Chapter 379 One Hundred Times Efficiency

With the leaders’ statements on the spot and Kang Chi’s vigorous task allocation, the reorganization of more than a dozen fusion projects into Jinwu No. 1 has actually become a foregone conclusion.

But Zhong Weijian couldn't help asking Kang Chi a question: "According to my analysis, the biggest problem of the magnetized target device of the general fusion is actually the liquid metal."

"Although their second-generation device can theoretically solve the problem of uniform spreading of the liquid metal wall, as the first wall material in the nuclear fusion reaction, the heat exchange characteristics between the liquid metal and the wall under the condition of an external magnetic field, that is, the problem of heat accumulation and thermal conductivity, still do not provide an effective solution."

"Although they have not released relevant specific data, based on the existing intelligence analysis, I think the time interval between their two fusion reactions is at least more than 1 minute, otherwise the device will definitely explode!"

"In other words, even if their device runs continuously every day, it can only perform 1440 reactions a day at most. Even if they meet the final design standards, each time the plasma is compressed, it consumes 14 trillion energy and generates 704 megajoules of energy, which means that it can only generate 993.6 gigajoules of energy a day."

"According to the electric energy conversion formula 1 MJ≈0.27778 Calculated by kWh, even without considering the energy conversion loss, the maximum power generation of this device is only about 276MWh per day. "

"If the 35-60% thermoelectric conversion efficiency is taken into account, the actual power generation will not exceed 165,000 kWh. With our current nuclear fission power station, a reactor can generate at least 10 million kWh of electricity."

"Excuse me, if a nuclear fusion device can only generate 165,000 kWh of electricity per day, then even if the Q value is high, it actually has no meaning..."

Hearing Zhong Weijian's words, everyone couldn't help but discuss it.

Even the expressions of the old man and Chief Lu became a little complicated...

However, facing Academician Zhong's doubts, Kang Chi seemed very calm, and even silently gave Zhong Weijian a thumbs up in his heart.

As expected of an academician, he is still very knowledgeable.

When other people suddenly heard about the magnetized target device, they were somewhat unfamiliar or even confused, and could only be pushed forward by him.

But Zhong Weijian was able to think of the core problem of the magnetized target device in such a short time, which shows that his research on controlled nuclear fusion is not entirely focused on the tokamak device.

Kang Chi nodded to Academician Zhong and said affirmatively: "Your analysis is correct, and I even think your analysis is conservative. I think their reaction interval should be at least two minutes."

"In addition to the greater engineering difficulty of equipment manufacturing, the core problem of the magnetized target device is actually the material of the first wall. Its importance in the entire device is like the electrolyte in a battery."

"And the liquid metal currently used by General Fusion should still be a lithium-lead mixture."

"As an element for neutron absorption and tritium proliferation, lithium is definitely indispensable, while lead, because of its high atomic mass, helps reduce the generation and escape of X-ray radiation, thereby improving the efficiency of fusion reactions. At the same time, it can also act as a neutron blanket to protect the inner wall of the reaction chamber from damage by neutron radiation."

"The most important thing is that lead can remain liquid at operating temperature, so it is the best thermal conductive material they have found so far."

"But the thermal conductivity of lead is only 35W/mK, which is a metal material with poor thermal conductivity. Therefore, as Academician Zhong said, even if the Lawson Machine-26 project succeeds, it has considerable limitations. "

"But the problem is that I never said that Jinwu No. 1 is copying Lawson Machine-26."

Kang Chi smiled confidently:

"In fact, I have found a liquid material that is more suitable as the first wall material than the lithium-lead mixture. Its thermal conductivity is 30 times higher than that of the lithium-lead mixture."

"At the same time, if we replace the heat pipe of the cooling system of the entire device with another graphene composite material with a thermal conductivity of 1.8KW/(mK), and redesign and optimize other non-critical materials and structures of the device... The actual operating efficiency of Jinwu No. 1 will theoretically be at least 100 times higher than that of Lawson Machine-26!"

Wow——

Hearing this, the scene was boiling.

100 times? ! !

What does this mean?

