At present, China has 10 nuclear power reactor units in operation, with a total installed capacity of 6 million kilowatts, including four third-generation reactors, one pressurized water reactor, one boiling water reactor, one heavy water reactor, and one graphite gas-cooled reactor, which are also the four mainstream third-generation reactors. There are six Generation IV reactors, including three fast neutron reactor systems and three thermal neutron reactor systems, namely sodium-cooled fast reactors, lead alloy cooled fast reactors, gas-cooled fast reactors, ultra-high temperature reactors, supercritical water-cooled reactors and molten salt reactors.

However, these ten reactors are all of different types, and it can be seen from this arrangement that these reactors are all experimental in nature, mainly used to brush up on the experience of researchers and as a technical reserve. Of course, these nuclear power plants are carrying out various tests, and they also take on the task of providing electricity to the entire base, as well as the surrounding area.

The number of this reactor is already quite a lot, more than the Tu Dynasty at the end of the 20th century, 10 reactors can be built in thirteen years, in addition to those perfect posterity materials, the ultra-low cost is also a very important reason, at this time the uranium ore is super cheap, the labor cost is also very low, and the students of civilized schools and labor prisoners do not need to be paid.

In addition, he is rich and capricious. China made a lot of money in World War I, not only selling arms and materials to both the Entente and the Central Powers at the same time, but also "struck gold" by itself. China's submarine forces hunted opium cattle in the Atlantic, and 2,822 tons of gold and 53,450 tons of silver came in. In addition to allocating one-fifth of this windfall to the navy as a special fund, the rest of the departments have a share for everyone, and none of them fall into vain, among which the scientific research department and the education department get the most, and the black technology piece is allocated 10%, which is the most except for the navy.

With this windfall, and with the addition of other financial allocations, the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Engineering are naturally wealthy, and since there are so many types and each has its own advantages, then it is better to play and choose slowly! If you are rich, you are capricious!

After years of research and observation, the gas-cooled fast reactor stands out because of its strong performance in all aspects, the simplest structure, and most importantly, its structure has inherent safety features, and even in the most serious accident situation, traditional risks such as core melting will not occur.

"Mr. Wen, so far, the six fourth-generation reactors are operating well. Compared with the third-generation reactors, these new systems have significant improvements in sustainability, safety, reliability, economy, nuclear proliferation suppression, and physical protection. According to the plan of the Ministry of Nuclear Industry, these six reactors will be tested and observed for another year, and if there are no accidents, they will be officially finalized and commercialized. Xue Ding, Minister of Nuclear Industry, who accompanied Mr. Wen, introduced it on the side.

Because of the special nature of the nuclear industry, China has assigned all relevant affairs to the Ministry of Nuclear Industry, a newly established agency under unified management, which is fully responsible for the overall planning and management of related industries from uranium mining and refining to nuclear power plants, as well as research and management in nuclear physics. The ministry is directly under the jurisdiction of the State Council, and at the same time, it is also under the guidance of the Central Military Commission in terms of operations.

"According to the available data, we have mainly selected two types of projects as the main promotion projects, gas-cooled fast reactors and ultra-high temperature reactors. Gas-cooled fast reactors are the most cost-effective, they add fuel value and have good intrinsic safety features. The second is the supercritical water reactor, which is a thermal reactor that, in addition to generating electricity, can produce plutonium-239 or large quantities of helium. We're going to use these two together......," Xue Ding said.

Compared with the third-generation reactor, the fourth-generation reactor is certainly much higher in terms of safety and thermal efficiency, but the performance of the same fourth-generation reactor is still different. Compared with thermal reactors, fast reactors have many advantages, and the biggest advantage is that its nuclear fuel can "increase in value", to be precise, it can use uranium-238, which cannot be fissioned under normal circumstances, as fuel.

