The last human in the universe

Chapter 38 Oxygen Mine
Although the children have not yet graduated, they have also received a lot of relevant professional education.It may not be possible to do specific work, but it is still possible to put forward some ideas from the theoretical level.

Just as Zhao Changxing expected, the teenagers exploded with great enthusiasm for this matter.In just one month, thousands of feasible suggestions were put forward, covering many aspects such as materials, structures, and optics.

The members of the fusion generator project team carried out verification non-stop, and finally absorbed about dozens of suggestions and applied them to the project.

Great progress has been made in the research and development of fusion generators, but...there is still a long way to go before the final product.Moreover, this distance is no longer something that can be surpassed by a whimsical idea or a certain structural optimization.

Facing the messy parts and drawings in the laboratory, Chai Cheng and others all looked heavy.

Electricity is the core driving all constructions and the heart of the entire human base.Without enough power, basically nothing can be done.

Zhao Changxing had a vague feeling that he, no, the entire human civilization had encountered another important challenge after the asteroid incident.

Is it true that we can only slowly wait for the industrial level to rise to a certain level before building fusion generators?But it will take at least a few decades.During these decades, just let people's time and energy be wasted like this?

Not only that, I'm afraid that the rate of population increase of 100 every six months on the Pyrotech spacecraft will also slow down.Because if the population is too large, Zhao Changxing will not have enough food to feed them.

There is not enough food because no more grow plants can be built.Cannot build more grow plants because there is not enough power supply.

The development process of the entire human civilization will be delayed for decades for this reason.Basically a whole generation of people's lives will be wasted.

Thinking hard to no avail, Zhao Changxing sighed, put on a spacesuit which is very rare, left the base alone, and wandered slowly on the land of Sedna star full of dark red Torrin.

There are so many Thorins on Sedna, it can almost be described as endless.They almost filled Zhao Changxing's entire field of vision.Mountains, land, canyons, and plains are almost all covered by Thorin.Just like at Zhao Changxing's feet at this moment - this place should have been a huge canyon with a depth of more than a thousand meters, but at this moment, from the outside, it is no different from the plains in other places.

The endless torin has filled it completely.This canyon alone has reserves of at least tens of billions of cubic meters.

This is the fringe of the solar system, the cold and lonely Sedna star has been accumulated little by little during the long time of billions of years.

"It would be great if there were rivers on Sedna, and I can build a hydroelectric power station. If there is coal, then I can build a thermal power station. If it is closer to the sun, a solar power station can also be used. But this There's nothing but Torin, what's the use of... eh? Torin? Torin!"

Zhao Changxing's eyes suddenly lit up.

He found that not only himself, but everyone had fallen into a misunderstanding of thinking.

Faced with the dilemma of insufficient power supply and the inability to manufacture new fusion generators, the first thing people think about is how to find a way to manufacture the generator.After confirming that this road is unworkable, I still adopted the thinking of the earth age, thinking about building hydroelectric power stations or thermal power stations, and thinking about finding things like rivers, coal, and oil.

These things naturally do not exist on Sedna.It has a lot of Torrin on it.But almost everyone subconsciously ignores Thorin.

But, but... Thorin is also organic!Torrin can burn too!

Thorin is mainly made of simple organic substances such as methane and ethane irradiated by ultraviolet rays and cosmic high-energy rays.It is a mixture.Its calorific value is even higher than that of coal.

Isn't this guarding the mountains of gold and silver but being a beggar?

On the land of Sedna Star, which is full of dark red Torrin, Zhao Changxing stomped his feet fiercely.

Just when he was about to go back to conduct the feasibility study of the Tuolin Thermal Power Station, Zhao Changxing suddenly thought of another question.

He found that he was still thinking about the problem with the thinking of the earth age, while ignoring a very serious matter.

Torrin is of course combustible, and it is entirely feasible to use it to build a thermal power station.But, but...

Like coal, tholin requires oxygen to burn.

This problem is not a problem at all in the age of the earth.Because the oxygen in the atmosphere is almost inexhaustible.But here on Sedna, where to find oxygen?

At this stage, there is actually no shortage of oxygen in the human base.There is a lot of water ice on Sedna, and after melting it and electrolyzing it, a large amount of oxygen can be produced.However, there is no problem with the oxygen produced in this way for breathing and industrial purposes, but it will not work if it is used to participate in the combustion of Tolin and build thermal power stations to generate electricity.