It means that Jinwu No. 1, a fusion device alone, can generate at least 16 million kilowatt-hours of electricity a day,

which is almost 5.8 billion kilowatt-hours a year!

Although it seems that it is not much higher than the traditional fission reactor, the two types of devices are completely different and actually have little reference significance.

This is like comparing the torque of an 8-cylinder sports car with that of a two-wheeled electric car.

However, if the gap is as large as 100,000 and 10 million as Zhong Weijian just analyzed, then it is another matter...

The biggest problems of traditional fission power plants are safety, fuel, and operation and maintenance.

These three problems make the cost of nuclear power plants high and cannot be the best answer for energy.

Nuclear fusion solves these problems.

Whether it is a tokamak device or the Jinwu No. 1 designed by Kang Chi, as long as it is a fusion device, even if there is a problem, at most it will be shut down.

Without the input of fuel and energy, the fusion reaction cannot continue, let alone cause a nuclear accident.

At the same time, the nuclear fuel burned in each fusion reaction is at the milligram or even microgram level. Even if an accident occurs and the device explodes, it will be an explosion with limited destructive power at best.

Therefore, although the sizes of the core devices of the two may be similar, fusion power plants do not require too many bulky and complicated supporting facilities. Therefore, whether it is the construction cost of the nuclear power plant, the later operating costs, fuel costs, or even the requirements for construction site selection, all Much lower than fission power plants.

What's more, if Jinwu-1 can succeed, the power generation power will be higher than that of traditional nuclear power plants, thus truly reaching commercial standards!

Judging from the original intention of Kangchi to develop the fusion device, the fusion device can also be directly installed on the aircraft carrier.

There is no need to study fusion batteries that are more difficult or even impossible to achieve with existing materials and technology.

However, the power generation capacity of one device of 16 million kilowatt-hours per day is too much for an aircraft carrier, and its performance is super excessive.

Therefore, Kangchi’s plan is to build a small ship-based reactor while building a commercial power generation demonstration reactor.

By then, the size of the device itself and supporting facilities will be reduced, and coupled with the large amount of space for storing fuel, the space saved may be able to directly double the onboard space of the aircraft carrier.

In addition, the magnetized target fusion device also has the advantage that the lithium content of the liquid metal used as the first wall is very high, so the tritium breeding efficiency is higher than that of a simple magnetic confinement device, which can greatly reduce the demand for tritium fuel.

Even Zhong Weijian, who had always behaved very calmly, felt the blood in his body gradually boiling after hearing Kang Chi's analysis...

However, the efficiency of one hundred times is indeed unbelievable for a moment.

In order to make them feel more at ease, Kang Chi showed the three-dimensional model of Jinwu-1 on the spot.

"By the way." Kang Chi suddenly said a digression, "I believe everyone must be wondering how I completed the design of this device in such a short time, right?"

The speed with which Kang Chi changed the topic made everyone present stunned.

But they soon came to their senses, and then their emotions suddenly boiled over.

"Damn it, Mr. Kang is planning to tell us the genius' exclusive secret?"

"More than just doubts, I guess many people have long wanted to dissect Mr. Kang's brain..."

"One of them is you, right?"

"Ahem, nonsense!"

"..."

After hearing their discussion, Kang Chi couldn't help but smile awkwardly, and then continued: "Maybe you have heard that I developed some robots some time ago, and the operation method of these robots is a mechanical control panel plus Brainwave assisted control..."

"Brain wave assisted control?"

"Yes, this is a technology that can read brain waves. Using this technology, we can not only control robots with our thoughts, but also use our thoughts to carry out efficient industrial design."

Kang Chi said and turned to look at Director Lu: "This is a brand-new and efficient industrial design tool. I think the Ministry of Science and Technology should be very willing to equip our scientific researchers with this kind of equipment, right? Believe me, it can greatly improve Engineering efficiency.”

"..."

Chief Lu suddenly smiled helplessly.

"How much does it cost again?"

"It's not expensive, one million units."

"Then let's get two hundred first...forget it, let's try to get one hundred units first."

"No problem, I'll have someone from FiberHome Network Technology contact you later."