It consumes fissile fuel (uranium-235 or plutonium-239, etc.) on the one hand and produces fissile fuel (plutonium-239, etc.) during operation. And the output is greater than the consumption, and the real consumption is 99% of the natural uranium that cannot be used in thermal neutron reactors. More than 2% uranium-238, uranium-238 absorbs neutrons and becomes plutonium-239. In fast reactors, the more fission fuel is burned, the more it is reproduced, so the full name of fast reactors is fast breeder reactors.

Since it is a breeder reactor, the fission fuel is not actually consumed, and what is really consumed is uranium-238, so the cycle will be stopped only when uranium-238 is consumed. Theoretically, fast reactors can increase the utilization rate of uranium resources to 100%, but considering the losses in processing and processing, generally speaking, the utilization rate can reach 80%~90%, which is 160~200 times the utilization rate of pressurized water reactor fuel through one pass. The utilization rate has increased, and depleted uranium ore also has mining value. As a result, the recoverable amount of uranium resources will increase by a factor of 1,000 worldwide.

According to the plan of the Ministry of Nuclear Industry, it is to prepare for the use of fast reactors and thermal reactors. The earliest UHT reactors could only produce hydrogen, but the current version is an improved version of the late 21st century that can produce helium, and this reactor is mainly used to produce plutonium-239 or helium. Because now China is vigorously developing airships, there is a great demand for helium, and 90% of the helium resources on the earth are on the territory of the United States, although the relationship between China and the United States is good, and most of the helium resources are controlled by the Zenith Star Consortium, but the three holes of the cunning rabbit are the king, and the source of raw materials is best diversified. In addition, plutonium-239 is also an important nuclear material.

Although helium is important, uranium ore resources are also very important, so it can't all be made into hot reactors, and the combination of the two is the best. If fast reactors are also established, the industrial plutonium produced after the operation of the thermal reactor and the uranium-238 that the thermal reactor cannot burn can be used as fuel for the fast reactor, thus forming a virtuous circle.

In addition, when it comes to uranium mines, I will mention the current situation by the way. Over the past decade, China has now hoarded about 2.6 million tons of uranium ore through continuous excavation and mining from all over the world. The original plan was to collect 4 million tons of uranium ore in ten years, but now less than 70% of the original plan has been completed, which makes Mr. Wen very depressed.

But this is also something that cannot be helped, the first war on the plane has lasted too long, and the production of many uranium mineral fields has been greatly affected, and now South Africa has not recovered to the pre-war level.

Most of the uranium ore collected so far comes from Canada, Australia and South Africa. It is estimated that he has looted nearly sixty percent of the uranium mines in these three countries, but because of the First World War, the domestic production of these three countries has been greatly affected in order to help Niu Laoda. In South Africa, in particular, the production of uranium mines has plummeted to one-tenth of its pre-war level due to independence, and it has not yet recovered. Although Canada and Australia resumed production after the war, due to a large number of casualties, their output could not satisfy Mr. Wen.

Therefore, in the two years after the war, on the one hand, Mr. Wen purchased mines in Australia and Canada through agreements with the British, and sent personnel from China to mine them (mainly labor camp prisoners and students of civilized schools). On the other hand, the main procurement of uranium ore has shifted to the United States, Europe, Central and South-West Africa, and more recently, the Soviet Union and Belarus, which have stopped the Red and White Song Society.

He was pleasantly surprised that the United States had a deep industrial base and was moving fast in mining. Perhaps because of the post-war economic downturn, he only raised the purchase price slightly, and the Americans desperately went around prospecting for mining and selling to him, and within three years he had bought nearly 500,000 tons of uranium ore from the United States, and the efficiency of American miners was really high.

In this way, it is estimated that it will take another four or five years or so to loot almost all the easily exploitable uranium ore in the United States. Of course, this refers to the United States, the three West African states of the United States and their three little brothers in West Africa, and there are also a lot of uranium mines, which cannot be mined in a few years. Because these places are too backward and the level of industry is too low, unless there is large-scale investment, the output will not go up at all.

