Chapter 545: Core Catcher

“This is a bit interesting.” When Academician Wang Zengguang looked through Lu Zhou’s blueprint, he looked interested.

After a while, he asked, “Who designed this thing?”

Lu Zhou obviously couldn’t give him the real answer, so he gave a simple answer.

“The institute designed it.”

Technically, he was part of the institute.

Also, it was kind of “designed” by the system?

Academician Wang looked at Lu Zhou suspiciously and said, “Surely there’s a main person that designed this thing. No one designed this out of thin air.”

Lu Zhou smiled and didn’t explain. Instead, he diverted the conversation.

“Let’s not go into the details. Rather than talking about who came up with this idea, I want to know more about this blueprint. Does the China National Nuclear Corporation have the means to implement this production process?”

Academician Wang looked at the blueprint and rubbed his chin. He thought for a bit and said, “It’s difficult, but it should be fine.”

Since Academician Wang said it was fine, Lu Zhou sighed in relief and nodded.

“Okay, I’ll hand this over to you guys then.”

“No problem, I promise we will solve this as soon as possible.” Academician Wang looked at Lu Zhou and smiled as he said, “Looks like Professor Lu is a secretive man.”

Lu Zhou: “…”

Is he thinking that I’m the one that drew the blueprint?

Lu Zhou remembered what happened last time he drew something in front of this guy. He could probably guess why Academician Wang misunderstood.

However…

You can misunderstand all you want, it doesn’t affect me.

I’d rather you misunderstand than keep drilling me with questions.

Academician Wang looked at the blueprint in his hand and suddenly remembered something.

“Oh yeah, even though controllable fusion is a national-level project, there is still a clear line between public and private enterprises. This technology is developed by the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study, so we can’t just use it for free. I suggest for a cooperation agreement. You guys provide the technology, we implement the production.”

If Academician Wang Zengguang took someone else’s blueprint, he wouldn’t have mentioned anything. However, Lu Zhou’s status was different.

What did it mean to be a chief designer of a national-level project?

It meant that he could spend tens or even hundreds of billion yuan however he wanted. He was the one that had all the power. This was coupled with the fact that the government viewed highly of him. Even a giant company like the China National Nuclear Corporation didn’t want to offend him.

Therefore, even though Lu Zhou didn’t make any special demands, Academician Wang still considered all of the factors. He didn’t want to get into any trouble in the future, so he couldn’t let Lu Zhou feel like he was wronged.

He had to talk about this with the company leadership team.

Lu Zhou didn’t think much of this suggestion as he replied nonchalantly, “Okay, do it then.”

Actually, Academician Wang was over-thinking it. Lu Zhou didn’t really care about this. Compared to the huge lithium-sulfur battery market, the first wall material nuclear fusion market was minuscule.

If the PGC-1 material patent fee could earn Lu Zhou a dime, then his cooperation with the China National Nuclear Corporation would earn him an extra 5 cents at most.

If he really wanted to make money, he shouldn’t care about these small profits. He just had to focus on commercializing the controllable nuclear fusion technology.

Not to mention, the state definitely wouldn’t treat him badly. The impact of nuclear fusion technology breakthrough would increase the lithium-sulfur battery market by several-fold. Just the increase in sales of the battery anode materials and cathode materials alone was enough to make him filthy rich.

But these were all meaningless.

After all, he had more money in his bank account than he could ever spend.

Even if there were another zero at the end…

Emm…

Wait, that sounds quite tempting actually.

While Lu Zhou was talking with Academician Wang about the blueprint details, a knocking sound was heard from the office door.

They stopped their conversation, and Lu Zhou looked toward the door.

“Come in.”

The door was pushed open, and a researcher walked in.

“An expert came from Southwestern.”

Southwestern?

Lu Zhou’s face was full of surprise.

“Who?”

“Academician Zhou Chengfu…”

…

A group of people was standing at the demonstration reactor construction site entrance.

Wang Peng followed Lu Zhou outside. He signaled the soldiers to open the entrance checkpoint. Lu Zhou looked at Zhou Chengfu standing there and reached out his hand while smiling.

“Nice to see you here.”

Zhou Chengfu shook hands with Lu Zhou. He looked emotionless as he spoke slowly, “Nice to see you.”

Lu Zhou felt like he had something to say, so Lu Zhou asked, “Do you want to come to my office?”

Zhou Chengfu nodded.

“Sure.”

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The two walked side by side, they didn’t talk much.

