Doomsday Bunker Upgrade

After learning that there would be an oxygen problem, Chen Xin was particularly concerned about his own greenhouse.

This is not only a place to provide him with food, but also to provide him with the oxygen necessary for survival.

If a person does not eat, he will die in about seven days, and a person can last about three days without drinking water.

But if a person does not breathe, he will be gone within ten minutes.

The importance of oxygen does not need to be emphasized, and the importance of growing greenhouses that can naturally provide oxygen has also greatly increased.

Fortunately, Chen Xin has already upgraded the planting greenhouse once before. Now not only has the planting area increased, but the number and efficiency of fill lights have also improved a lot.

As long as the planting greenhouse can be maintained, even if the outside world is really cut off from oxygen, the planting greenhouse is enough to provide him with the oxygen he needs to survive.

It's just that this is not without hidden dangers, and Chen Xin is not without worries after having a planting greenhouse.

Only relying on the photosynthesis of plants to maintain the oxygen cycle in a confined space has been done for a long time. Even the Federation conducted a famous Biosphere II experiment in the past, intending to build a self-sustaining ecosystem.

Sadly, however, these experiments failed.

Plants can indeed provide enough oxygen in a closed environment, but only if there is sufficient light.

Once it gets dark and photosynthesis stops, the oxygen needed for plants to respire and the oxygen needed for human respiration will soon exhaust the limited oxygen in the confined space.

Not only is the confined space unable to maintain such an oxygen cycle, but even the Ecosphere No. 2 laboratory, which was built with a federal investment of hundreds of millions of dollars, has a complete artificial ecosystem and cannot do the same thing.

In the Ecosphere No. 2 experiment, the bacteria decomposed the organic matter in the soil, which consumes a lot of oxygen, and the released carbon dioxide is absorbed by the cement in the building, breaking the oxygen cycle and reducing the oxygen content in the air, unable to maintain the needs of human survival. .

Of course, the solution to this problem is also very simple.

Because of the difference between day and night in the natural environment, plants cannot maintain 24-hour uninterrupted photosynthesis. In addition, plants themselves need to consume oxygen for respiration. Naturally, they cannot maintain oxygen circulation in confined spaces.

But in a non-natural environment, this problem is actually not difficult to solve, that is, the use of supplementary lights to provide 24 hours of uninterrupted light for plants to promote plants to maintain uninterrupted photosynthesis.

If a plant performs photosynthesis 24 hours a day, the oxygen provided can not only be used for its own breathing, but also provided for the survival of human beings living together.

Only in this way, the consumption of energy is greatly increased.

Now is not a disaster, with the sun, a near-infinite super-large sustainable energy source, providing a steady stream of light and heat for the earth.

Before the dust cloud blocks sunlight, people can rely on the sun to enjoy the abundant energy it brings, whether it is photosynthesis or solar power generation, which requires no additional energy input.

But now that human beings have lost sunlight, they can only rely on the energy provided by the earth itself.

Coal and oil, the most precious resources the earth provides to mankind, are also the main way for mankind to obtain energy today.

For human beings in the last days, these two traditional energy sources have become the key to ensuring human survival.

In particular, coal resources, whether it is heating or power generation, easy to use and easy to mine coal have become the most important material indispensable to human beings today.

However, for Chen Xin and his shelter, gasoline is currently mainly used.

Just maintaining 24 hours of uninterrupted light to ensure the oxygen output of the planting greenhouse greatly increases the consumption of gasoline used to generate electricity.

It's not that Chen Xin doesn't want to use a more efficient and reliable diesel, but the diesel will condense when the temperature is below zero, which is inconvenient to use.

Although high-grade diesel can solve this problem, the price of high-grade diesel is really a bit high compared to ordinary gasoline.

After all, even if it is -35 diesel, it can only be used at -14°C to 29°C. Compared with the freezing point of ordinary gasoline at -35°C, the advantage is not obvious.

As for the higher-grade -50 diesel, not to mention where to buy such a high-grade diesel, its price is also much more expensive than ordinary gasoline.

When he first entered the shelter, Chen Xin only needed to consume 10 liters of gasoline a day to generate electricity to meet all the electricity consumption. After upgrading the planting greenhouse, he now consumes 20 liters of fuel per day. The lighting time is provided by the system upgrade- 10% of the light time, only about 12 hours of light is required for the plants every day.

Now, if the greenhouse is allowed to maintain light for 24 hours, then the fuel consumption will soar to twice the current level, which means that Chen Xin will consume 40 liters of gasoline a day.

That is to say, the gasoline that Chen Xin prepared at first can be used for a year, but it is likely that it will only be enough for three months.

And long-term uninterrupted use of the generator will also cause wear and tear on the generator and accelerate the damage of the generator.

"It's time to upgrade the power generation system." Chen Xin rubbed his forehead, calculated his gasoline consumption, and determined that he must upgrade the shelter's power system.

Otherwise, unless he can continue to get a lot of gasoline from the SWAT team to maintain consumption, he will face the situation of running out of gasoline.

Just how to upgrade the power system? Simply increasing the output power of the generator does not make sense, because energy is conserved, and increasing the output power only means consuming more fuel.

It is a feasible method to improve the efficiency of the generator, but the effect will not be too big. After all, saving energy by 5%-10% sounds like a lot, but when it comes to actual consumption, it is nothing more than letting the fuel The days of exhaustion are only a few days later.

So the most appropriate way is to make the shelter self-sustaining, and the energy consumption and the output of the shelter can break even, forming a cycle.

Thinking of this, Chen Xin naturally also thought about the algae circulation oxygen generator he told Mo Qingyan.

This system can produce oxygen and algal biomass, not only to provide oxygen, but also to produce biogas for fuel cell power generation, which needs to consume electricity, water and carbon dioxide.

After Chen Xin can extract groundwater, water resources are no longer a problem, and the water consumption of algae cultivation is not large, plus it can be recycled, Chen Xin is not worried about water resources.

As for the issue of carbon dioxide, after the whole system is in operation, the carbon dioxide produced by the combustion of biogas can be collected to supply the algae for photosynthesis consumption. If it is not enough, the carbon dioxide in the air is also a supplement.

After all, Chen Xin's Refuge is not a completely closed ecological experimental cabin, and it can be supplemented by external resources.

The only problem is the power consumption.

Regarding oxygen, I made a mistake when I started to set the settings. The oxygen on the earth will not be used up even if the plants do not have photosynthesis for a hundred years. An adult consumes 0.75 kilograms of oxygen a day, and the total amount of oxygen on the earth is 1,100 trillion tons. It will take more than 10,000 years for seven billion people in the world to breathe together. Of course, it is impossible for humans to really absorb oxygen. If the oxygen content in the atmosphere is lower than 18%, hypoxia will already occur. Therefore, the hypoxia problem does exist, but it is not as serious as when I modeled it in advance.