Technological power starts with upgrading lenses

After the call ended, Byrne froze in place and kept answering the phone.

His pale expression looked like he had seen a ghost.

Duke couldn't help but asked curiously: "What happened?"

"China's magnetized target device... was successfully ignited..."

Although this matter had nothing to do with him anymore, Duke still felt nervous after hearing this, and then he had the same doubts as Byrne.

"How is this possible? They changed the technical route and built the device in less than four months?"

"These industrial demons... more than just built the device..."

Byrne seemed to be muttering to himself, then silently opened the browser on his mobile phone, preparing to search for relevant news.

In fact, he still doesn't believe what Malek just said on the phone...

But Byrne soon discovered that there was no need to search at all.

The hot news in major media outlets are overwhelmingly filled with headlines with related words such as ‘China’, ‘Controllable Nuclear Fusion’, ‘Kangchi’, and ‘Breakthrough’.

Among them, the two numbers that made Byrne feel most frightened were 23 and 120.

"Oh my God! Not only did they successfully ignite the fire, but they also reached a Q value of 23?!"

Duke, who was lying on the hospital bed, saw Byrne using his mobile phone to look up information, and he also took out his mobile phone. Then he soon understood the meaning of why Byrne just said that they had even built the device. Already...

"If this news is true, it's not just a Q value of 23." Byrne replied, "There are also 120 operations per minute..."

"Not only did they build the magnetized target device and successfully ignite it, they also directly solved all the problems with the magnetized target device at once!"

When he said this, Byrne's eyes revealed more than just shock.

There is also a fear that comes from the depths of the soul...

Perhaps in the eyes of many ordinary people, these two numbers are just a report card of successful ignition.

But Byrne, who has studied magnetized target devices for many years, knows better than anyone what this means.

In the face of these two numerical values, lighting a fire is as ridiculous as if primitive people had just learned how to drill wood to make fire and then showed off in front of modern people.

Byrne couldn't imagine at all, how on earth did they do it?

What kind of monster could create a machine with such outrageous performance?

Is this really something that humans could possibly build?

If these reports are true, then controllable nuclear fusion has actually officially entered commercialization!

The way humans obtain energy will enter a new chapter starting from today...

But in this chapter, there is no Byrne, no General Fusion, no Maple Leaf Country, and no Mobil and M Country.

It will be a carnival belonging to Eastern China!

With extremely complicated emotions, Byrne quickly found the complete original video of Huaguo News publishing this blockbuster news.

This video is 15 minutes long, and as far as Byrne knows, China’s evening news is only 30 minutes in total.

Now he directly gave half of the time to Jinwu No. 1, which seemed to confirm the authenticity of the news.

Just when both of them were staring at their phones, there was a sudden rush of footsteps outside the door. After knocking on the door twice, the door was pushed open before the people inside could say anything. .

Seeing a group of men in black suits walking into the ward, the two of them quickly guessed something.

"Professor Byrne, I'm sorry to disturb you. We are from the National Energy Security Administration and we have an emergency meeting that you need to attend."

Byrne nodded: "Wait a moment, at least let me finish watching this video first."

"Sorry, I'm afraid you'll have to watch it on the road."

"..."

Byrne had no choice but to put away his cell phone, said goodbye to Duke, and followed the group of men out of the room.

He originally thought they would take him downstairs, but unexpectedly they took him directly to the top of the building, where a helicopter was already waiting for him.

Byrne could completely understand the National Energy Security Administration's impatience, but the helicopter's subsequent route confused him.

It wasn't until the helicopter stopped at Wingate International Airport that Byrne couldn't help but ask: "Aren't we going to the Energy Bureau?"

"I just received new instructions. The emergency meeting was changed to a technical cooperation meeting with country M. We will go directly to Washington now."

"..."

Although the hurried schedule made Byrne feel a little uncomfortable, he had actually figured it out when he was on the helicopter.

At this juncture, as one of the few experts in magnetized target technology in the world, I can definitely be said to be a national treasure.