Europe has moved more slowly, which may also be due to the fact that Europe's uranium reserves are smaller and more dispersed. Central Africa and Southwest Africa, on the other hand, are relatively slow because of the relatively low level of development. The Soviet Union and Belarus are not so efficient because there are too many dead people, there is a shortage of labor, and the efficiency is not so high, and the Belarusian side is fine, they are about to become China's puppet states, it doesn't matter if there are not enough people, China directly sends people over to dig it. But the red-haired bears are more troublesome, and they don't want to let a large number of people from the Chinese side enter.

He expects that there will be about 15 to 20 years of safe time for him to continue scouring the world for uranium and other resources. Because according to the current situation, World War II will definitely happen, and there will be a lot of overseas resources that cannot guarantee the supply at that time. This is also something that can't be helped, the battle on this plane can be over, a war that is not won or lost, no matter which side is not satisfied.

Coupled with the great feud formed in the First World War, if you don't distinguish the winner or loser, it is estimated that everyone will not be balanced in their hearts. It's impossible not to do one. According to the current development, it is estimated that it will take more than 10 years until the two sides have their wounds well, and it will take at least five years with the war equipment. That is, there are at least fifteen years of peace. Of course, this peace is only relative to the world war, and needless to say, the skirmishes have never been broken. For example, the people of Africa and India have been waging a terrible struggle against the evil colonialists for independence and freedom.

However, it is difficult to estimate the specific outbreak time of World War II, because the history of the original plane has changed beyond recognition, and almost all the historical materials on social aspects brought by the original time and space have been invalidated. And the fuse of war is often small things, so it's really hard to estimate.

But no matter how you look at it, there are at least fifteen years left to loot. Based on the current pace of procurement, he should have the opportunity to collect more than 90% of overseas uranium deposits during this period. Of course, this only refers to easily mineable uranium ore in shallow depths of the earth's surface. According to the records of Xingke Company, the reserves of easily exploitable uranium ore in the whole earth are about 8 million tons, but the total amount of uranium ore that can be mined is about 60 million tons. Therefore, even if he buys all the uranium mines that are easy to mine, the European and American powers can still dig up a lot of uranium mines if they really want to search the world, of course, the development cost and the technology required will be high.

In addition, although there are not many uranium mines on the territory of the younger brothers of the People's Revolutionary Federation, no matter how small the mosquitoes are, they are still meat, and naturally all of them are contracted to the eldest brother. Finally, it goes without saying that uranium ore in China is naturally banned from export, and it has not even been mined yet.

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Republic 2765 (1924) January 18, Taklamakan Desert, Base 3505.

The 3505 base is located in Quli City, Xinjiang Province (the name is taken from the Quli State in the Qin and Han dynasties, and the jurisdiction is equivalent to Bayingolin Prefecture in the Tu Dynasty) and about 100 kilometers northwest of Mo County, in the center of the Taklamakan Desert.

The base was built in January 1916 and officially opened in August 1919. That's right, this is China's nuclear weapons test base. Although it is nominally part of the Lop Nur base, the two are separated by a distance of several hundred kilometers, so if anyone were to look for it near Lop Nur, they would not be able to find it.

It was not easy to build in the middle of the desert, and it took a lot of effort to build the road alone. So although this base is not big, it has been in operation for three and a half years, and you must know that the construction of the capital Hanjing has only taken four years.

After completing the inspection of the Lop Nur base, Wen Desi held a symposium and exchanged views with everyone for more than three hours. Afterwards, a dinner party was held at the base and dinner was shared with all the researchers at the base.

Early this morning, Wen Desi took an airship to this base located in the middle of the desert, and it was not only Mr. Wen who came today, but also Premier Zhang Lizheng and Chief of General Staff Xin Jie, all of whom came from the army, navy and air force.

