Chapter 1012 Helios

"...four burning horses, the sun chariot carrying the fire gallops in the air, from east to west, morning rises and evening sets, making the light shine all over the world."

Yawning in the limousine, listening to the singing tone, Lu Zhou looked away from the car window and glanced at Minister Novak sitting next to him.

"what are you saying?"

The guy laughed, and he was so kind that people couldn't tell that he was the head of the Russian Ministry of Energy. Instead, he was like an enthusiastic tour guide, explaining to Lu Zhou in a humorous tone.

"Homer's epic! The description about Helios... is also the nuclear power plant we are about to arrive at!"

As he spoke, his tone was filled with emotion.

"In order to bring the light closer to the ground, the son of Helios accidentally set fire to the earth, turned Libya into a desert, and burned the skin of Ethiopian residents to black. Homer probably would not have imagined it two or three thousand years ago. Thousands of years later, people have not only achieved the feats that can only be accomplished by gods, but have even surpassed gods and found a gentle way to release the energy of the sun."

Lu Zhou: "...Why is the version you mentioned a little different from what I've heard?"

Minister Novak said with a smile: "It's not surprising. There are many versions of things compiled by word of mouth. What's more, later generations will undergo certain artistic processing when sorting out. If you are interested, we can find It’s an opportunity to have a good chat, and I happen to have some research on this.”

Lu Zhou declined politely, "Thank you, but I'm not particularly interested in myths and legends."

For him, taking a day off to deal with non-academic matters is already the limit he can accept.

Especially at this stall where the IMU conference is about to start.

"Well, I understand that not everyone has the talent to be a poet..." Shrugging his shoulders helplessly, Minister Novak looked out of the window and said, looking at the towering wall not far away, "We have arrived."

The Helios nuclear power plant is located on the coast of the Baltic Sea, surrounded by a towering high wall, and like the fusion power plant in Haizhou, it is guarded by Russian troops.

On the stone tablet in front of the main entrance of the fence, Lu Zhou saw three trademarks, two of which were the General Nuclear Power Construction Group, which was responsible for the construction of the Xihe Reactor, and East Asia Electric Power, which was responsible for supplying the reactor core. As for the other, it was this The real owner of the first fusion power station - Rosatom.

As an oligarch in the Russian nuclear power field, Rosatom controls almost all production links of the entire industrial chain from top to bottom in Russia, and even the vast majority of uranium mines in Siberia.

Cooperating with such an enterprise is not only the active choice of East Asia Power, but also an option supported by the Russian government.

According to the contract signed between East Asia Electric Power and Rosatom, East Asia Electric Power will send engineers to the Helios Nuclear Power Plant to provide technical services for a period of 20 years while selling the core to Rosatom at an expensive price.

These technical services include the maintenance and upgrade of the core control system, including the inspection of the safety status of the core. In short, every effort is made to ensure the normal operation of the core.

At the same time, in the past two decades, East Asia Power will also share 13% of the profits generated by the core provided by East Asia Power.

Although this kind of cooperation method of selling things to you and using your things to make money has a bit of an unequal treaty flavor, but who wants to have only one company in the world, East Asia Electric Power?

When the European Union and North America were still vacillating, Russia signed the agreement without saying a word, and it was precisely because of this that they successfully became the customer of East Asia Power's first overseas core project.

And now, the core from Huaguo has finally been delivered here.

In order to welcome the historic moment of core ignition, not only the Russian Minister of Energy visited here in person, but also made a special trip to cooperate with Lu Zhou's itinerary, adjusting the ignition time to early August.

In fact, if it wasn't for waiting for Lu Zhou, they could have lit the fire a week ago.

At the gate of the Helios Fusion Power Station, a gray-haired old man stood there. When he saw Lu Zhou getting off the car, his eyes suddenly shone with joy, and he greeted him with a smile.

"Welcome, Professor Lu! We meet again."

"Hello, Academician Vasily."

Holding the old man's outstretched hands and shaking them, Lu Zhou smiled friendly, and then looked at another serious-faced middle-aged man standing beside him.

"Who is this?"

"Lermontov," stretched out his right hand, unlike the enthusiastic Academician Vasily, this serious middle-aged man didn't seem to be very interested in him, he just said briefly, "The person in charge here one."

Not caring about the person in charge's attitude towards him, Lu Zhou nodded to him friendly, and then continued to look at the door.

At this moment, he suddenly saw an unexpected figure.