Not only in Maple Leaf Country, but also in other countries, including M Country, the importance they will pay to him in the future will be unprecedented.

Therefore, the success of China's controllable nuclear fusion has, to some extent, caused its importance and status to skyrocket.

As long as you figure out the reasons for this, it doesn't seem so difficult to accept...

After a flight of more than six hours, the special plane finally landed slowly at Ronald Reagan National Airport, and then transferred directly to a helicopter and arrived at the office building of the National Science Council of Country M.

When Byrne entered the venue, they had obviously been eager to discuss it for a while.

After Byrne came in, officials and scholars at the conference site immediately stopped discussing and turned their attention to the expert on the magnetized target device from Maple Leaf Country.

Hadley, director of the Maple Leaf Country Energy Bureau, who had arrived at the venue in advance, immediately came forward and shook hands with Byrne, saying, "Professor Byrne, thank you for taking the time to attend this meeting."

Take the time?

Did he just have a choice?

Byrne smiled reluctantly, and then, under Hadley's introduction, he got to know the main people attending the meeting.

In addition to officials from the energy bureaus of the two countries, most of them were scholars from major laboratories, especially the engineers and physicists who studied controlled nuclear fusion at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Their technical director, Freehugh, was also an old acquaintance of Byrne.

Previously, at the International Controlled Nuclear Fusion Technology Exchange Conference, Freehugh had publicly ridiculed their LM-26 magnetized target device, believing that they used outdated steam engine technology to engage in nuclear fusion, just as ridiculous as trying to use car engine technology to engage in space rockets.

Thinking of this, Byrne couldn't help but sneer at Forrest: "You never thought that, although the car engine I built exploded, the one made in China really flew into outer space."

"Really? How do you know that the news they released must be true?"

"At this point, you are still deceiving yourself?"

"Quiet!"

After hearing the tit-for-tat between the two, the Minister of Energy of the United States, Poirot, who presided over the meeting, couldn't help knocking on the table, and then said to Byrne: "Professor Byrne, welcome to Washington, but I'm afraid no one is in the mood to hold a welcome ceremony for you..."

"Next, I will first ask you a few questions, and I hope you can answer truthfully. If your answer is proven to be a lie one day in the future, we and your Maple Leaf Country will sue you for endangering national energy security..."

After hearing this, Byrne couldn't help but glance at Hadley, but he completely ignored it.

It was considered a tacit agreement with Poirot.

Byrne had no choice but to nod: "I promise that everything I say next is true, but I think I have the right to refuse to answer certain sensitive questions."

Poirot just smiled faintly, then glanced at the notebook in front of him and said: "The first question is, on December 31 last year, the General Fusion Magnetized Target Device exploded. Did you foresee this?"

"I have answered this question more than three times before. If I didn't think the experiment was too risky, why would I refuse to conduct the experiment?"

"The second question is, if the LM-26 project can succeed, what is its actual performance?"

"This is a trade secret of General Fusion. I think I can choose not to answer it."

Poirot shook his head: "General Fusion's trade secrets are not confidential here. Your major shareholders, the Maple Leaf Energy Bureau and ExxonMobil, as well as the heads of Amazon are all here. They have just decided to disclose the specific technical details of the LM-26 project to us."

At Poirot's signal, the three of them stood up and nodded to Byrne.

"Duke has been fired by the board of directors. The three of us can now decide on major matters of General Fusion. Now we agree that you will disclose the trade secrets of General Fusion."

Byrne nodded, and then said to Poirot: "What performance do you want to know?"

"What is the maximum actual Q value of its design?"

"2.5."

"But as far as I know, you previously announced that each compression of plasma consumes 140 megajoules of energy and produces 704 megajoules of energy output, which is a Q value of 5.02."

"That's just Duke's data beautification to attract investment."

Good guy, the data beautification doubled?

Poirot nodded a little heavily, and then asked: "What are the specific data of input and output energy?"

