Chapter 471: Large Buildings

The official documents were quickly released.

It was almost like it grew wings and followed Lu Zhou, flying all the way from Beijing to Jinling.

The first action was the dispatch of Jinling military troops where they then proceeded to set up fences around the Purple Mountain area.

Even though the entire research facility design only covered 80 acres, the military cleared out nearly 800 acres of land nearby.

Even though controllable nuclear fusion had nothing to do with nuclear bombs, it still had “nuclear” in its name.

And anything related to nuclear, even though it was absolutely safe from a technical standpoint, would cause others to be afraid or worried.

Thankfully, this was in the suburbs, and thus, the population density wasn’t high.

What had to be knocked down would be knocked down, and what had to be moved would be moved. Due to the city’s standard 1.5 market value demolition compensation, this process was very fast.

After that, the equipment from the China National Nuclear Corporation arrived.

Almost immediately after the project bidding finished, more than a dozen trucks and engineering vehicles fearsomely followed the military personnel and entered the construction site. They then began to set up everything on the empty land.

Guard Xiao Liu looked at the cement blocks on the trucks and stuck his tongue out.

“Nuclear construction, nuclear power cement… Are they planning on building a nuclear power station in Jinling?”

Xiao Li, who was standing next to him, shook his head. He said, “Doesn’t look like it. Nuclear power plants have to be next to the sea, right? Who builds power stations in the middle of nowhere…”

Xiao Liu: “Then is it a nuclear test?”

Xiao Li shook his head again and said, “That’s even less likely. Who would conduct nuclear tests near the capital and coastal provinces? Surely they would do it thousands of miles away from everyone!”

Xiao Liu couldn’t help but ask, “Then what do you think this is?”

Xiao Li looked at the Purple Mountain next to him and made a random guess. “I’m guessing it might be a nuclear fallout shelter. What do they say? Build your camps next to mountains and water! See that Purple Mountain next to us? This thing is probably a natural nuclear bunker…”

Old Zhao couldn’t stand to listen anymore, and he couldn’t help but reprimand them, “Stop talking sh*t! Do you really think you can guess what this is? Shut up and stand still.”

The two new soldiers suddenly shut their mouths.

Old Zhao was right; there was no way they could guess what the state planned on building here.

Suddenly, a military vehicle parked on the dirt road.

The car doors opened from both sides, and a prestigious looking middle-aged man and a very young-looking man got out of the car.

The armed soldiers, who were standing there, suddenly stood straight and saluted.

“Hello, commander!”

“Hello, soldiers.”

The man nodded and saluted. Without saying anything else, he and this young man walked toward the construction site.

Xiao Liu, who had a big mouth, looked at the commander walking away, and he couldn’t help but start quietly chatting with Xiao Li again.

“Hey, who do you think is the person walking behind the commander?”

Xiao Li was obviously very interested in this question; he looked at the young man walking away from them.

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“I don’t know. He looks pretty young. His pale skin obviously means that he’s not in the troops… Maybe in military logistics?”

Xiao Liu and Xiao Li were both kicked in the a*ss by their field officer.

…

Less than a week had passed between the policy being passed and the beginning of construction. This type of efficiency was only achievable in China.

Lu Zhou looked at the busy construction site and felt emotional. He couldn’t help but thank the person next to him.

“Commander Liao, thank you so much.”

Commander Liao smiled slightly and said, “There’s no need to thank us; it is our duty to protect and defend the country. The real people that are improving our motherland are scientists like you.”

Party A on the STAR Stellarator Research Institute contract was the Jinling Military; this was all to make sure the project continued at the fastest speed and without any interruptions.

Standing in front of Lu Zhou and Commander Liao was the chief engineer, Sun Zhonghai, who was sent from Party B, the China National Nuclear Corporation.

Even though Sun Zhonghai was already sixty years old, he had worked at the Daya Bay nuclear power plant. He was exceptionally experienced in the field of nuclear engineering construction.

They kept the small talk to a minimum. The old engineer placed the design drawings on the hood of his truck and said to Lu Zhou, “This is the engineering drawing. See if there’s anything you want to change; you can just tell me.”

The engineering drawing was a modified version of the research institute at Lu Yang. Even though their research institute was used for the tokamak device, the two had very similar engineering requirements.

Lu Zhou briefly looked at the engineering drawing and said, “I can’t understand these professional engineering blueprints, so I’ll just say some of my requirements.”

Engineer Sun nodded and gestured his assistant to take out a pen and paper; he was ready to write down Lu Zhou’s requirements.

Lu Zhou looked at the excavator next to him and contemplated for a bit before speaking.

“Safety comes first. After that, it is confidentiality. I don’t have any special requirements for the facilities, so you can just do them according to the blueprint requirements. As for the underground section, I’ll need a 500 square meters room which would mainly be used to store the stellarator.”

Engineer Sun looked at the blueprints. He then looked at the construction site and said, “We can dig a hole in the mountain and build a road. After that, we can build the entire laboratory in the mountain. Is that okay?”

Lu Zhou asked, “Digging the Purple Mountain, isn’t that a bit troublesome?”

The Purple Mountain wasn’t barren, and a few kilometers north was a scenery spot. However, undergoing construction in a place like this would require consideration of many factors.

Engineer Sun smiled as he said nonchalantly, “This isn’t troublesome at all. We’re one of the top national projects, so we have the highest priority. Besides, we’re only opening a small hole at the bottom of the mountain. It’s not like we’re constructing a bunch of large buildings.”

Lu Zhou nodded and said, “Okay then, this laboratory must be safe.”

Commander Liao asked with a serious tone, “Is it dangerous?”

Lu Zhou nodded at first, but after that, he shook his head and said, “Every experiment has a certain element of risk involved. Even though the risk isn’t high, this is a matter of precaution.”

Theoretically, controllable nuclear fusion was safe. Unlike nuclear fission, nuclear fusion wouldn’t produce a chain reaction. If the machine failed to work, then the reaction would stop.

However, even then, the high-pressure plasma was at hundreds of millions of degrees. Even though there was no nuclear fusion, there was still a certain amount of danger.

However, as long as the construction was done properly, this risk could be greatly mitigated.

Engineer Sun: “Don’t worry about this, the entire research institute will be built using nuclear power cement.”

Lu Zhou looked around and said, “The other thing is traffic. The roads here don’t look good.”

Commander Liao: “This is easy. I will report this to the superiors. They will then communicate with the city council, who will build a road here.”

Lu Zhou nodded. “Thank you so much.”