Lu Zhou didn’t want to feel so awkward, so he tried to initiate a conversation.

“Is the HL-2A fixed?”

Zhou Chengfu said, “Thanks to you, not yet.”

Lu Zhou smiled awkwardly as he replied, “Yeah, that was my fault.”

Zhou Chengfu: “…”

Even though Zhou Chengfu came in “peace”, it was hard to restrain himself when he saw Lu Zhou’s smug smile.

They walked through the middle of the construction site and passed a big pit.

Zhou Chengfu looked at the construction equipment next to the pit and frowned.

“What’s this?”

Because this wasn’t a secret, Lu Zhou casually said, “This is the core catcher. It’s to prevent accidents from happening. It collects and cools the nuclear core in the event of a serious accident… It’s just a foundation right now, but it should be done by the end of the year.”

After all, the interior of a controllable fusion reactor simulated the energy of a star. Even though the fusion reaction was theoretically safe, hundreds of millions of degree plasma was still a serious threat.

Especially since the energy in the demonstration reactor was completely different from the experimental reactor.

If a leak were to occur, before the plasma could be cooled to a safe temperature, it would melt everything in its path. There was nothing in the solar system that could resist the heat from the plasma.

The core catcher was there to catch the expensive fusion core from escaping.

Even though it was only a one-time use kind of thing, if it could save any components of the machine that wasn’t destroyed, it would be worth it.

Zhou Chengfu knew what the core catcher was from the fission reactor, and he looked at Lu Zhou in surprise.

“You guys even thought about this?”

Lu Zhou smiled and said, “It’s not my idea. It was suggested by the engineers from China National Nuclear Corporation. Since it made sense, I approved it.”

Both the tokamak and the stellarator could be interpreted as larger nuclear cores compared to normal fission reactors.

After the engineers from the China National Nuclear Corporation understood the value of the reactor, they immediately proposed to use the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant third-generation nuclear fission core catcher on this fusion reactor.

Coincidentally, Lu Zhou could also use the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant as a reference. Therefore, he immediately made a decision.

Even though Lu Zhou didn’t sound like he was bragging at all, Zhou Chengfu still couldn’t help but complain, “Why do you even bother with the core catcher, do you even have a reactor?”

Lu Zhou smiled and said, “The reactor is still under construction. The two components don’t interfere with each other. We will complete all of the components and then assemble them.”

This time, Zhou Chengfu didn’t reply.

He had nothing to say.

After all, he didn’t have a deep enough understanding.

He didn’t even fully understand the concept of an experimental reactor, much less a demonstration reactor.

The two stopped walking. It was like Zhou Chengfu didn’t plan on talking anymore. He just stood there as he quietly looked at the engineering equipment on the construction site and the busy engineers who were walking around.

There were also things happening behind the scene that he couldn’t observe.

There were more than thousands of people working on this reactor.

The whole demonstration reactor project was like an engine; every person was like a tooth on a gear, running the engine at a high speed.

Jealousy?

Emotional?

Disbelief?

Right now, Zhou Chengfu’s heart was so full of emotion that he had no idea how to make of this.

He didn’t understand how a 20-something-year-old kid was able to do all this. If he didn’t see it with his own eyes, he never would have believed this was true.

However, it looked like Lu Zhou really did it.

This was the indisputable truth.

Zhou Chengfu suddenly felt a little depressed.

Just like how Old Pan didn’t understand his actions, he didn’t understand Old Pan.

But now, looking at all of this, he suddenly understood.

If they continued to develop at this rate, maybe…

Maybe Lu Zhou could really develop controllable fusion energy in his lifetime.

After staying silent for a while, Zhou Chengfu slowly spoke.

“These thousands of workers are all working for you, right?”

Lu Zhou: “You can interpret it that way.”

Zhou Chengfu looked at Lu Zhou and said, “Have you ever thought that one day, maybe because of your decision or your mistake or because of someone else’s mistake, you lose your research project… I want to know, what will you do?”

Lu Zhou: “What does this have to do with me?”

Zhou Chengfu was stunned.

He didn’t expect Lu Zhou to respond this way.

He stood there for a while and smiled.

“Huh? Oh, it doesn’t. Ah, a leader that doesn’t care for his workers isn’t a good leader.”

Lu Zhou smiled.

“That’s why I never wanted to become a leader. All I’m responsible for is to explore the unknown. As for my workers’ futures, that’s something for them to think about. I am not obligated to care about it.”