Lu Zhou's speech surprised Academician Wu.

In a previous meeting with Ambassador Zhang, Lu Zhou revealed that he intended to talk about the new energy field in this meeting.

But no one thought much about it, except that he was going to talk about the future development direction of lithium-sulfur battery-related technologies and what state support he needed for his own research.

It is precisely for this reason that the adviser for this meeting, the so-called "academic translator", asked Wu Shigang to serve as the consultant.

However, nuclear fusion is a systematic scientific research project......

There is no doubt that this is beyond his area of expertise.

Noticing the old man's gaze towards him, Academician Wu hesitated, looked at Lu Zhou seriously and asked.

"Can you elaborate?"

Lu Zhou nodded: "The source of all energy on the earth, whether it is ore fuel, wind energy, geothermal energy, and water potential energy...... In the end, it all comes from the sun, and the sun's energy comes from fusion. ”

"As I said earlier, from a technological point of view, summing up the experience of several industrial revolutions, the key to liberating all productive forces and factors of production is, in the final analysis, energy."

"If we can master the energy of fusion, it means that we can master the sun, and we will also master the future!"

The room was quiet for a minute.

Lu Zhou also waited quietly for a minute.

He believed that the people sitting here had heard the radical hundreds of times. The passionate speech also learned enough lessons from it.

But he also believes in the weight of the Nobel Prize itself, and the power of the word controlled nuclear fusion itself.

It is cleaner than fission power generation and consumes a wider range of raw materials.

One litre of seawater contains 0.03 grams of tritium, and nuclear fusion can provide the equivalent of 300 litres of gasoline released after complete combustion.

The earth is extremely rich in deuterium resources, with more than 45 trillion tons of deuterium in seawater alone, which can be said to be inexhaustible. As for the expensive tritium, it can also be solved by the method of "tritium retention".

If controlled nuclear fusion technology is mastered, all the energy problems facing modern industry will no longer be a problem.

And what does it mean once the energy problem is solved?

This means that if you want, you can build tall buildings of reinforced concrete, even in the barren desert. Even at the bottom of the sea, you can spread out a vast farmland...... At least in theory.

Because then.

Electricity is no longer valuable......

Of course, these things can only be seen by Lu Zhou himself, or he believes that he can see them.

Rather than these unfulfilled fantasies, what leaders need to consider is more realistic.

After thinking for a long time, Academician Wu and the old man exchanged glances, then looked at Lu Zhou, and said slowly.

"The controlled fusion project has been around for a long time, but there has been no significant progress so far, in fact, our country has played a very important role in the ITER project, and we are well aware of the value of this technology and are willing to invest more in it. But the key question is, how sure are you? And is it worth it. ”

Lu Zhou shook his head: "Unless it is a technology that has already been realized, no technology can know that it will be able to do it before starting the experiment." Science itself is trial and error, and this is true of science in any field. You are an academician, you should know about it. ”

"But the cost of trial and error in controlled fusion technology is probably going to be a bit big."

When he said this, Wu Shigang felt that his palms were sweating.

Whether it's because of the amazing topic itself, or because of the appetite of the young man in front of him.

To say the least, that's also a project of hundreds of millions.

At most, it is not capped.

Until it is actually made, no one knows how much money it will burn except for the visible funding black hole......

Regarding Academician Wu's question, Lu Zhou did not hide it and nodded.

"Yes, it's expensive, but it's in the present, and it's in the future."

Maybe it was thoughtful, or maybe it was moved by the last sentence.

The old man thought for about half a minute, and then slowly spoke, "What support do you need?" ”

Lu Zhou said in an affirmative tone: "Funds, people, and the cooperation of relevant departments. ”

The old man nodded, and didn't even ask for the specific number, only answered with three words.

"No problem."

……

While the conversation in the compound was going on, Academician Pan Changhong, who was far away at the Southwest Institute of Physics of the Nuclear Industry, was presiding over an important working meeting.

At the heart of the discussion was the breakthrough in plasma confinement time achieved by Spiral 7-X a month ago.

The report at the meeting was made by Professor Sheng Xianfu, who returned from an exchange visit to Germany. In his presentation, he mentioned the problems of stellarators on water-cooled deflectors, how the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics solved this problem, and also highlighted Lu Zhou's paper.

"In the stellar simulator research, Professor Lu's calculations played a crucial role, and this is embodied in the updated control scheme of the Spiral Stone 7-X Institute......

In the PPT, Professor Sheng showed the relevant technical details and quickly went through the data on the picture.

At the end of the day, he propped his hands on the table and said in an affirmative tone.

"We have to pay attention to this issue. We started too late in the research on stellarators, but if we don't pay attention to it, we will continue to do it late. ”

At this point, a researcher objected.

"However, even so, tokamaks are more concise in engineering and are still the mainstream of international nuclear fusion energy research."

Professor Sheng nodded, arguing with reason.

"I know the tokamak is still mainstream, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily right. Before this technology is born, any possibility should be considered! ”

At this time, another researcher made his own point.

"The technical difficulty of the tokamak is in the confinement of the plasma, right? Why didn't we ask Professor Lu to help us design a control scheme? ”

Professor Sheng shook his head: "Tokamaks are more than an order of magnitude more difficult than stellarators in terms of plasma constraints. Even if such a control scheme exists in theory, it is difficult to have the hardware to run it. ”

The researcher continued, "How do you know if you don't let him try?" ”

Professor Sheng was annoyed: "Then why don't you write to him yourself?" ”

Choked by the words, the researcher smiled and stopped talking.

Let the Nobel Prize boss do things for himself, he doesn't have that much face.

Due to time constraints, the meeting went into an intermission.

Walking to the corridor, recalling what Professor Sheng said in the previous report, Academician Pan lit a cigarette.

"I have a vague feeling that the tokamak may not be going through."

Compared with the media's cheers for every achievement of the EAST system, Academician Pan, who is really engaged in this field, is relatively more cautious.

Because there are many things that may seem exciting to the layman, but for the layman, it is not even a phased result.

Standing next to Academician Pan, Professor Zheng Gaoming asked, "Why do you say that?" ”

"There's no particular reason," Academician Pan just shook his head and flicked the cigarette butt caught in his finger, "It's just an intuition." ”

Just then, the cell phone in his pocket rang.

Extinguishing the cigarette butt, Academician Pan reached out and took out his mobile phone and put it to his ear.

"Hello?"

After listening in silence for a long time, Academician Pan did not speak, but nodded at the end.

"Okay, I got it."

Observing the expression on Academician Pan's face, Zheng Gaoming was a little puzzled, and couldn't help but ask tentatively.

“…… What's the matter? ”

Stuffing the phone back into his pocket, Academician Pan looked at Professor Zheng.

"The guy we just talked to at the meeting is now in Beijing."