Chapter 554: Dazzling Blue Light
"If commercial controlled nuclear fusion can be achieved, the impact on the world will be extremely huge," Xu You thought.
From a certain perspective, the significance of controlled nuclear fusion is even greater than that of superconductivity.
Although superconductivity can achieve zero-loss transportation in computers, its significance is only to reduce energy loss and it cannot create energy out of thin air.
Controlled nuclear fusion is a way to fundamentally solve the energy problem.
Because the raw materials used for controlled nuclear fusion can be extracted from the ocean.
Theoretically, as long as the technology of controlled nuclear fusion is mastered, the raw materials needed will be inexhaustible.
…
When the construction of Dongri No. 2 was completed, Xu You and Lin Shi came to the location of the Dongri No. 2 device together.
Lin Shi had participated in part of the design work of Dongri No. 2 before, and this time Xu You would definitely bring Lin Shi along.
After these days of construction, Dongri-2 has appeared before everyone in its complete form.
Compared with Dongri No. 1, the Dongri No. 2 device is much larger and its expected power generation capacity is far greater than that of Dongri No. 1.
"Teacher, we will soon see whether the real Dongri-2 can achieve commercial controlled nuclear fusion as we predicted."
"Yes, we have been waiting for this day for a long time, and now we have to wait until the result is finally revealed."
Even though he was confident in his design, Xu You was not completely sure what the final result would be.
After all, simulation and reality cannot be guaranteed to be 100% identical, and there may be some differences between design and actual manufacturing.
After the construction of Dongri No. 2 was officially completed, Xu You, Lin Shi and others conducted rigorous inspections and tests on the device.
After rigorous inspection and testing, we confirmed that there were no problems with the entire device and it fully met all design requirements.
With the inspection and testing work completed, the day for the official experiment was set.
Like previous moon landing projects, the Dongri-2's power generation experiment was also broadcast live by many mainstream media including CCTV.
Compared with the moon landing project, the controlled nuclear fusion project is not as novel and exciting, but it is a project that is more closely related to all of us.
On the day of the Dongri-2 ignition experiment, various live broadcast rooms had already started live broadcasts in advance, introducing some information related to the project.
"This time, the Dongri-2 is different from the previous generation Dongri-1 device. Dongri-2 is the world's first controllable nuclear fusion device that uses a dual magnetic confinement structure with internal and external magnetic fields. There is not only the magnetic field of the external large magnet, but also the magnetic field generated by the internal plasma itself. Through the superposition of the two magnetic fields, the device has a stronger confinement ability for the internal plasma."
On the screen, the Dongri No. 2 controlled nuclear fusion device appeared in front of the audience.
Because of its special design, the size of Dongri-2 is very large, even exceeding most people's expectations.
However, it is precisely this superposition of internal and external magnetic fields that enables the Dongri No. 2 controlled nuclear fusion device to have stronger magnetic confinement capabilities and achieve higher energy conversion rates.
At this time, Xu You and Lin Shi were carefully checking the data in front of the console and conducting final debugging before the experiment began.
"Five, four, three, two, one... the central control system is activated!"
Following the order from the project commander-in-chief, Dongri-2 officially began its first power generation experiment.
Because the temperature inside the nuclear reactor is extremely high, we cannot directly observe the internal situation with our naked eyes.
But as long as you can see the blue flame on the central control screen, it proves that the device has discharged successfully.
"The blue flame...appeared!"
Almost at the moment the central control system was put into use, the blue flame light that everyone had been expecting appeared on the central control screen.
This proves that Dongri-2 has successfully achieved discharge!
"Now we can see that a blue light has appeared on the screen. This indicates that the experiment was successful and Dongri-2 has achieved discharge!"
Following the host's introduction, the audience in the live broadcast room expressed their joy in their own ways.
Xu You quickly calmed down, because the successful discharge was only one of the goals of this experiment.
In addition, data such as fusion temperature, continuous discharge time, and Q value are what Xu You is more concerned about.
Lin Shi also knew that the key point was yet to come, and like Xu You, she was nervously observing the following data.
"As you can see, according to the data on the central control screen, the temperature in the center of the nuclear fusion device has reached 160 million degrees Celsius! This temperature has created a new temperature for a controllable nuclear fusion device!"
Ordinary people have long lost any concept of such horrific temperatures.
For reference, the temperature of the sun's surface is about 5,500 degrees Celsius, and the temperature of the sun's core is "only" about 20 million degrees Celsius.
In comparison, the central temperature of the Dongri-2 controlled nuclear fusion device is far higher than the temperature of the sun's core.
"According to the information provided by the experts of the project team, in order to artificially produce controlled nuclear fusion, a temperature of at least 100 million degrees Celsius is required. In theory, the higher the temperature in the controlled nuclear fusion device, the better, but high temperature is not easy to obtain, and the higher the temperature, the better the protection performance of the nuclear reaction device needs to be."
"When we first designed the Dongri-2 device, we had already anticipated that it would be able to reach such a high reaction temperature. Therefore, we equipped the device with a specific nuclear reaction protection box, so that even at an ultra-high temperature of 160 million degrees Celsius, there would not be any safety risks."
At this moment, Xu You's attention was on the various data on the central control screen.
So far, Dongri-2 has been running stably for more than one thousand seconds.
The temperature in the center of the nuclear reactor remained at 160 million degrees Celsius, without any particularly large fluctuations.
If this continues, Dongri-2 will not only set a new record for the highest nuclear fusion reaction temperature, but also create a new duration of controlled nuclear fusion reaction.
"We need such a high temperature to create an environment for deuterium and tritium to fuse. Our nuclear reaction platform can measure all parameters of deuterium and tritium in real time. These raw materials can be extracted from seawater. Theoretically, the energy generated by deuterium and tritium extracted from one liter of seawater is equivalent to the energy generated by burning three liters of gasoline."
