Building a Sci-Fi Empire: Starting with Cold Nuclear Fusion

Huaxia Science and Technology Paper Online, sponsored by the Science and Technology Development Center of the Ministry of Education, is one of the more authoritative paper websites in China.

Generally speaking, the papers published on this website need to go through two review processes: a preliminary review and a subsequent "quality review" by experts.

The former refers to the platform's review of submitted papers to see if they meet basic academic standards, format requirements, and comply with relevant national laws and regulations.

If it meets the requirements, the paper will be published online within seven days.

The latter allows authors to voluntarily submit "expert review requests" after the paper is published.

The platform will randomly select experts from its database to review the papers and rate them by star rating. Only papers that achieve four stars or higher may be recognized by some universities or institutions as achievements that meet the requirements for professional title evaluation and graduation.

Zhao Cheng is one of the initial reviewers on the Huaxia Science and Technology Paper Online Platform.

In the afternoon, as usual, he was reviewing papers one by one.

Zhao Cheng's review standards are very lenient; as long as the basic requirements are met, the application will be approved and published immediately.

At this moment, he clicked on a paper that had just been uploaded, glanced at the title casually, and was speechless.

Semi-controlled nuclear fusion—a Dyson sphere for the hydrogen bomb?

Zhao Cheng couldn't help but shake his head, thinking to himself that he wondered which whimsical guy's "genius" idea it was.

He knew without even looking at the paper that it didn't meet the standards and wanted to pass on it immediately.

He even clicked the "no approval" option.

Suddenly, Zhao Cheng noticed a design drawing of a peculiar device below.

The design is similar to the current mainstream "stellarator" in nuclear fusion, but upon closer inspection, it is quite different.

Zhao Cheng's interest was piqued, and he carefully examined the technical information next to the design drawings, only to learn that the design was called a "coronal mass ejection simulator".

Its function is roughly to eject deuterium and tritium nuclei like a coronal mass ejection, causing their relative speed to exceed one million meters per second.

At this speed, the atomic nuclei have enough kinetic energy to overcome the electrostatic repulsion between them, thus allowing the strong nuclear force to take effect and achieve fusion.

The temperature corresponding to this speed is approximately 100 million degrees Celsius.

At such high temperatures, matter is in a plasma state, and the thermal motion velocity of atomic nuclei is widely distributed, but the average kinetic energy is sufficient to cause some high-speed particles to undergo fusion.

This is a completely different approach from the tokamak device, which uses magnetic fields to confine and heat deuterium and tritium nuclei to a high-temperature, high-density state sufficient for nuclear fusion.

It is not only different from magnetic confinement devices like tokamak devices, but also, although it has some similarities to the inertial confinement research of the mainstream, it is still very different.

Inertial confinement fusion uses the inertia of particles to confine the particles themselves.

The basic idea is to use the energy provided by the actuator to make the nuclear fusion fuel in the target pellet form plasma.

In the extremely short time before these plasma particles have a chance to disperse due to their own inertia, they are compressed into a high-temperature, high-density state through centripetal aggregation, thus causing a nuclear fusion reaction.

The coronal mass ejection simulator works more like a collider, causing particles to collide at high speeds, thereby generating enormous energy through fusion.

This instantaneous burst phenomenon is quite similar to a hydrogen bomb explosion.

"what?"

His eyes lit up. "That's a brilliant idea! But can this 'coronal mass ejection simulator' be built with current technology?"

Zhao Cheng could tell that although this device was somewhat similar to the principle of a collider, there were also many differences.

Or rather, it is inferior to a collider in some aspects.

Because colliders cause particles to collide, theoretically there is only a very small probability that nuclear fusion will occur. In fact, most of the time, a quark-gluon plasma with extremely high temperature and density is formed.

This device ensures that nuclear fusion, an "extreme phenomenon," will inevitably occur when particles collide.

From this perspective, it is more like a "weakened" version of the collider.

However, from a technical standpoint, nuclear fusion is bound to occur, which seems to be more technologically advanced than collider technology.

Upon seeing this information, Zhao Cheng's gaze changed, and he no longer looked down on it as he had at the beginning.

He scrolled to the top of the paper and began to study it carefully from beginning to end.

Before long, I finished reading the paper.

Zhao Cheng roughly understood what the author meant.

This paper has two core ideas.

First, create multiple small-scale "hydrogen bomb explosions".

Unlike a real nuclear explosion, which requires at least hundreds of thousands of tons of TNT equivalent, it involves multiple small explosions within a very small range, keeping engineering structures and equipment within a tolerable range and preventing excessive disturbance.

