I am devoted to scientific research, but you want to trick me into having a love relationship?

Chapter 757 The US Starts to Muscle

Xu Qingzhou couldn't resist Song Yao's persistent pleading and watched TV with her.

He knew that this girl was worried about him being tired, and had been working overtime for several days in a row. It was rare for her to leave work on time today.

"Just watch TV."

Xu Qingzhou emphasized.

Song Yao chuckled twice and shoved her legs into Xu Qingzhou's arms. "What else do you want to do?"

She did have the idea of ​​letting Xu Qingzhou rest. Scientific research requires a balance between work and rest; one can't always be on edge.

"What are you looking at?"

"You choose." Song Yao really enjoyed being by Xu Qingzhou's side, feeling like she didn't have to think about anything.

"Crazy Racer".

Inside the LCD TV, the story unfolds little by little, and several storylines begin to merge.

Outside the window, it started to rain, and the smell of damp earth seeped in through the cracks in the glass.

Xu Qingzhou relaxed completely, temporarily forgetting about the experiment. When it rained, he enjoyed nothing more than being a useless person who did nothing.

The movie ended, and dusk was already quite deep.

Xu Qingzhou leaned back on the sofa, unwilling to move. Outside, the wind picked up, and rain lashed against the glass.

Song Yao is looking at the landscape photos sent by Ding Jiahui.

These past few days, Guo Ziyang and Ding Jiahui have been traveling and exploring, often sharing the scenery with Song Yao.

Xu Qingzhou simply found a ball game to pass the time. Since he had decided to stay in the living room with Song Yao, he was too lazy to think about the difficult problems of the experiment anymore.

Before I knew it, it was 11 p.m.

After finishing her chat with her girlfriends, Song Yao saw Xu Qingzhou sitting on the sofa, lost in thought. She pinched Xu Qingzhou's shirt hem with her toes and tugged at it, asking, "What are you thinking about?"

"I'm just... hungry."

Xu Qingzhou snapped out of his daze.

At such a peaceful moment, a bowl of noodles would be perfect.

Song Yao's toes stiffened, and she looked at Xu Qingzhou warily, suspecting that this guy might do something perverted like licking her feet.

I meant cooking noodles.

Xu Qingzhou felt offended and got up to go to the kitchen. "Isn't slurping noodles more comfortable than slurping your feet?"

"Are you a pig? We didn't eat until 7 o'clock." Song Yao lay on the sofa, watching the young man walk past the kitchen.

"Are you going to eat?"

"Don't eat."

"Sure?"

"Let's cook some."

On July 6, the U.S. National Ignition Facility (NIF) completed a 10-second net energy gain experiment.

Ten seconds is enough to cause a considerable stir in the field of controlled nuclear fusion.

Previously, the NIF was criticized for its duration. Although it achieved four net energy gains, these were all instantaneous values, and even one more second would have caused it to fail.

The 10-second net energy gain experiment is arguably the closest human history has ever come to the threshold of engineering controlled nuclear fusion.

In the future, all we need to do is keep iterating, turning "seconds" into "minutes," and finally transitioning to "hours," and it will all fall into place naturally.

The very next day, the US DIII-D tokamak announced that it had completed 1000 seconds of steady-state operation. The early design of the DIII-D was aimed at achieving extreme plasma parameters within a limited time, but after upgrading the conventional superconducting magnet to the high-temperature superconducting magnet from Princeton, the steady-state duration has gradually increased.

"Currently, the devices in various countries are no longer focused on their original positioning, but have begun to develop towards a comprehensive model."

"The United States is flexing its muscles to other countries with these actions."

"After showcasing our achievements and giving our allies confidence, the next step is to take action against the Xia Kingdom."

“In addition to working on materials and equipment, data sharing is definitely part of it.”

The innovative radio frequency current drive of the DIII-D tokamak device was previously used to optimize the radio frequency heating systems of EAST and ITER in China.

Of course, the Xia Kingdom also provided corresponding technology sharing.

The significant progress made in global fusion research is indeed due to international cooperation.

International competition can, to some extent, help create a "technological pressure cooker" effect. For example, during the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, competitive pressure forced the over-allocation of resources and the competition for talent, ultimately leading to rapid technological development.

"However, it is difficult to replicate this model in today's peaceful times."

Xu Qingzhou twirled the pen in his hand.

The speed of technological development is astonishing, but it makes life difficult for those below them. After all, resources are limited, and if they are all allocated to research, everyone has to tighten their belts and make ends meet.

"The United States is rich and powerful, and has no worries about a shortage of funds."

Besides its advantages in science, technology, and talent reserves, the United States also has plenty of money.

Having spent the past few years by Song Yao's side, Xu Qingzhou has gained a clearer understanding of economics.

Simply by significantly reducing the tax rate on the repatriation of overseas profits by enterprises, trillions of dollars could flow back to the United States and then be guided into the high-tech sector through policy.

He remained unperturbed by the United States' many achievements.

"Net energy gain"

If all goes well, he could catch up in less than a year, or rather, he was confident that he could complete the experiment on net energy gain in a short period of time.

"Currently, the performance of the divertor of Qiankun-1 can meet the test requirements of Q greater than 1, but it still needs improvement for the demonstration reactor that will continue to operate in the future."

"Moreover, if possible, we cannot limit ourselves to Q being greater than 1. Following the rules is meaningless; if we're going to do something, we have to do something big."

Just yesterday, Qiankun-1 conducted a heat dissipation test on the divertor.

The divertor is a transitional buffer zone between high-temperature plasma and solid materials, and its design directly affects the safety and operational performance of the tokamak device.

Many scientists even believe that future fusion reactors (such as ITER and CFETR) can achieve the commercialization of controlled nuclear fusion as long as they use divertors as the core of their impurity removal and thermal management solutions.

The importance of divertors is self-evident.

Nanoporous tungsten membranes can already achieve a heat load of 20 MW/m, a lifespan of 5 years, and near-zero radiation damage for the first wall material. However, when used in divertors, they are somewhat unsuitable and the effect is undoubtedly much worse.

Xu Qingzhou leaned back in his chair and began to go through all the technologies he had ever encountered, hoping to find a hidden technology to improve the performance of the divertor.

On July 8th, in Xia Country, after several months of upgrades, the EAST tokamak successfully completed a 200-second fusion product experiment of 3×10 keV·s/m.

People are already numb to this kind of news.

Max Planck Institute, Germany; China's Circulation 3; US NIF; US DIII-D; China's EAST (Experimental Advanced Super-Tokamak) satellite.

It's as if someone has turned the timeline of the controlled nuclear fusion field, and many technologies that were only shown on PowerPoint presentations have become reality, resulting in a leapfrog development all at once.

The achievements of the United States, in particular, have been widely reported by major media outlets abroad, all of which are telling people one thing: controlled nuclear fusion is really coming.

Xu Qingzhou and the researchers at the institute did not pay attention to news from abroad. They had been busy these days doing final tests and preparing for the experiment on the 12th.

Professor Xiao Chenghan, who was in Kyoto for a conference, took some time to visit Xu Qingzhou.

(End of this chapter)