"Academician Wang? Why are you here?"

Chief Engineer of Nuclear Industry Group, Academician Wang Zengguang!

One of the veterans in the field of nuclear power who ignited the fusion fire with him back then in Haizhou!

Regardless of Pan Changhong, academician Zhou Chengfu, the old men of the previous era, and academician Li Jiangang of the Institute of Material Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences who has a relatively low sense of presence, the three of them are basically the Big Three in the field of Huaguo's nuclear industry.

Because Lu Zhou didn't publish engineering articles, didn't accept students, and even resigned from his position, Mr. Wang's influence in the nuclear industry may be a little bit bigger than him.

This time Lu Zhou was really surprised. He really didn't expect Academician Wang to come.

"After all, it is the first overseas project of our nuclear fusion project. I can't just leave it alone." Wang Zengguang laughed, frowned at the surprised Lu Zhou, and continued, "Let's go, The people from Rosatom have been waiting for us for a long time, don't you see that our Mr. Lermontov is getting impatient? Let's stop standing at the door and come in and talk."

The group did not stay at the door for too long.

Even without Academician Wang's urging, Minister Novak had no intention of letting Lu Zhou stand at the door to continue the conversation.

He couldn't wait for the upcoming ignition ceremony.

On the way to the control tower of the fusion power station, Lu Zhou learned from the chat that, as a representative sent by the nuclear industry group, Academician Wang arrived much earlier than himself, even as early as a week.

The ignition should have started a week ago, but it was delayed until now due to various reasons.

Although this has nothing to do with Huaguo, it is mainly Russia's own arrangement, but many technicians and management personnel of Rosatom are quite critical of this.

After all, one week late ignition means one week late power supply, and one week late power supply means that their capital chain has to bear an extra week of pressure.

If the ignition is delayed due to safety or other technical reasons, that’s all. Now it’s just to wait for the flight of a Chinese, and a certain minister’s political show, and the ignition date has been adjusted back for a whole week. It makes people feel a little uncomfortable.

But anyway, this moment finally came.

At this moment, a group of people stood darkly in the command tower.

The person standing at the head is naturally Minister Novak, and most of the people standing beside him are senior officials from the Russian Ministry of Energy and core technicians from several nuclear power companies.

The camera lens was lined up around the command room, and the reporters with long guns and short cannons in their hands made the command room, which was not very spacious, even more crowded.

However, no one cared about these minutiae, staring at the screen and buttons on the front console, almost all the Russians present held their breath.

All work was done a week in advance.

Now it's just a matter of pressing the final button!

Under everyone's gaze, Minister Novak, standing in front of the console, tried to calm his heartbeat, and repeatedly rubbed his index finger and thumb while looking at the button in front of him.

Finally, taking a deep breath, he looked away from the console, looked around at the reporters holding cameras and the Rosatom engineers, and said in a solemn voice.

"This is a great moment!"

"It not only witnesses that the Russian people finally ushered in an eternal flame, but also witnesses the friendship between us and the people of China...May it last forever like the sun, and may our world, because of the eternal energy, be forever go down in peace."

After all, under the attention of all eyes, he pressed the button.

Then……

There seems to be no response?

Staring at a series of indicators such as radiation data and plasma temperature on the console, Lu Zhou frowned slightly. I don't know if it was his illusion. I always felt that this was the same as when he pressed the button in Haizhou. The situation seems to be somewhat different.

Academician Wang and Academician Vasili also obviously saw this, and their expressions became solemn at the same time.

However, the reporters standing nearby, and Minister Novak himself who pressed the button, didn't seem to notice anything wrong, and even cheered.

However, at this moment, the door of the command room was suddenly pushed open, and an engineer wearing a hard hat walked quickly to the side of Minister Novak and said in a trembling voice with an ugly face.

"Mr. Minister!"

Originally, there was still a cheerful expression on his face, but after seeing the engineer's face, he realized that something might be wrong, and his face suddenly collapsed.

However, he managed to remain calm and asked with a dignified expression on his face.

"……What happened?"

"The core, there seems to be something wrong."

The command tower suddenly fell silent.

The reporters who were taking pictures stopped.

The expression on Minister Novak's face froze for a moment.

And after he came back to his senses, the cold sweat sticking to his back and forehead broke out in a flash.

"What the hell happened?! What does something wrong with the core mean?"

The engineer in the helmet swallowed and continued in a trembling voice.

"Our core..."

"Looks like it's off."