Second, by using a specially designed energy harvester and converter, the energy released instantaneously by a small-scale "hydrogen bomb explosion" can be harvested, converted, and utilized.

Because it was a small-scale "hydrogen bomb explosion," the energy released instantaneously was not much, so there was no need to worry about not having enough time to collect and convert it.

In short, if the key devices described in this paper can be built, the possibility of achieving semi-controlled nuclear fusion is very high.

Alternatively, it's not impossible to follow this path and conduct in-depth research to create controlled nuclear fusion.

Even the "coronal mass ejection simulator" may be of great help in the development of future new colliders.

Zhao Cheng exclaimed in amazement, "This is simply a genius idea! It's incredible!"

He now has only one question: can these key devices described in the paper be built?

The paper did describe some schemes and technologies for building the devices, giving the impression that they could be built. However, after Zhao Cheng examined it carefully, he discovered that it contained many hidden technologies, and it seemed impossible to actually develop these devices.

Why not write it in more detail?

Isn't the purpose of a thesis to prove that one's theory and conjecture are feasible?

Zhao Cheng's first impression after reading the paper was that the author seemed to want to tell others that he could create semi-controlled nuclear fusion, but he could not tell them the specific technology yet.

Correct!

It's like a woman playing the pipa while half-concealing her face!

He hesitated for a moment, unsure whether he should approve the paper.

From the perspective of nuclear fusion technology, the theories and assumptions in this paper have a high probability of being realized, so there is nothing wrong with publishing the paper.

However, to achieve this, one must rely on the special devices described in those papers, but how these devices are constructed is not clearly explained and does not meet the requirements for a paper to be approved.

It's not approved; it doesn't comply with regulations.

The paper was rejected, and Zhao Cheng felt it was a real shame to let such an excellent paper go to waste.

After much deliberation, he decided to pass on the difficult question to his superiors.

So Zhao Cheng copied the paper and sent it to the platform manager to ask whether it would be approved.

He did ask questions, but this small action alarmed several large nuclear research institutes in the country!

……

The Institute of Plasma Physics, under the Luzhou Institute of Material Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Vice Dean Yu Xu holds numerous titles, such as adjunct professor and doctoral supervisor at the University of Science and Technology of China, deputy director of the Nuclear Fusion Subcommittee of the National Nuclear Energy Standardization Technical Committee, and member of the ASME Fusion Energy Science and Technology Standards Formulation Committee of the United States, etc.

His major research achievements include the main engineering of superconducting tokamak devices, superconducting technology and applications, superconducting cyclotron accelerator engineering, and fusion remote operation technology.

It can be said that Yu Xu is absolutely top-notch in the field of magnetic confinement fusion research.

Just now, he received a secret document from the Ministry of Education.

The other side meant for him to check if the nuclear fusion scheme inside was feasible.

Without much thought, Yu Xu entered the password, opened the document, and began to read it carefully.

This paper is titled "Semi-controlled nuclear fusion - a Dyson sphere for hydrogen bombs".

He was speechless when he first saw the title of the paper, but after reading the whole article, his face instantly showed a look of astonishment. "This..."

Yu Xu saw far more than Zhao Cheng, a reviewer.

He was well aware of how valuable this paper was, at least three or four stories high!

……

"This is so futuristic!"

Inside the China Academy of Engineering Physics, Academician Fan Zhen, looking at the papers on his computer, couldn't help but swear.

Although he swore, his eyes were filled with shock.

As the leading researcher of inertial confinement fusion in China, Academician Fan Zhen could naturally see that the semi-controllable nuclear fusion scheme described in the paper was feasible, provided that the devices described in the paper could be built.

Most importantly, after reading through the partially revealed technology and information about the devices, he keenly realized that the person who wrote this paper might have already mastered the technology to build these devices, but for some reason had kept it hidden.

Academician Fan Zhen couldn't sit still any longer and immediately picked up the landline phone on his desk.

The call was answered shortly afterward.

The first thing Academician Fan Zhen said was, "Who is the author of the paper you just sent me? I want to meet him!"

……

Similar things are happening at major nuclear fusion research institutes across the country.

"What a brilliant idea!"

"It seems like there's a high chance it will come true."

"Have you found out who wrote this paper?"

"Find out who the author is right now. I want to talk to him in person."

A group of renowned figures in the nuclear fusion research industry were all astonished after seeing this paper and quickly inquired about the author.

So many nuclear fusion research institutes knew about this, and as the largest nuclear research institute in China, the Southwest Institute of Physics of the Nuclear Industry naturally couldn't possibly be unaware of it.

That's right, the Southwest Institute of Physics of the Nuclear Industry also received this paper!