The rise of nanometers

October 5th.

Huang Xiuyuan participated in a high-level scientific research video conference.

The expensive virtual conference room system is also put into use for the first time. It uses an internal optical fiber network to avoid the possibility of network leaks.

At present, the Suiren Department has installed somatosensory cabins in 86 research institutes in 45 major cities across the country. Through these somatosensory cabins, people can achieve an immersive meeting effect.

Although these somatosensory cabins are just simplified versions of the ones in Huang Xiuyuan's secret room, the cost of a set is still as high as about 800,000 yuan.

First meeting.

More than a dozen people, including Huang Xiuyuan and Lu Xuedong from the Department of Sui Ren, as well as experts and scholars from various nuclear energy fields across the country, as well as related enterprises and institutions such as China National Nuclear Corporation, the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Engineering, a total of more than 170 people participated in this virtual meeting.

Several academicians in the field of nuclear energy took the stage to announce some recent results and prospects for the future.

Academician Fang Pengfei, chief engineer of CNNC, appeared on the seat next to Huang Xiuyuan just after taking the stage to speak.

Academician Fang whispered: "Xiuyuan, your company should also have a nuclear energy project, right?"

Huang Xiuyuan did not deny that the Suiren Department did have several nuclear projects, including previously developed radioactive material separation technology, seawater heavy water refining, seawater uranium refining, etc., but they did not conduct in-depth research on nuclear fission reactors.

"Our company has some projects, but I don't agree with the research and development of fission reactors. It is mainly about some theoretical research work on nuclear fusion."

Academician Fang was a little surprised: "Nuclear fusion? Which direction do you plan to take?"

"Which other direction can we go?" Huang Xiuyuan spread his hands helplessly: "Now we can only go through magnetic restraint. Inertial lasers and stellarators are unlikely."

"That's true." Academician Fang naturally knew the difference between the three. The stellarator was too complicated, and the inertial laser was just trying to sell something like a sheep.

Many areas that study inertial lasers are nominally studying controllable nuclear fusion, but are actually conducting micro-nuclear explosion experiments.

Only magnetically bound tokamak devices show some promise.

However, there are also many difficulties. If the magnetic confinement solution is to achieve commercial power generation through controllable nuclear fusion, it must solve four core issues: temperature, inner wall neutron irradiation, plasma operation model, and normal temperature superconductivity.

At present, humans can only barely solve the temperature problem and use low-temperature superconductivity.

There has been no good solution for the remaining neutron irradiation and plasma operating rules.

Huang Xiuyuan listened to the speeches of many experts in the industry, but did not find any eye-catching solutions. Controlled nuclear fusion, which is always fifty years away, is no joke.

This nuclear energy symposium, in addition to discussing the standards and technical directions of the new generation of fission reactors, also discussed some issues of nuclear fusion.

Although the energy problem has been solved in China, both traditional fossil fuels and new energy are developing very fast.

But for the future, even Huang Xiuyuan cannot guarantee whether Western countries will come up with controllable nuclear fusion technology in advance.

Controllable nuclear fusion is one of the tickets to the next era. Once any country masters this technology, it will inevitably trigger a chain reaction.

In order to ensure its advantage, the country is absolutely not allowed to lag behind in controllable nuclear fusion technology.

This is also the purpose of this symposium. It is hoped that some clear routes can be discussed to promote the development of controllable nuclear fusion.

Just how full the ideal is, how skinny the reality is.

In Huang Xiuyuan’s memory, mankind’s first commercial controllable nuclear fusion power station was the Weihai Nuclear Power Station in Shandong Province that was put into use in 2053.

Although the Weihai Nuclear Power Plant claims to be able to control nuclear fusion, it has not actually been fully commercialized. Its Q value has been stuck around 15 until the year it was attacked. The Q value was still hovering around 15.

At that time, China already had room-temperature superconducting technology, the reaction temperature could be raised to 840 million degrees Celsius, and a rough plasma operating model was also mastered.

However, the fatal problem of neutron irradiation has not been solved for a long time. The anti-neutron material on the inner wall of the reactor can only last for 17 days at most before it must be shut down and replaced.

Other parts will also become embrittled and deformed due to neutron irradiation, and parts must be replaced every 3 to 8 months.

As a result, the controllable nuclear fusion reactor has to stop every three days to replace parts, and frequent startup and shutdown, resulting in the Q value being unable to increase.

The added cost of constantly replacing materials makes people feel even more desperate.

At that time, the United States also built an experimental nuclear fusion reactor in 2057, and the Q value was also stuck around 15.

As for the declining Xizhou and Lucia, they even hesitated to build experimental reactors. After all, the average production cost of nuclear fusion power stations at that time was about 20 to 30 Chinese yuan per kilowatt hour.

Even China, which has a national system, cannot bear this cost, let alone a capitalist country. Capitalists will not fully support a business without profit.

Huang Xiuyuan, who was lost in memories, suddenly heard Lu Xuedong's voice.

"Xiuyuan, it's your turn to speak."

Huang Xiuyuan, who woke up from his memories, clicked on the stage to speak. His figure disappeared from his seat and then appeared on the podium.

He already has a draft for this symposium.

"I am very honored to be invited to speak, and I am very happy to discuss the future of nuclear energy with you." After Huang Xiuyuan finished speaking, he went straight to the topic:

"As for the development of controllable nuclear fusion, I only put forward some immature suggestions on the magnetic confinement scheme. I haven't done much research on other schemes, so I won't go into detail here."

Opening the information I prepared, the three-dimensional image of the tokamak device appeared in the middle of the conference hall.

"As we all know, there are currently four major problems in the magnetic confinement scheme. Among them, temperature and superconductivity are barely usable. However, there has been no clue about the operating rules of plasma and neutron irradiation."

None of the attendees present were surprised.

"Our company has been conducting research on normal-temperature superconductors, and has now achieved superconducting effects at minus 32 degrees Celsius."

"I have also done a lot of analysis and simulation on the regular model of plasma operation. I hope to have in-depth cooperation with domestic tokamak device laboratories."

He paused and continued:

"But there is nothing I can do about the issue of neutron irradiation. Although using helium 3 as the raw material for nuclear fusion can effectively reduce the production of neutrons, everyone is well aware of the reasons."

Of course, everyone understands that helium-3 is very good. The problem is that the helium-3 reserves inside Blue Star are so pitifully small that they are not even enough for experiments, let alone large-scale use.

The only way to mine helium-3 is to go to the moon. Now it is very difficult and very expensive to go to the moon to mine helium-3.

Even in the future, when China and the United States establish bases on the moon, they can only refine 0.2 to 0.4 kilograms of helium-3 per year at most.

This scale of refining can only be said to be a drop in the bucket.

"Therefore, I sincerely invite everyone to develop anti-neutron materials. Suiren Company is willing to invest 5 billion in anti-neutron materials."

Regarding Huang Xiuyuan's wealth, many people looked enviously and began to discuss in a low voice.

Huang Xiuyuan had no choice but to spend money in advance, hoping that someone would have a flash of inspiration and develop a solution to neutron exposure.

Thank you for your support (ω｀)