Chapter 380 False Joy
Chapter 380 False Joy
Although the General Fusion Company of Maple Leaf Country has the name of “General”, it actually has no connection with the General-related companies of Country M.
In fact, it is not just General Fusion. The five major General-purpose companies of Country M (electrical, power, automobile, mill, insurance) do not have any affiliation or brotherly relationship except for normal business dealings. Including China, there is actually a General Technology, and it is a Y enterprise. But everyone is playing their own games in their own fields.
At the beginning, General Fusion Company was just a private sponsorship project of CEO Isaiah Duke.
After Duke’s operation, they finally got a total investment of 32 million US dollars.
One third of the funds came from the funding of the Maple Leaf Federal Government, and two thirds of the funds came from Amazon and Duke himself.
To be honest, Duke is quite capable of raising more than 30 million US dollars in investment with just a PPT and a demonstration animation. However, it is a bit of a pipe dream to want to do nuclear fusion with such a small amount of money. They can only do research and find money at the same time.
In fact, funding is only a problem that needs to be considered later. The biggest trouble they faced at the beginning was the doubts from the outside world.
Some experts, led by Professor Vogt, a physicist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, have always had considerable opinions on the magnetized target route of general fusion. They have continuously put pressure on the media and the government through various channels, believing that the reaction process of magnetized target fusion is very dangerous.
“What they made is a hydrogen bomb. Once it explodes, the consequences will be disastrous!”
Such remarks soon led to panicked people marching to protest against General Fusion’s “crazy research”. Even though General Fusion repeatedly emphasized that the LM-26 experiment would start with a few micrograms of nuclear fuel and the entire experiment was absolutely safe and controllable, no one listened.
After all, most people may not know what controlled nuclear fusion is, but when it comes to nuclear bombs, everyone is terrified.
So the Maple Leaf government was forced to move them from Vancouver to Nunavut.
The latitude and natural environment of that hellhole in Nunavut are basically the same as those of the Siberian Plateau. Not only is it sparsely populated and inconvenient to transport, it is also extremely cold.
Under such difficult conditions, it is not easy for General Fusion to survive until now…
”This Kang Chi is simply our savior!”
When Duke watched the video shown to him by technical director Byrne, he immediately felt that this incident would bring unprecedented opportunities to General Fusion. He excitedly put on a big cotton jacket, packed his luggage and came to Vancouver, hoping to get further support from the Maple Leaf Country’s Ministry of Energy.
“You should know Kang Chi’s academic status in China better than anyone else. He is now China’s chief nuclear fusion engineer. Even he is optimistic about the magnetized target route. Forcing China to adjust its technical route by force is enough to show the great potential of the magnetized target technical route!”
”Since we moved to Kogluktuk, the progress of the project has been delayed. No one is willing to work in such a ghost place. Our costs are soaring…”
”If this goes on, let alone completing the project as planned, it is hard to say whether we can survive next month. If you don’t want the initial investment to be in vain, I think continuing to increase the stakes is the best choice at present.”
However, in the face of Duke’s “coercion and inducement”, Hadley of the Energy Bureau just smiled faintly: “Sorry, we can’t easily decide the investment direction just because a Chinese said a few words…”
Duke’s face changed slightly after hearing this.
“You don’t believe him?”
”Yes, he just talked a lot, and the United States spent more than one billion US dollars to pick up the hot potato of SSC. We don’t want to repeat the same mistake.”
”…”
Duke was so anxious that he didn’t know what to do.
From his point of view, he must be very optimistic about the magnetized target route.
Otherwise, he would not have invested all his assets in general fusion.
Therefore, after watching Kang Chi’s video, he finally had a feeling of “I am not alone” and “this is the right way”.
But he ignored that because Kang Chi had fooled the old United States, resulting in the “collapse of international credibility”, everyone was afraid of being fooled by him again…
This was actually the reason why Cai Yaobin,One of the purposes of letting Kang Chi fool the Americans.
After that lesson, even if Kang Chi’s research direction was exposed, the other party would be hesitant and dare not follow up easily. Duke tried to persuade Hadley again, but Hadley was not willing to give in. Duke was so angry that he could not help but said angrily: “To use the Chinese saying, you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater! I promise you will regret it!”
”Maybe.” Hadley sighed, “Actually, from my personal point of view, I certainly hope that the previous investment will pay off.”
”But this is not something I can decide on my own. Maybe you should pray that day will come sooner, and then there will be a lot of people rushing to invest in you.”
”No need to wait for that day.” Duke said calmly, “If I go to Country M now, there will be a lot of people rushing to invest.”
”Then I can only wish you good luck.”
…
In the next few days, Duke really went to Country M, but except for Amazon, the old shareholder of General Fusion, other companies were not interested at all.
It was mainly because of the ups and downs of NIF that made the entire Country M very pessimistic about the prospects of the controlled nuclear fusion industry.
Looking back at the ignition of NIF, there are only two words to describe it:
Failure and doubt.
According to a report in Nature, the NIF project has been questioned because of its huge cost, serious over-progress and expenditure, and little effect.
The entire project has been repeatedly frustrated and faced survival crises many times.
At the beginning, NIF was a military project used to study hydrogen bombs. The entire project started in 1997 and was completed in 2009, taking a full 12 years.
In the year before its completion, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory proposed the LIFE plan based on changes in the situation, claiming to transform the laser fusion being developed by NIF into a practical commercial power plant.
They originally planned to complete the ignition in 2012, but unfortunately, due to design defects, the laser focus was not accurate and the time was not synchronized, and the ignition failed.
The key is that the deviation is still very large, and it is difficult to correct.
This not only severely dampened the enthusiasm of the United States for the research and development of controlled nuclear fusion, but also slowed down the entire international controlled nuclear fusion research.
Later, everyone knew their true colors.
Data fabrication, word games, confusion, and various shameless fraudulent funding behaviors have been criticized countless times by major academic journals.
If NIF was not the only seedling of controlled nuclear fusion research in the United States, it would have been shut down long ago.
The national team has performed like this, let alone commercial fusion companies.
Although Amazon also re-evaluated its investment in General Fusion because of Kang Chi’s words, it was only willing to add an additional $5 million.
It’s like sending away beggars.
In fact, Amazon originally planned to give up General Fusion, but Kang Chi’s words made them decide to give General Fusion a life, at least, to survive this year first…
Seeing Duke go out in high spirits and come back with a sad face, Byrne knew without guessing that he must have been frustrated again.
Byrne was used to this and didn’t feel very disappointed.
”Since they are all blind, how about we seek cooperation with China?” He suddenly made a suggestion, “Maybe we can test Kang Chi’s true attitude towards magnetized target fusion.”
Cooperate with China? Duke was stunned, but soon, his eyes lit up…
(End of this chapter)