Chapter 74: The Last Step for Controlled Nuclear Fusion

After the breakthrough in Carbon-based Chips, Computing Power was no longer a major obstacle for the progress of Human Civilization, at least not in the short term.

The ten-nanometer Carbon-based Chips hadn’t reached their theoretical limit yet. They could still get smaller and more powerful.

But now that these chips existed and were this advanced, the next steps in research didn’t really require Qin Yu’s personal involvement.

With the Information Denoising Research Institute growing much larger again, top Researchers within Human Civilization could totally push Carbon-based Chip research forward on their own.

Other paths for Computing Power Technology, like Biological Computers, seemed full of potential. But achieving them quickly was tough.

Most importantly, the need for those alternatives wasn’t really critical just yet.

So, after solving the Computing Power problem, what was blocking Human Civilization’s growth, or its ability to produce more?

The answer was obvious:

Energy.

Inside the office of the head of the Negentropy Research Institute,

Qin Yu sat. The newest model Bipedal Robot beside him poured him another cup of warm water.

Qin Yu glanced at the robot, picked up the cup, and took another sip.

He remembered back when he first became head of the Negentropy Research Institute, he’d had a human assistant in his office.

Now, in this era where Artificial Intelligence was everywhere, one wasn’t needed anymore.

This was just part of how times had changed.

He pulled his thoughts back. Qin Yu looked out the window once more, continuing to think things through.

…

The breakthrough in Computing Power Technology did reduce some of the energy used for computing support within Human Civilization.

But it didn’t fix the root problem of energy consumption.

Running Intelligent Machinery required energy. So did industry, and keeping society going – all of it needed energy.

In the Intelligent Era, industrial scale skyrocketed, bringing truly massive pressure for energy.

Over the last few years, statistics clearly showed productivity surging forward.

But every bit of productivity needed energy behind it to keep going.

Dense ultra-high-voltage power grids sprawling everywhere, plus the massive global effort to extract energy materials – all highlighted this problem.

To fix this,

there were roughly two ways:

One was innovating energy technology itself. If you could make more energy using less resources and materials, the energy pressure would naturally lessen.

The other way, naturally, was to get more energy materials.

Energy resources on Earth were limited. But the universe held far more than just Earth.

Take the Moon, which Human Civilization was exploring and starting to develop right now.

If resources could be mined from the Lunar Surface and transported back to Earth, the current energy pressure could definitely be relieved.

This was the traditional way –

pretty much how most civilizations grew.

Resource needs unmet? Expand. Expansion lets the population base grow? New resource scarcity arises? Expand again.

Moving from one plot of land to a bigger one worked this way. Going from one planet to a solar system? Same thing.

This snowball process was how most civilizations rolled.

Making this way work to ease the current energy pressure depended on one core issue: developing transport technology.

More precisely, lowering the Earth-Moon transport cost.

This cost wasn’t about money as such.

It was just the raw physical cost of moving stuff between Earth and Moon.

If the energy spent transporting a batch of materials from the Lunar Surface back to Earth ended up being HIGHER than the energy (or value) those materials themselves could provide…

Then digging up Moon resources to haul back home made very little sense.

Cutting down Earth-Moon transport cost meant…

advancing Earth-Moon transport technology.

And right now, Earth-Moon transport was still stuck using chemical rockets.

Real progress likely needed electric propulsion.

But electric propulsion would need first-rate power technology – a vastly superior energy source feeding the Electric Propulsion Engines.

Which meant…

You ended up looping back to realize:

The two paths to solving the energy crisis? They led to the same place.

They seemed different, but were really one thing.

For energy tech needed right now to fix civilization’s energy crunch?

That meant two main fronts:

Nuclear Fusion, and Solar Power.

…

Solar power? That was straightforward.

Here at Earth’s position, the Sun was the biggest energy source.

Using Solar power more efficiently could definitely ease pressure a lot, especially for a civilization like Humanity, still centered around its home planet.

And thanks to the Intelligent Era,

the cost of making solar panels and other solar tech got pushed down even further.

This effectively boosted the ratio – the energy a solar panel generated over its whole life, compared to the energy used to build it in the first place.

So, within the Huaxia Nation, already leveraging Intelligent Machinery and smart production chains,

solar power installations were rolling out massively across the land to supply energy.