There is, of course, a very important reason for all these high-level officials to run to this place where birds don't. That's right, they're here today to watch the first nuclear explosion in human history on this plane.

Sixty kilometers away from the base is the nuclear explosion test site. At this time, there were many buildings built in this experimental field, including residential buildings, factories, warehouses, etc., except for the people, it was a complete small city. In this city that is about to be destroyed, there are also many animals and various detection and sensing instruments, and there are hundreds of cameras alone.

In the square in the center of the city, a slender 60-meter-high iron tower with a yellow barrel is placed on top of it.

"Mr. Wen, the yellow barrel in the middle of the screen is the nuclear device that was tested and exploded...... "Major General Yu Jiancheng, the person in charge of the base, introduced to Wen Desi.

"Well, how many do we have now, and how much do they weigh?" asked Wendehe, looking at the nuclear device on the screen.

Of course, Mr. Wen and the others will not be at the scene to see, they are all in the solid underground bunker command at this time. Being underground doesn't interfere with viewing, it's full of cameras.

"We now have a total of four nuclear explosive devices, two gun-type uranium shells and two implosion plutonium bombs, which are within 60 centimeters in diameter and 200 centimeters in length, none of which weighs more than 2,000 kilograms, and are completely large enough to be carried and dropped by existing bombers. Major General Yu Jiancheng, the person in charge, said with great interest: "However, these four are all to be used for test explosion test data, so they are all barrel-shaped atomic bomb devices, not air-dropped bomb design, so they can't be called atomic bomb ......."

"Within 60 centimeters in diameter, within 200 centimeters in length, less than 2,000 kilograms...... Well, that's pretty good......" For this answer, Wen Deji was very satisfied.

You must know that the first official atomic bombs in the United States weighed more than 4,000 kilograms and were more than three meters long, so only B-29 bombers could drop them.

There are two main reasons why China was able to make the atomic bomb so small from the beginning. First, Wendesi has enough time and does not need to carry out over-design with a high safety factor, as long as it will explode, it is good to test and collect data. Second, there is a large amount of relevant information to provide opinions and research directions, and the guys at the Nuclear Weapons Research Institute (3508 Institute) have already played the "subcritical test explosion" thousands of times.

The so-called "subcritical test explosion" is a test explosion in which a nuclear explosion does not occur. To put it simply, a nuclear bomb is to remove its uranium or plutonium nucleus and replace it with a steel block of the same shape for a test explosion. This kind of test explosion without a chain reaction is called a "subcritical test explosion". In other words, it was a test explosion to test the effect of an atomic bomb trigger consisting of a cluster of explosives.

When the number of nuclear test explosions is large enough and the relevant parameters are collected enough, there is no need to carry out actual nuclear test explosions, and the design of nuclear bombs can be slowly improved as long as subcritical test explosions are carried out. The characteristic of the subcritical test explosion is that it is essentially only the detonation of explosives, which is the same as the test explosion of artillery shells and bombs, so there are only tens or hundreds of kilograms of explosives exploding, so it cannot be detected, or it cannot be distinguished from ordinary bomb test explosions.

In fact, implosion compression was the most difficult step in the design of the atomic bomb. There are two main problems, one is how to make the explosives detonate at the same time or at a predetermined time, and the error accuracy must reach 0. 1~1 microsecond. The second is how to determine the shape of the explosive block so that the energy can be evenly squeezed, or the expected explosion center according to demand. These two conditions will determine whether the atomic bomb can be effectively detonated, whether it can fully utilize the nuclear reactive substance, and whether it will be fully powerful.

And this key technology has nothing to do with nuclear materials. It can be carried out even without uranium or plutonium nuclei, so a group of people can be assigned to be responsible for the development of nuclear materials in parallel with the refining of nuclear materials, so as to shorten the development time of the overall plan.

