Chapter 379: One Hundred Times Efficiency
Chapter 379: One Hundred Times Efficiency
With the leaders’ statements on the scene and Kang Chi’s vigorous and resolute 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 heat accumulation and thermal conductivity problem, still have not given 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 a maximum of 1440 reactions a day. 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. 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 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? This means that Jinwu No. 1 is just a fusion device.It can generate at least 16 million kWh of electricity a day,
That’s about 5.8 billion kWh a year! Although it seems 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 big as 100,000 and 10 million as Zhong Weijian just analyzed, that’s another matter…
The biggest problems of traditional fission power plants are safety, fuel, and operation and maintenance.
All three problems keep the cost of nuclear power plants high and prevent them from being the best answer to energy.
Nuclear fusion solves these problems.
No matter 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, it will at most 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 milligrams or even micrograms. Even if an accident occurs and the device explodes, it will at most be an explosion with limited destructive power.
So although the size of the core devices of the two may be similar, the fusion power station does not require too many bulky and complicated supporting facilities. Therefore, whether it is the construction cost of the nuclear power station, or the later operating cost, fuel cost, or even the requirements for construction site selection, it is much lower than that of the fission power station.
What’s more, if Jinwu No. 1 can succeed, the power generation capacity will be higher than that of traditional nuclear power plants, thus truly reaching commercial standards!
From the original intention of Kang Chi to develop a fusion device, the fusion device can be directly installed on the aircraft carrier.
There is no need to study the fusion battery, which is more difficult and even impossible to achieve with the existing material technology.
However, the power generation of one device per day is 16 million kWh, which is too much for an aircraft carrier, and the performance is super surplus.
So Kang Chi’s plan is to build a small shipboard reactor while building a commercial power generation demonstration reactor.
When the volume of the device itself and its supporting facilities is reduced, plus a large amount of space for storing fuel, the saved space may allow the aircraft carrier’s shipboard space to double directly.
Another advantage of the magnetized target fusion device is that the lithium content of its liquid metal as the first wall is very high, so the tritium proliferation 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 been very calm, felt his blood gradually boiling after hearing Kang Chi’s analysis…
However, the efficiency of one hundred times was indeed unbelievable for a moment.
In order to make them feel more at ease, Kang Chi showed the three-dimensional model of Jinwu No. 1 on the spot.
”By the way.” Kang Chi suddenly said something off topic, “I believe everyone must be wondering how I completed the design of this device in such a short time?”
Kang Chi’s speed of changing the subject made everyone at the scene stunned.
But they soon reacted and then suddenly became excited.
“Fuck, is Mr. Kang planning to tell us the secret of his genius?”
”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!”
”…”
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 brain wave assisted control…”
”Brainwave-assisted control?”
”Yes, this is a technology that can read brainwaves. Using this technology, we can not only control robots with our minds, but also use our minds to carry out efficient industrial design.”
Kang Chi turned his head and looked at Chief Lu: “This is a 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 equipment, right? Believe me, it can greatly improve the efficiency of engineering design.”
”…”
Chief Lu smiled bitterly with some helplessness.
”How much will it cost?”
”Not expensive, one million per unit.”
”Then let’s start with two hundred… Forget it, let’s try one hundred first.”
”No problem, I’ll let someone from Fenghuo Network Technology contact you later.””…”
Chief Lu’s love-hate relationship with Kang Chi is becoming more and more obvious…
The technology is indeed very impressive, but it is also very expensive.
This feeling is like you know that a stock is going to rise, but you just can’t take out the principal. You can only do everything you can to save money and raise enough money for Kang Chi before the stock can be issued…
The problem is that this guy issues stocks very quickly.
No matter how much money you have in your pocket, you can’t afford such a toss…
After promoting the “castrated plotter”, Kang Chi quickly returned to the topic.
He first briefly explained the overall design ideas of Jinwu No. 1.
Although the principle 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 LM-26, so the overall structural design of Jinwu No. 1 is completely designed by Kang Chi himself.
Of course, he only completed the overall structure and the design of some core modules.
For other non-core auxiliary parts, Kang Chi only proposed technical requirements and then assigned them to major research institutions for implementation.
Since the country has given him so many people, of course he has to use them.
After introducing the overall design ideas, Kang Chi focused on the liquid metal just mentioned.
In fact, he upgraded the lithium-lead mixture to obtain a liquid metal mixture with stronger thermal conductivity.
This mixture replaced the lead element with carbon and the silver element with the strongest thermal conductivity.
Element replacement sounds very simple.
However, in actual applications, the selection of materials needs to comprehensively consider physical properties, chemical stability, and compatibility with fusion reactions. The results of different ratios may be completely different. Normally, it takes countless experiments to get the best answer.
Therefore, even Kang Chi was not sure that he could succeed at once…
After all, the device had not been truly built. He had only conducted an extreme exploration of various key materials, and then deduced the optimal development route of the fusion device through the performance of the materials.
In addition, the NS equations used for fluid calculations still have very large limitations, so the supercomputing simulation of controlled nuclear fusion, like the airplane cavity simulation experiment, is difficult to truly simulate.
A slight deviation may lead to the failure of the experiment.
However, Kang Chi was not panicked. If it really didn’t work, he would directly upgrade the entire fusion device!
Although it takes some effort to create reasons and opportunities to upgrade such a big guy, he actually has the right now.
However, this is still a bit troublesome.
It would be best if it could be done through normal experimental channels. It is already very abnormal for him to upgrade materials or a single module.
Although he is very sure, Kang Chi dare not say it too absolutely.
Therefore, after introducing the general situation and core material technology of Jinwu No. 1, Kang Chi 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.”
”At this point, we can only choose to trust Mr. Kang and give him the greatest support.”
”Comrades, controlled nuclear fusion is a benefit for the present and for the future. “In the face of this great cause, I hope that everyone can work together to overcome difficulties, ensure quality and quantity, and complete the scientific research tasks assigned by Chief Engineer Kang on time, and strive to achieve the smooth ignition of Jinwu No. 1 as soon as possible!”
…………
After the morning meeting, the two leaders left Dongyang. The meetings will continue in the next few days, but these meetings are mainly for Kang Chi and different scientific research institutions to communicate specific technical details. The leaders don’t understand anyway, so there is no need for them to stay.
At the same time, Kang Chi’s open class on controlled nuclear fusion has also further fermented internationally, and the first to bear the brunt is naturally General Fusion Company.
When they heard that Kang Chi was optimistic about the magnetized target route, you can imagine how excited they were.
Joshua Byrne, the project director of Lawson Machine-26 magnetized target fusion, wanted to pick up Kang Chi’s shoes and kiss them immediately.
On this difficult and unpopular technical route, heThey really encountered too much cold-eyed indifference.
God knows how much they have suffered in order to get a little more funding from investors…
But with this video of Kang Chi, they suddenly have enough confidence to look for money! (End of this chapter)