Within the intricate power grid, more and more electricity came pouring in from these solar farms.

If Qin Yu wanted to tackle energy pressure through solar power,

he’d need to focus on increasing the efficiency of solar energy conversion.

But truly solving THAT problem might ultimately land him in materials research.

Even trying through Computational Materials Science,

he had to admit: materials research sometimes just needed luck.

Then came controlled nuclear fusion.

This approach to solving energy problems was more thorough and fundamental.

After all, the sun also obtained its energy through nuclear fusion.

Rather than trying to better harness the energy released by the sun,

it was better to essentially ‘grow a little sun’.

And nuclear fusion represented the most efficient method of energy release ever mastered by human civilization.

By this era,

after so many years of development,

controlled nuclear fusion had essentially been achieved.

However, its commercial application for electricity generation still faced hurdles.

The experimental reactors for controlled nuclear fusion in this age could sustain operation long enough during test runs to meet requirements for continuous operation.

The key challenge remained the Q value, meaning the self-sustaining rate.

If reactor scale wasn’t a concern, and was set at a sufficient level,

the Q value could exceed one, meaning self-sustaining fusion was possible.

The problem was, the most advanced experimental fusion devices of this era only barely surpassed a Q value of one.

Simultaneously, the excessively large and intricate systems led to decreased stability during prolonged operation.

Additionally,

due to fusion temperature constraints, current experimental fusion reactors were still limited to deuterium-tritium fusion.

The ultimate result was that

in this era, controlled fusion technology was essentially achieved,

but the cost of electricity generation remained too high, failing to gain an advantage over more traditional power generation methods.

If Qin Yu wanted to solve the current energy crisis through fusion,

he likely needed to focus on further increasing the Q value of reactors.

Crucially,

he also needed to achieve helium-3 fusion.

Fusion using helium-3 as fuel was far more suitable for human civilization’s situation than deuterium-tritium fusion.

This was because the moon held abundant helium-3,

which would also facilitate future development of other lunar resources.

……

Regarding solutions to the energy problem, Qin Yu naturally prepared on both fronts, pursuing both avenues simultaneously.

He would attempt breakthroughs in energy transmission technology,

and also research the energy technology itself.

Between these two directions, Qin Yu prioritized research into the energy technology itself.

However, even in this domain,

Qin Yu didn’t need to solve every problem alone.

……

Year 273.

The Negentropy Research Institute submitted an application to higher authorities and, after many years, added a new research division: the ‘Energy and Power Research Institute’.

After receiving the application,

the Senior Leader visited the Negentropy Research Institute, discussed it with Qin Yu, and approved its establishment.

Bolstered by the institute’s growing reputation and resources,

the Energy and Power Research Institute was quickly staffed and became operational.

Naturally,

Qin Yu had no intention of starting fusion research from scratch.

Therefore, the Energy and Power Research Institute logically chose to collaborate with the existing project teams responsible for the Controlled Nuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor program,

jointly advancing research on commercializing fusion reactors.

The original project teams working on the Experimental Reactor had no objections to this new partnership.

That was because the Controlled Nuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor project was never solely the domain of a single institute or team.

The reactor itself represented a vast, complex system.

Numerous research institutes and teams across the Huaxia Nation participated, each responsible for different modules and systems.

After so many years, countless researchers had contributed and departed.

Therefore, adding another new research entity was uncontroversial.

Furthermore, the Negentropy Research Institute’s formidable reputation preceded it.

Although the Energy and Power Research Institute was newly formed, the direct involvement of Academician Qin Yu itself inspired confidence.

Moreover, even before this, many research teams within the fusion reactor project had eagerly anticipated the application of strong AI technology.

From the perspective of many teams,

the experimental reactor had advanced to a stage where commercialization seemed just a step away.

Most technical problems were actually solved; the main challenge likely lay in the control system –

effectively containing and controlling the plasma turbulence.

For research into control systems and overall systemic management,

the ‘Father of Strong AI’ seemed eminently qualified.

Certainly,

there was also this factor:

After the successes in General Artificial Intelligence and Carbon-based Chips,

people’s faith in Academician Qin Yu and the Negentropy Research Institute had become somewhat… blind.

At the very least, when news broke that Academician Qin Yu might join the fusion reactor research,

excitement far outweighed doubt.

