyone from the Institute of Materials.

…

On the afternoon the next day, Xiao Le sat on the train and arrived at the destination. He dragged his suitcase off the train and stood outside the train station. In less than half a minute, he saw a black Jetta park in front of him, which drove him to the mysterious workplace.

After he arrived at the destination, he was immediately shocked.

Not because the work location was deserted. Instead, it was the opposite. This place was almost too “lively”.

There were more than a dozen buses parked outside the factory, with various engineering equipment scattered around.

There were more than a dozen logos that he recognized. Some were top Chinese institutes for plasma physics, others were giant companies like the China National Nuclear Corporation.

He had a vague understanding of what this project was going to be.

However, never in a million years did he expect the STAR research institute to progress so quickly.

The entire world was still estimating how far they were from a demonstration reactor, but they had already begun their demonstration reactor project quietly.

Suddenly, a man in his early fifties walked over while holding a resume.

“You’re Xiao Le?”

Xiao Le nodded and said, “Yes, sir.”

“Ok, come with me.”

Xiao Le looked back at the driver who drove him here and gulped. He immediately took his suitcase and followed the old man.

Even though he followed the old man reluctantly, he couldn’t help but ask about the situation here.

“I’m in the tokamak field. This is probably research on the stellarator, right? Me coming here…”

“There’s no use saying these things to me.” The old man walked toward the research institute and said without any expression, “I’m only responsible for bringing you there. If you have any questions, you can ask him.”

Him?

Who?

Even though Xiao Le really wanted to ask this question, seeing that the old man didn’t answer his question regarding the research institute, he decided to shut his mouth instead.

He looked around and asked an unimportant problem.

“There are so many people here, how is this place going to be kept a secret?”

The expressionless old man suddenly smiled.

“Kiddo, do you know what happens when someone leaks a secret?”

“I don’t know.”

How would I know?

Xiao Le began to think.

The old man pointed behind him, toward the driver in the Jetta.

“If you want to know, you can ask him.”

…

The requirements for the location of a nuclear power plant were very high.

According to the international site selection guidelines, factors such as geology, surface, meteorology, hydrology, environmental protection, construction, transportation, power station technology, power grid, and social impact had to be considered.

First of all, geographically, there couldn’t be any fault zones below the site. There shouldn’t be any active fault zones within a few kilometers of the nuclear power plant. As for the history of the site, there shouldn’t be any earthquake of magnitude 6 or above within 100 kilometers of the sea or 50 kilometers on lands near the site.

Secondly, there was the transportation issue.

The entire reactor was designed to be several times more complex than the fission reactor, and the size was also much larger. The various components involved couldn’t be produced locally in the province of Jiangsu. It could only be produced and then transported to Jiangsu, where it would be assembled on site.

Taking all these factors into consideration, there weren’t many places in Jiangsu that could meet all of these conditions.

After the provincial government discussed and consulted with experts, the location of the STAR-2 demonstration reactor was finally set to be near the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant in Haizhou.

First of all, there were abundant resources available here. The site reserved for the third phase of the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant project was a perfect place for the demonstration reactor experimental plant. Secondly, the engineers in this area were all experts in the field of nuclear power. They had an ocean of experience and could help with the demonstration reactor engineering problems.

As for the safety problem, Lu Zhou didn’t have to worry about it at all.

After the demonstration reactor location was determined, a military combat unit was deployed in the area.

On the other hand, after the project site was selected, Lu Zhou rushed to the site and began to consult the engineers from China National Nuclear Corporation. They exchanged views on the design of the demonstration reactor.

Also, in less than a week, thousands of researchers from various research institutes and engineering-related fields were assembled.

In order to ensure that this project went smoothly, the country basically agreed to all of the conditions proposed by Lu Zhou.

Which were funding and human resources.

“I have the guy.” The old man walked into the laboratory with Xiao Le and placed Xiao Le’s resume on the table.

Lu Zhou nodded.

“Thank you.”

The old man waved his hand.

“This is nothing. You guys have fun, I’m leaving.”

When the old man left the office, he closed the door on his way out.

Lu Zhou looked at how nervous Xiao Le was and smiled.

“Relax, don’t be so nervous. I only want to ask you a few questions.”

Xiao Le smiled and said, “Of course I’m nervous, I’m meeting my idol.”

Idol?

Lu Zhou heard this and smiled awkwardly.

This kid has good taste in idols.

I think I have the potential to be an idol.

However…

This is not the time to be joking around.

Lu Zhou coughed and stopped smiling. He said, “I heard from the Institute of Materials that you have visited the DIII-D at the General Atomics laboratory?”

“Yeah…” Xiao Le felt like his answer was too simple and wasn’t respectful enough. He immediately said, “I went there with Professor Li when I first started my PhD. I stayed there for four years, so I was there for the longest.”

Lu Zhou smiled and said, “I know, that’s why I brought you here.”

He paused for a second and continued, “Since you stayed there for four years, I’m sure you know a lot about the situation there. With regard to their heating technology, I want to know what their main research area is? What is their research progress like?”

Xiao Le was an expert in this field, and he immediately answered, “Their main research area right now is on the ion cyclotron resonance heating…”

Lu Zhou listened carefully to Xiao Le’s explanation while rubbing his chin with his finger and nodding from time to time.

He had to admit that the DIII-D plasma diagnosis and heating technology was very strong.

The plasma diagnosis was handled by the He3 atom probe; he didn’t have to think about that for the time being.

As for the heating part, even though it wasn’t a critical issue, he still had to pay attention.

After all, the demonstration reactor was different than the experimental reactor. The plasma diagnosis didn’t matter too much, but the heating technology was important.

A lack of heating technology would ultimately be shown in the efficiency of energy output.

Also, through these detailed explanations from Xiao Le, combined with Lu Zhou’s own experience in controllable nuclear fusion research, he could roughly estimate the research progress the General Atomics energy company had made in the field of controllable nuclear fusion as well as how far they were from a demonstration reactor.

Lu Zhou asked a lot about DIII-D’s experiment. Xiao Le answered all of the questions one by one.

Finally, Lu Zhou contemplated for a bit before saying, “The tokamak heating device isn’t exactly the same as that of the stellarator, but the heating principle is similar.

“We plan on redesigning the ICRF[1.Ion cyclotron resonance heating] antenna from the EAST machine and building one that can be used on the stellarator.

“If you are interested, I can introduce you to the research project in this area.”

Did I just… struck the jackpot?

Xiao Le was ecstatic, and he immediately nodded and said, “Please do!”

As expected, I made the correct choice on the phone…

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