"..."

Chief Lu's love-hate feeling towards Kang Chi is becoming more and more obvious...

The technology is indeed very good, but it also costs money.

This feeling is like you know that a stock is going to rise, but you just can't get out the principal.

We can only try our best to cut down on clothing and save money, and only after raising enough money for Kang Chi can the stocks be issued...

The problem is, this guy is issuing stocks quite quickly.

No matter how much money you have in your pocket, you can't afford to go through such trouble...

After promoting the "castrated version of the plotter", Kangchi quickly returned to the theme.

He first briefly explained the overall design idea of ​​Jinwu-1,

Although in principle it is similar to General Fusion's LM-26, the specific designs of the two are definitely completely different.

General Fusion has not announced the technical details of the LM-26, so the overall structural design of Jinwu-1 was completely designed by Kangchi himself.

Of course, what he completed was only the overall structure and the design of some core modules.

For other non-core auxiliary parts, Kangchi only puts forward technical requirements and then assigns them to major research institutions for implementation.

Since the country has given so many people to him, of course he must make use of them.

After introducing the overall design idea, Kangchi focused on the liquid metal just mentioned.

In fact, he obtained a liquid metal mixture with stronger thermal conductivity by upgrading the lithium-lead mixture.

The mixture replaces lead with carbon and silver, which is the most thermally conductive element.

Element replacement sounds very simple.

However, in practical applications, the selection of materials needs to comprehensively consider various factors such as physical properties, chemical stability, and compatibility with fusion reactions. The results obtained by different ratios may be completely different. Normally, it requires countless passes. Only through experiments can we get the optimal answer.

Therefore, even Kang Chi is not sure that he can succeed in one go...

After all, the device hasn't actually been built yet,

He just conducted an extreme exploration of various key materials, and then used the properties of the materials to deduce the optimal development route of the fusion device.

Moreover, the NS equation used for fluid calculations still has very large limitations. Therefore, supercomputer simulation of controllable nuclear fusion, just like the aircraft cavity simulation experiment, is difficult to truly simulate.

A slight deviation may lead to the failure of the experiment.

But Kang Chi didn't panic. If it didn't work, he would just upgrade the entire fusion device!

Although upgrading such a big guy requires some effort to create reasons and opportunities, he actually already has this right now.

However, this is still somewhat troublesome.

It would be best if it could be solved through normal experimental methods. His ability to upgrade materials or a single module is already very abnormal.

Although he was very certain, Kang Chi did not dare to say anything too absolute.

Therefore, after Kang Chi introduced the general situation and core material technology of Jinwu-1, he added: "Of course, the above are only theoretical values, and the specific situation still needs experimental verification."

The old man in the front row nodded to Kang Chi, then stood up directly, looked around at everyone in the venue, and said slowly:

"Any research and experiment must have certain risks."

"Now that the matter has come to this, we can only choose to believe in Mr. Kang and give him the greatest support."

"Dear comrades, controllable nuclear fusion is a major scientific research project that benefits the present and will benefit the future."

"In the face of this great undertaking, I hope that everyone can work together to overcome difficulties, maintain quality and quantity, and complete the scientific research tasks assigned by Chief Kang on time, so as to achieve the smooth ignition of Jinwu-1 as soon as possible!"

…………

After the morning meeting, the two leaders left Dongyang,

Meetings will continue in the next few days, but these meetings are mainly between Kangchi and different scientific research institutions to communicate specific technical details. The leaders cannot understand them anyway, and there is no need for them to stay.

At the same time, Kangchi’s open courses on controllable nuclear fusion have also seen further fermentation internationally, and the first one to bear the brunt is naturally General Fusion Company.

You can imagine how excited they were when they heard that Kang Chi was optimistic about the magnetized target route.

Joshua Byrne, project director of the Lawson Machine-26 magnetized target fusion project, could not wait to pick up Kang Chi’s shoes and kiss them immediately.

On this difficult and unpopular technical route, they really encountered too many cold looks.

God knows how much they suffered in order to get a little more funding from investors...

But with this video of Kang Chi, they suddenly had enough confidence to find money!