The reason is very simple, electrolyzed water also needs to consume electricity!And as long as a very simple calculation can be known, doing so is completely losing money.

The electrolyzed water electrolyzes a portion of oxygen, and all this oxygen is used to participate in the combustion of Thorin, and then electricity is generated, and the electricity generated is then used to electrolyze water, and at most only 0.75 parts of oxygen can be electrolyzed.

The more electricity you generate, the more you will pay.

The only solution is to find enough pure oxygen on Sedna - it must be pure oxygen, not oxygen compounds.Otherwise, simply decomposing the oxygen will consume too much energy and cause it to lose its value.

But, does pure oxygen exist on Sedna?
The answer is yes.During these years, those ten geological exploration satellites have searched the surface of Sedna star countless times, and have found some oxygen elements that have been frozen into a solid state, which are called oxygen mines.

But...their reserves are too low.It is barely enough for daily breathing, and it is just a drop in the bucket for power plants.

The most critical problem is that there seems to be no possibility of theoretically having too much pure oxygen reserves on Sedna.The only oxygen deposits are likely to be formed by various chances and coincidences.

"Could it be that the thermal power solution really doesn't work? Could it be that we can only wait for industrial development and the creation of new fusion generators to solve this bottleneck?"

Zhao Changxing did not accept this situation.He put down the rest of his work and devoted all his attention to searching for information.

He was looking at the theoretical possibility of allowing Sedna, a cold dwarf planet far from its star, to host a large number of oxygen deposits.

Only when this possibility is found at the theoretical level, can it be possible to use theory as a guide for practical actions.

During the long database search, some expressions in a paper that seemed to have nothing to do with the current predicament caught Zhao Changxing's attention.

"We have observed that under certain special circumstances, certain compounds of oxygen elements—such as water, such as iron oxide, etc.—can react spontaneously and purify elemental oxygen through ultraviolet rays or other high-energy rays. "

Zhao Changxing's heart started beating immediately.He keenly discovered that the so-called special environment in the experiment described in this paper seems to have certain similarities with that on Sedna.

The first is low temperature.The temperature on Sedna is obviously very low.Second is low pressure.The atmospheric pressure on the surface of Sedna is simply zero.Again it is long exposure.The surface of Sedna may have been subjected to radiation for billions of years...

Zhao Changxing immediately began to search for more related papers based on this, and finally came to a preliminary conclusion.

On Sedna Star, it is very likely that there are also huge reserves of oxygen mines!The key point of the search is to first find a storage point for a large amount of oxides—hydrogen oxide, that is, water, or iron oxide, sodium oxide, etc. will do.

They must be as open-air as possible, the depth of the veins is not important but must be wide, and cannot be located in places such as deep canyons that cannot receive cosmic radiation.

Zhao Changxing immediately started screening based on the existing observation data.Finally, a dry ice mine covering a large area was selected.

In the previous search, this dry ice mine also contained some oxygen ore, but because the reserves were too low, Zhao Changxing gave up.But now, under the guidance of the latest theory, this dry ice mine obviously has a higher value.

At least it's worth Zhao Changxing's field exploration.

During this period of time, the construction of the road network subgrade has been completed at this moment.The steel mills have even begun to produce rails, and the initial laying has begun.Under such circumstances, Zhao Changxing drove a space vehicle, speeding on the surface of Sedna, heading straight for the dry ice mine.

After clearing the surface-covered torin, Zhao Changxing began intensive testing of various prospecting equipment.When a large shadow finally appeared on the monitor—the shadow means the existence of solid oxygen ore—Zhao Changxing suddenly relaxed and waved his fist fiercely.

"I knew that there must be a huge amount of oxygen ore on Sedna!"

They may have formed billions of years ago, and after they were formed, they were covered by layers of tholins over a long period of time.It was only now that Zhao Changxing discovered the trace.

Preliminary detection shows that in this piece of dry ice mine, there are at least hundreds of millions of tons of oxygen ore reserves, which is completely enough to support the operation of thermal power plants.In particular, it is not too far from the living circle.As long as the railway is extended for less than fifty kilometers at the mining site closest to it, it can be reached here.

For such a huge oxygen mine, it is totally worthwhile to build a railway to extend here.

"Chai Cheng, don't think about the fusion generator anymore. Start preparing to build a thermal power station. I found an oxygen mine."

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(End of this chapter)