"280 megajoules and 704 megajoules."

"What about the maximum number of operations per minute?"

After hearing this question, Byrne hesitated.

This issue has always been a problem that General Fusion has avoided talking about.

Because once this issue is discussed, General Fusion will definitely be labeled as a fraudulent investment by everyone...

But now General Fusion is almost finished, and the feasibility of the magnetized target device no longer needs him to evade the main point and fool people.

China's success is the best endorsement of the magnetized target route.

So after hesitating for a moment, Byrne finally said: "Although it has not been tested, according to our data prediction, each time the LM-26 runs, it will take at least five minutes to dissipate heat before the next reaction, otherwise the liquid metal will accumulate heat, and in severe cases it will melt the second wall or even the entire device."

"Five minutes?!!"

After hearing this number, the scene was boiling.

The previous Q value is not bad. Although it is almost ten times lower than the 23 announced by China, it is indeed more than 1.

In addition, General Fusion has always had limited research funds, and it feels like it is just a small fight. It is understandable that the performance of the experimental device is poor.

Now that the two countries plan to jointly carry out research on magnetized target devices, the funding issue does not need to be considered, so they are fully confident that they can quickly catch up with such a gap.

But this reaction time is not just a little bit off.

Jinwu-1 can operate a full 120 times per minute, but LM-26 can only operate once every five minutes.

This 600-fold difference is a bit outrageous...

Ignition every five minutes means that this device can only ignite 288 times if it runs 24 hours a day.

According to the data just mentioned by Byrne, after deducting the input energy, the energy generated each time is actually only 424 megajoules. If the power generation loss rate of about 55% is also included, even if the LM-26 project is successful, the maximum daily energy is only 424 megajoules. Can generate 67,000 kWh of electricity...

This is a nuclear fusion project!

Not even a powerful marine diesel generator.

Besides, this is the highest goal of their project...

No wonder Byrne and General Fusion have never mentioned the issue of running times before!

After two minutes of commotion in the venue, Poirot forcibly suppressed it, and then asked the next question: "Do you think China's Golden Crow No. 1 data is reliable?"

"I'm not an intelligence officer. I still want to ask you this question..."

"Well, let me ask another question. Do you think it is technically possible for the magnetized target device to reach 120 operations per minute?"

Byrne thought for a long time before replying: "I don't know, I think this performance is completely beyond the scope of my knowledge..."

"The operating efficiency problem of the magnetized target device is actually a heat dissipation problem, and there are many branch problems that need to be solved. The first thing that needs to be solved is the thermal conductivity of the liquid metal on the first wall, and the second is the problem of the heat-resistant material of the second wall. "

"Although the liquid metals evenly absorb the energy generated by the fusion reaction, if they contact the second wall too quickly, they will still cause great damage to the device. There are hundreds of various material and engineering problems like this."

"Each of these problems may be a huge scientific research problem. They are like the bucket effect, seriously restricting the operating efficiency of the magnetized target device..."

"So for your question, I think it's like you asking me whether it's technically possible after we've all seen UFOs with our own eyes... is somewhat redundant."

"Of course I know what you really want to ask is whether I can build this UFO... and for that I can only say sorry."

"I really can't do anything about things that I can't even imagine, but I think we can solve every problem we encounter on the basis of LM-26. Maybe one day in the future, all problems will be found. Answer."

"Really?" Poirot couldn't help but ask in a low voice, "Does the future day refer to five years from now, or ten, fifty or even a hundred years from now?"

"..."

Byrne suddenly fell silent.

Not only him, but everyone in the venue was like Poirot, and his mood became particularly heavy.

Byrne's answer just now made them all realize once again how big the gap is between them and China in the field of controllable nuclear fusion.

This can no longer be described as a ‘huge gap’.

But the mountains are as far as the eye can see!

God knows that this mountain range was built by a Chinese named Kang Chi almost single-handedly in less than four months!

This made them truly feel what it means to be a genius and what it means to be desperate and suffocated...