Chapter 468 Three-Word Answer

Lu Zhou's speech was beyond Academician Wu's expectation.

In the previous meeting with Ambassador Zhang, Lu Zhou revealed that he planned to talk about the new energy field in this meeting.

But everyone didn't think much about it, only that he was going to talk about the future development direction of lithium-sulfur battery-related technologies, and what support his own research needs from the state.

It is precisely for this reason that Wu Shigang was invited to serve as the consultant for this meeting, the so-called "academic translation".

However, a systematic scientific research project like nuclear fusion...

There is no doubt that this has gone beyond the scope of his professional field.

Noticing the way the old man looked at him, Academician Wu hesitated for a moment, looked at Lu Zhou seriously and asked.

"Can you elaborate?"

Lu Zhou nodded: "The source of all energy on earth, whether it is fossil fuel, wind energy, water potential energy... ultimately comes from the sun, and the energy of the sun comes from fusion."

"As I said before, from the perspective of technology, summarizing the experience of several industrial revolutions, the key to liberating all productivity and production factors is energy in the final analysis."

"If we can control the energy of fusion, it means that we control the sun, and we also control the future!"

The room was silent for a minute.

Lu Zhou also waited quietly for a minute.

He believes that the people sitting here have listened to hundreds of impassioned speeches and learned enough lessons from them.

But he also believes in the weight of the Nobel Prize itself and the power of the word controlled nuclear fusion itself.

It is cleaner than fission power generation, and consumes a wider source of raw materials.

The mass of deuterium contained in one liter of seawater reaches 0.03g, and nuclear fusion can provide energy equivalent to the energy released by the complete combustion of 300 liters of gasoline.

Deuterium resources stored on the earth are extremely rich, and there are more than 45 trillion tons of deuterium in seawater alone, which can be said to be inexhaustible. As for the expensive tritium, it can also be solved by the method of "tritium retention".

If controllable nuclear fusion technology is mastered, all energy-related problems faced by modern industry will no longer be problems.

And what does it mean once the energy problem is solved?

This means that as long as you want, even in the barren desert, you can build a series of high-rise buildings made of reinforced concrete. Even on the darkest ocean floor, you can spread out a vast expanse of farmland...at least in theory.

Because then.

Electricity, is no longer valuable...

Of course, only Lu Zhou can see these things, or he believes he can see them.

Compared with these unfulfilled fantasies, what leaders need to consider is more realistic.

After thinking for a long time, Academician Wu exchanged glances with the old man, then looked at Lu Zhou, and said slowly.

"The controllable nuclear fusion project has been around for a long time, but so far there has been no significant progress. In fact, our country has already played a very important role in the ITER project. We are well aware of the value of this technology and are willing to invest more in it. A lot. But the big question is, how sure are you? And is it worth it.”

Lu Zhou shook his head: "Unless it is a technology that has already been realized, no technology can know that it will be able to do it before starting the experiment. Science itself is trial and error, and the same is true for any field of science. You are an academician, you should understand Yes."

"But the cost of trial and error in controllable nuclear fusion technology may be a bit high."

When he said this, Wu Shigang felt that his palms were sweating.

Whether it was because of the amazing topic itself, or because of the appetite of the young man in front of him.

To say the least, it is also a project worth hundreds of millions.

To put it bluntly, there is no upper limit.

Before it is actually made, no one knows how much money it will burn except for the visible funding black hole...

Regarding the question raised by Academician Wu, Lu Zhou did not hide it and nodded.

"Yes, it is expensive, but the merits are in the present and the benefits will be in the future."

Maybe it was after careful consideration, or maybe it was moved by the last sentence.

The old man thought about it for about half a minute, and then slowly said, "What kind of support do you need?"

Lu Zhou said in a positive tone: "Funds, people, and the cooperation of relevant departments."

The old man nodded, and didn't even ask for the specific number, only answered three words.

"no problem."

...

While the conversation in the compound was going on, academician Pan Changhong, who was far away from the Southwest Institute of Physics of the Nuclear Industry, was presiding over an important working meeting.

The core issue discussed at the meeting was the breakthrough made by Spiralite 7-X in plasma confinement time a month ago.

The report at the meeting was Professor Sheng Xianfu who came back from an exchange visit to Germany. In the report, he mentioned the problem of the stellarator on the water-cooled divertor, mentioned how the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Max Planck Society solved this problem, and also highlighted Lu Zhou's paper.

"Professor Lu's calculation results play a vital role in the stellarator research, and this is specifically reflected in the updated control scheme of the Helix 7-X Research Institute..."

In the PPT, Professor Sheng showed the relevant technical details, and quickly passed the data on the picture.

At the very end, he put his hands on the table and said in an affirmative tone.

"We have to pay attention to this problem. We started too late in the study of stellarators, but if we don't pay attention, we will always be late."

At this time, a researcher raised objections.

"However, even so, the tokamak is more concise in engineering, and it is still the mainstream of international nuclear fusion energy research."

Professor Sheng nodded and argued with reason.

"I know that the tokamak is still the mainstream, but that doesn't mean it must be correct. Before the birth of this technology, any possibility should be considered!"

At this time, another researcher put forward his point of view.

"The technical difficulty of the tokamak lies in the confinement of the plasma, right? Why don't you ask Professor Lu to help us design a control scheme?"

Professor Sheng shook his head: "Tokamak is more than an order of magnitude more difficult than stellarator in terms of confinement of plasma. Even if such a control scheme exists in theory, it is difficult to have matching hardware that can run it." .”

The researcher continued: "How do you know if you don't let him try?"

Professor Sheng was annoyed: "Then why don't you write to him yourself?"

Choked by these words, the researcher smiled and stopped talking.

Let the Nobel laureate do things for himself, he doesn't have that much face.

Due to time constraints, the meeting entered an intermission.

Walking to the corridor, Academician Pan lit a cigarette, recalling what Professor Sheng said in the report.

"I have a vague feeling that the road to the tokamak may not work."

Compared with the jubilation of the media for every achievement of the EAST system, Academician Pan, who is actually working in this field, is relatively more cautious.

Because of many things, it may be an exciting thing for laymen, but for experts, it is not even a phased result.

Standing next to Academician Pan, Professor Zheng Gaoming asked, "Why do you say that?"

"There is no particular reason," Academician Pan just shook his head and flicked the cigarette butt on his finger. "It's just an intuition."

Just then, the phone in his pocket rang.

After stubbing out the cigarette butt, Academician Pan reached out for the phone and brought it to his ear.

"Hey?"

After listening in silence for a while, Academician Pan didn't speak, but nodded at the end.

"okay, I get it."

Having been observing the expression on Academician Pan's face, Zheng Gaoming couldn't figure it out, so he couldn't help asking tentatively.

"……what's up?"

Stuffing the phone back into his pocket, Academician Pan looked at Professor Zheng.

"The person we talked about at the meeting is now in Beijing."