……

General Artificial Intelligence could indeed play a vital role in fusion reactors.

Fundamentally, a controlled fusion reactor is also essentially a running, controllable machine.

Just far more complex than most intelligent machinery.

Coincidentally, the strong AI developed under the Brain Intelligence Project was precisely suited for managing such complex system tasks.

Therefore, after the Energy and Power Research Institute joined the fusion reactor project,

the first action, spearheaded by Qin Yu, involved collaborating with the Information Denoising Research Institute.

Under Qin Yu’s guidance, they integrated strong AI for controlling the nuclear fusion reactor.

For this purpose, a relatively smaller Computing Power Tower was built for the Controlled Nuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor.

After introducing Strong Artificial Intelligence control,

the Controlled Nuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor was operated once more.

Even though the new Computing Power Tower consumed extra energy,

the Q-value of the Controlled Nuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor rose significantly during this new run.

Because of this,

after Academician Qin Yu contacted other research teams of the Controlled Nuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor project in the name of the Institute of Energy Dynamics,

he proposed building a larger-scale Controlled Nuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor,

further boosting its Q-value.

Calculations based on the updated control system showed

that scaling up the Controlled Nuclear Fusion Reactor to a certain size could achieve a Q-value satisfying commercial requirements.

In the past,

constructing a Controlled Nuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor as large as Qin Yu proposed would have faced enormous pressure.

But now,

during the Intelligent Era, the explosive growth in productivity made this possible.

Naturally,

the proposal made by the Energy and Power Research Institute and the Controlled Nuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor project was approved.

…

Outside the Controlled Nuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor project,

other research teams at the Institute of Energy Dynamics were also conducting preliminary research on Electric Propulsion Engines.

For Earth-Moon travel and future interstellar voyages in other directions,

Qin Yu completely abandoned the traditional chemical rocket approach,

because clearly, even if chemical rockets weren’t totally obsolete, they wouldn’t get humanity very far.

As for energy research,

Qin Yu didn’t completely give up on solar power generation,

though his personal involvement was limited. He still established a related research project and entrusted it to the Materials Research Institute of the Negentropy Research Institute.

Occasionally, he would visit the Materials Research Institute to check on progress and offer suggestions.

…

Most of the time, Qin Yu was still focused on Controlled Nuclear Fusion research itself.

To be more precise,

it was research and deliberation on advancing beyond Deuterium-Tritium Fusion to ‘Helium-3’ Fusion.

From Qin Yu’s perspective, the research on Deuterium-Tritium Fusion Reactors,

while the construction of the new, larger experimental reactor wasn’t yet complete,

already had an inevitable outcome.

But his ambition extended far beyond just Deuterium-Tritium Fusion.

What mattered most was Helium-3 Fusion.

However, whether regarding reaction temperature or confinement difficulty, Helium-3 Fusion was an order of magnitude more challenging than Deuterium-Tritium Fusion.

Much of the accumulated knowledge from past Controlled Nuclear Fusion research might need to be completely rethought for Helium-3 Fusion.

Unless there was a short-term breakthrough in materials science,

he would need to consider achieving far more meticulous and precise control over the plasma turbulence operating within the reactor.

Ideally, gaining a much deeper insight into the fundamental nature of turbulence beyond the current level,

to master its control more effectively.

…

In 274,

with the involvement of the Negentropy Research Institute and in this Intelligent Era,

the new Controlled Nuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor was built very swiftly.

After the site was decided and the Institute of Energy Dynamics, other relevant research teams, and the Negentropy Research Institute jointly produced the new experimental reactor design,

the Strong Artificial Intelligence from the Brain Intelligence Project naturally utilized this design.

It scanned the entire industrial system, found suitable smart factories capable of producing specific components, and directly assigned production.

For devices requiring entirely new production lines, it efficiently mobilized the relevant Intelligent Machinery to establish these new lines.

Considering the location of the Institute of Energy Dynamics,

this new Controlled Nuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor

was naturally still located near Lingchuan City.

Within this single year,

if initially, people’s expectations for Academician Qin Yu had focused mainly on his control systems,

then now, the researchers in the relevant teams wouldn’t be surprised to find him responsible for any part of the entire experimental reactor system.

Academician Qin Yu’s knowledge base and the breadth of fields he could span just couldn’t seem to find the bottom.