On the other hand, if the detonation time can be precisely controlled, it is possible to create an atomic bomb with adjustable power. For example, adjusting the detonation time of some of these explosive blocks can change the final compression ratio and shape of the explosion, thereby reducing the power of the explosion. The theoretical upper limit of the power of an atomic bomb cannot be increased by the nuclear charge and the original design, but it can be reduced. Therefore, a 10,000-ton atomic bomb can be selected from 10,000 tons, 8,000 tons, 5,000 tons, 3,000 tons, and 1,000 tons by accurately adjusting the detonation time of each explosive block and reducing its power. This can be of great tactical use at some point.

Of course, to complete this kind of task, you must be a professional blasting expert, and ordinary people can't play it. Therefore, when the Nuclear Weapons Research Institute was established, the Central Committee set up a subcritical explosion test group inside, which was crammed with dozens of blasting experts and pyrotechnics experts, plus a few mathematicians and physicists who were responsible for assisting in the calculation of the focused surface and studying the physics of detonation.

Their main task is to use lathes to process and manufacture a large number of various shapes of steel, copper, tungsten and other metals of different hardness, the shape is mainly spherical or oval, and then design, manufacture and combine explosive blocks of various shapes and properties, focus the explosion energy, and carry out implosion compression tests on these steel balls. The purpose of the team's mission was to design a way to compress the specified volume of steel balls to the smallest amount of explosives in the shape and configuration of the explosives, and they also had to design various curved surfaces and focusing methods to enhance the effect.

In the seven years since the establishment of the Nuclear Weapons Research Institute, the group has conducted an explosion test every two days, an average of 15 tests a month, and so far they have conducted more than 1,300 critical test explosions. As a result, these people have already played with explosives, and they even claim to be able to blow steel balls into any specified shape and size. With this group of experts who specialize in playing with explosives and imploding, even before the advent of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium and plutonium, the rough design of the core trigger unit related to the atomic bomb has been completed, and it is constantly improving.

With this group of implosion experts who have been hammered through a long chain, coupled with a series of test explosion experiments and data collection, it would be strange if the size of the atomic bomb could not be reduced. However, for Moon, the atomic bomb was just the beginning, and he did not like this first-generation nuclear weapon.

Mr. Wen did not like the atomic bomb, this was not out of humanitarianism, and he had always lacked the concept of humanitarianism in his head. The so-called humanitarian issue of the use of nuclear weapons was not on his radar. In his view, the army is a violent machine, killing people is their job, as for the means do not matter, whether it is the ancient use of broadswords and spears to kill, or the modern use of machine guns, artillery, aircraft and tanks to kill people, it will not be more humane than the use of atomic bombs to kill people. The so-called notion that nuclear, chemical and biological weapons should not be used is, in his view, either complete hypocrisy, or just a statement used to restrain opponents.

Because of the atomic bomb, although the lethality can be called a big killer, the side effects are too strong. He wants to be a conqueror, not a destroyer, and if the territory he has laid down becomes a ruin and cannot be used for a long time, isn't it a loss-making business?

So the atomic bomb is just a technical reserve for him, anyway, there are at least fifteen years of peace now, and he is sure enough to get a follow-up product with much fewer side effects during this time, even if the cleanest fourth-generation nuclear weapons can't be made, the third generation is still fine. It took only 18 years for the United States to go from the first generation of weapons to the third generation of nuclear weapons, and this is still under the condition of completely exploring on its own, and there is no reason why China, which has better conditions on its own plane, will not be able to complete the third generation of nuclear weapons in 15 years. It is generally distinguished from the bomb test explosion.

In fact, implosion compression was the most difficult step in the design of the atomic bomb. There are two main problems, one is how to make the explosives detonate at the same time or at a predetermined time, and the error accuracy must reach 0. 1~1 microsecond. The second is how to determine the shape of the explosive block so that the energy can be evenly squeezed, or the expected explosion center according to demand. These two conditions will determine whether the atomic bomb can be effectively detonated, whether it can fully utilize the nuclear reactive substance, and whether it will be fully powerful.

