Chapter 597: Too Big of a Step?

Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee Translations

The entire controllable fusion battery project was broken into thirteen sub-projects, and this covered everything from laser ignition to electric generators. A total of six research institutes participated in the project.

Due to the success of the Pangu fusion reactor, Lu Zhou felt quite confident regarding this project.

However, there had been disagreement during the discussion regarding the fusion battery nuclear fuel.

As Sheng Xianfu listened to Lu Zhou’s crazy plan, his mouth was wide open with amazement. After a while, he spoke in disbelief.

“Are you sure you want to use helium-3 as fuel? The reaction cross-section of helium-3 and deuterium is one-tenth of the deuterium-tritium reaction, but the difficulty of ignition is ten times more difficult than deuterium-tritium!”

He wasn’t the only one that held this viewpoint. The chief engineer from the China National Nuclear Corporation, Academician Wang Zengguang, also nodded.

“I also think helium-3 isn’t practical. Even though you are saving space and the cost of the nuclear core, the fact is that this cost will be passed onto laser ignition or the microwave ignition heating device.”

Academician Yu Jiannan, who didn’t know Lu Zhou very well, spoke with nuance and subtlety.

“It’s not a good thing to take too big of a step.”

Lu Zhou tapped his finger on the table as he thought for a long time.

This was a trade-off problem.

If he chose deuterium-tritium as the fuel, they would have to install a liquid lithium neutron recovery system on the fusion battery, and the volumetric energy density of the entire fusion battery would be reduced. If the He3 deuterium was selected as the reactant, it could save at least 15% of the nuclear core volume, and the volumetric energy density of the entire battery would increase.

However, Academician Wang’s words were correct. With the current domestic laser ignition technology, choosing this technical route might not result in the effect he had expected.

Lu Zhou went silent for around five minutes.

He had an idea in his mind.

“Then let’s compromise.”

Sheng Xianfu: “Compromise?”

Lu Zhou nodded and said, “Just like the fusion ignition device, we’ll go with both the technical routes. One route will be a deuterium-tritium fuel fusion battery and the other will be a He-3 deuterium fuel fusion battery. We can agree on a standard battery interface connection. If the bottleneck of the He-3 deuterium fuel fusion battery technology can’t be solved, we can immediately switch to deuterium-tritium. One day, when the helium-3 fusion problem is solved, we’ll be able to upgrade our equipment faster.”

Academician Wang Zengguang thought for a bit and said, “I think it’s a good idea.”

Academician Yu Jiannan didn’t speak a lot. He merely nodded and said, “As long as the budget allows it, I’ll allow it.”

Lu Zhou looked at a few other people, and seeing how there were no more comments, he said, “Okay, then it’s settled.”

Jumping onto helium-3 immediately was a bit premature.

Lu Zhou was convinced by his elderly teammates’ persuasion.

He admitted that when he discovered the technical route regarding the miniaturization of controllable fusion through the advanced civilization debris, he got a little too excited and forgot about Earth’s current technological capabilities.

In fact, creating fusion batteries was no piece of cake in and of itself.

As for the complete reverse engineering of the advance debris thruster technology, it wouldn’t be possible for at least another century…

After leaving the conference room, Lu Zhou planned to return to his underground laboratory so that he could continue to tinker with the Hall propulsion unit. However, when he remembered that there was still one more thing he had to do, he returned to his office.

Some time ago, while the higher-ups were approving his project, they suggested that he should submit the thesis on the feasibility of a fusion battery technology to an appropriate academic journal.

Even though Lu Zhou knew that this was intended to be a political strategy, he didn’t really care.

The thesis was his true academic viewpoint.

If the higher-ups didn’t really have a problem with the thesis content, he obviously wouldn’t refuse to submit the thesis.

He retrieved the paper he wrote some time ago and scrolled through the pages on his computer. He deleted some more “ambitious” content and only kept a few things like the “detachable core”, “laser heating”, and “microwave heating”. He then translated the entire thing into English.

In fact, for this kind of technical feasibility thesis, it didn’t matter if he didn’t make any changes. After all, this kind of strongly subjective thesis didn’t involve specific research ideas or experimental plans. It was only an argument of whether it was “feasible” or “not feasible”.

As for actually inventing the so-called “feasible” technology, that would depend on one’s abilities.

After Lu Zhou read the revised thesis from beginning to finish, he stared at the PDF file on his computer screen and began to think.

Which journal should I submit it to?

He thought for a bit and suddenly smirked. He had an idea in his mind.

He dug up his list of emails, which he hadn’t used for a year, and found the email of the PRL editor. He then typed up a simple letter, attached the thesis, and sent the email.

When Lu Zhou clicked send, he couldn’t help but feel mischievous.

I wonder if someone will praise me for my internationalism after they read this thesis?

I’m sure anyone outside of the controllable fusion field will compliment me…

…

After Lu Zhou submitted the thesis to PRL, he posted his thesis on arXiv and left this matter alone.

What he didn’t know was that his thesis was transformed into a PPT the same afternoon after his thesis was posted on arXiv.

Los Angeles International Hotel.

Inside a conference room that was a couple of hundred square meters wide…

When the crowd heard Mr. Benderbauer, the president of Tri Alpha, announcing that the company’s next step was to build a plasma engine equipped with nuclear fusion batteries for the US moon landing program, they were in an uproar.

Even though the investors sitting here didn’t necessarily know what exactly controllable nuclear fusion was, it didn’t mean that they were stupid.

The Pangu demonstration reactor was less than three months old. The United States had barely begun researching controllable fusion. Now he was talking about the miniaturization of controllable fusion. What the hell was going on?

A lot of people looked at their watches. It seemed that they had already made up their minds. If they didn’t hear any worthy news in the next five minutes, they would get up and leave.

However, Benderbauer didn’t panic in a situation like this.

He was wearing a plaid T-shirt, which was a classic Silicon Valley style. He cleared his throat and looked at the investors.

“Miniaturization of controllable fusion!

“I know this might sound unbelievable, but it’s not as difficult as we think.”

He turned the PowerPoint presentation to the next page.

An arXiv thesis appeared on the screen.

As for the author of the thesis, it was obviously the chief designer of the controllable fusion project, Lu Zhou.

The crowd was in an uproar again, and there was a commotion in the venue.

Even the people that didn’t care about this PowerPoint presentation couldn’t help but start paying attention.

After all, this was Lu Zhou, the father of controllable fusion!

If anyone else were to talk about the miniaturization of controllable fusion, they would be ignored. But the words from this big name was different.

The CEO of Exxon Mobil, Woods, was sitting in the back corner of the venue, and he stared at the name on the screen.

To be honest, he was not optimistic about the over-hyped Silicon Valley company Tri-alpha. In fact, he was more inclined to invest in the practical and stable General Atomics Company.

However, when he saw the name on the screen, he began thinking again.

Because Lu Zhou’s name made a lasting impression in his mind, and this made him anxious.

The lithium batteries market had multiplied more than a hundred times. This piece of the energy pie was getting bigger and bigger, and Wall Street was full of regrets.

From the lithium battery anode material to the positive electrode material, a part of this pie belonged to them. But now, they were paying other people in the energy industry as they watched them make a fortune in front of their eyes.

Now that a breakthrough had been made in the nuclear power field, power generation costs would be further reduced, and the lithium battery market would only grow larger.

Precisely because of the mistake he made last time, he had to pay extra attention to the technological feasibility thesis that Lu Zhou wrote.

On the other hand, Benderbauer was on stage, holding Lu Zhou’s thesis.

“The nuclear core inside the battery can be of a modular structure. This design allows us to ignore the damage to the material structure to a certain extent.

“Based on this design, this disposable controllable fusion battery is much less technically difficult than the fusion reactor! Even though the cost is a problem, it is minuscule compared to the money we spent on the space race.”

When Benderbauer saw the investors’ eyes lit up, he knew that the time was now. Therefore, he smiled brightly and threw another piece of bait.

“As for whether or not our products will have a place in the market, please rest assured.

“In fact, just yesterday, we reached a strategic cooperation agreement with Space-X, to prepare a fusion battery that can be applied to their spacecraft. The miniaturized controllable fusion device will be first applied in the aerospace field. The related research projects have already been approved by the Congressional Budget Office!

“I believe that in the near future, our rockets will be able to use clean and endless nuclear energy. Our footprint will be all over space. I am certain that day will come sooner than the controllable fusion device in California!”

His passionate voice seemed to have ignited everyone’s emotions.

Woods looked at his secretary and lowered his voice.

“I need a briefing on Tri Alpha’s earnings and business operations!”

The secretary immediately knew what the CEO was thinking about.

“Okay, sir, the documents will be on your desk by tonight.”

Woods said, “Go do it now, I need it before the six o’clock dinner.”

The secretary nodded upon hearing this difficult demand.

“Ok.”

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