And this key technology has nothing to do with nuclear materials. It can be carried out even without uranium or plutonium nuclei, so a group of people can be assigned to be responsible for the development of nuclear materials in parallel with the refining of nuclear materials, so as to shorten the development time of the overall plan.

On the other hand, if the detonation time can be precisely controlled, it is possible to create an atomic bomb with adjustable power. For example, adjusting the detonation time of some of these explosive blocks can change the final compression ratio and shape of the explosion, thereby reducing the power of the explosion. The theoretical upper limit of the power of an atomic bomb cannot be increased by the nuclear charge and the original design, but it can be reduced. Therefore, a 10,000-ton atomic bomb can be selected from 10,000 tons, 8,000 tons, 5,000 tons, 3,000 tons, and 1,000 tons by accurately adjusting the detonation time of each explosive block and reducing its power. This can be of great tactical use at some point.

Of course, to complete this kind of task, you must be a professional blasting expert, and ordinary people can't play it. Therefore, when the Nuclear Weapons Research Institute was established, the Central Committee set up a subcritical explosion test group inside, which was crammed with dozens of blasting experts and pyrotechnics experts, plus a few mathematicians and physicists who were responsible for assisting in the calculation of the focused surface and studying the physics of detonation.

Their main task is to use lathes to process and manufacture a large number of various shapes of steel, copper, tungsten and other metals of different hardness, the shape is mainly spherical or oval, and then design, manufacture and combine explosive blocks of various shapes and properties, focus the explosion energy, and carry out implosion compression tests on these steel balls. The purpose of the team's mission was to design a way to compress the specified volume of steel balls to the smallest amount of explosives in the shape and configuration of the explosives, and they also had to design various curved surfaces and focusing methods to enhance the effect.

In the seven years since the establishment of the Nuclear Weapons Research Institute, the group has conducted an explosion test every two days, an average of 15 tests a month, and so far they have conducted more than 1,300 critical test explosions. As a result, these people have already played with explosives, and they even claim to be able to blow steel balls into any specified shape and size. With this group of experts who specialize in playing with explosives and imploding, even before the advent of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium and plutonium, the rough design of the core trigger unit related to the atomic bomb has been completed, and it is constantly improving.

With this group of implosion experts who have been hammered through a long chain, coupled with a series of test explosion experiments and data collection, it would be strange if the size of the atomic bomb could not be reduced. However, for Moon, the atomic bomb was just the beginning, and he did not like this first-generation nuclear weapon.

Mr. Wen did not like the atomic bomb, this was not out of humanitarianism, and he had always lacked the concept of humanitarianism in his head. The so-called humanitarian issue of the use of nuclear weapons was not on his radar. In his view, the army is a violent machine, killing people is their job, as for the means do not matter, whether it is the ancient use of broadswords and spears to kill, or the modern use of machine guns, artillery, aircraft and tanks to kill people, it will not be more humane than the use of atomic bombs to kill people. The so-called notion that nuclear, chemical and biological weapons should not be used is, in his view, either complete hypocrisy, or just a statement used to restrain opponents.

Because of the atomic bomb, although the lethality can be called a big killer, the side effects are too strong. He wants to be a conqueror, not a destroyer, and if the territory he has laid down becomes a ruin and cannot be used for a long time, isn't it a loss-making business?

So the atomic bomb is just a technical reserve for him, anyway, there are at least fifteen years of peace now, and he is sure enough to get a follow-up product with much fewer side effects during this time, even if the cleanest fourth-generation nuclear weapons can't be made, the third generation is still fine. It took only 18 years for the United States to go from the first generation of weapons to the third generation of nuclear weapons, and this is still under the condition of completely exploring on its own, and there is no reason why China, which has better conditions on its own plane, will not be able to complete the third generation of nuclear weapons in 15 years.