Wasn’t ignited…
The moment the words came out of the engineer’s mouth, the command room went silent.
As the engineers of Rosatom standing in front of the control console looked at one another, Academician Sivali was dumbfounded.
“Wasn’t ignited? How is that possible! We did all the inspection work… The Chinese engineers also did their job, how is it not ignited?”
When the silence in the command room was broken, the reporters had a moment of realization.
Fusion ignition had failed!
This is a project worth tens of billions!
If this project had failed, it would be a huge blow to the entire Russian energy industry, and it would destroy the relationship between China and Russia.
Chief Engineer Wang was standing next to Minister Novak. He had a dignified look on his face.
He obviously recognized the severity of the situation.
Minister Novak spoke in a serious tone.
“Go find out what is going on!”
The engineer in the hard hat nodded.
“Yes, sir! We are trying to do that!”
Due to the unexpected situation, the fusion ignition ceremony had been temporarily interrupted.
The only fortunate thing was that the fusion ignition ceremony wasn’t broadcast live. The reporters were all from local Russian media outlets. They handed over their SD cards as per the request from Russian officials.
The engineers from Rosatom were running around like headless chickens, and they began to discuss the fusion ignition failure with engineers from East Asia Energy and the China National Nuclear Corporation.
“… Theoretically, there should be no malfunctions.”
“But there is!”
“I know, but the reactor test went well… Someone went wrong after the core was installed.”
After some testing, they weren’t able to find any problems with the nuclear core. Suddenly, a Chinese engineer spoke.
“Maybe something wrong with the plant itself? Like the connection or—”
Before he could finish, he was rudely interrupted by Lermontov.
“There are no problems with our power plant!” the man spoke in an unfriendly tone. He said, “I told you, the Chinese can’t be trusted! They’re giving us poor quality nuclear cores!”
The second those words were said, the Chinese engineers began to look furious.
Especially Wang Zengguang, he always had a violent temper. He slammed the table and stood up.
“Poor quality? You’re saying our nuclear core is poor quality? Lermontov, I want to know if you’re speaking on behalf of Rosatom, or is that your own opinion!”
“Mr. Lermontov, please speak carefully!” Minister Novak quickly said. He looked at Academician Wang Zengguang and said, “Academician Wang, my apologies, Lermontov is just frustrated, that’s not what he really thinks…”
Lermontov didn’t deny Minister Novak’s statement, but he didn’t take back his words either.
Academician Wang still looked angry. If it weren’t because of their signed contract, he would have left by now.
Academician Sivali, who was sitting nearby, tried to act as a peacemaker. He tried to calm both parties down, but it didn’t seem to be effective.
This ceremony clearly had to end.
If this meeting continued any longer, the two sides would start fighting.
Rosatom would never admit that this was their fault, and East Asia Energy would never admit that there was a problem with the nuclear core.
The only thing they could hope for was for the engineers to fix the problem.
Regardless of which side caused the problem, they had to identify the problem before they could solve it.
After the meeting finished, Academician Wang went to the corridor and smoked a cigarette.
After he finished smoking, Lu Zhou walked over.
He didn’t say anything during the meeting; he was too busy thinking about what went wrong with the power plant.
He looked at Academician Wang and spoke.
“How’s the progress?”
“It’s tricky.”
Lu Zhou: “Did you guys inspect the He3 atom probe and the heat dissipation system?”
Academician Wang: “We did.”
After a while, Lu Zhou said, “Maybe it’s the core catcher? I remember there seems to be an active protection measure in place. It can forcefully shut down the reactor and terminate the reaction—”
“I did, we inspected everything.” Wang Zengguang shook his head and said, “Do you really think we would miss anything?”
Emmmm…
Makes sense.
Lu Zhou went into deep thought.
It seemed like there was no way to solve the problem.
Everything was fine with the reactor, but the nuclear core couldn’t be ignited.
After an hour or so, the inspection report was created.
The initial diagnosis was that the core catcher, the heat dissipation, the energy interface, etc, was all operating normally.
Except the nuclear core.
The nuclear core was like a “black box” to the Russian engineers.
Only the Chinese engineers were able to inspect the nuclear core.
Due to the contract, China did not need to provide the Russians with the full technical details.
Lermontov suddenly stood up and spoke.
“It’s the Chinese responsibility to ensure the normal operation of the reactor. This is written in the contract, correct?”
Academician Wang: “It is.”
“However, the only thing we haven’t inspected is the nuclear core!”
Academician Wang responded to Lermontov.
“Our engineers have inspected the nuclear core, and you’ve already read the inspection report—”
Lermontov interrupted Academician Wang and spoke in a suspicious tone.
“Correct, that is what is on the report, but who’s to say you didn’t lie on the report?”
Academician Wang looked at Lermontov and narrowed his eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m questioning reasonably.” Lermontov stared at Academician Wang and said, “The problem is most likely in the nuclear core. We have reason to believe that. In order to accurately identify the cause of the failure, I request you provide us or a third-party Russian inspection agency the technology to inspect the nuclear core.”
Academician Wang said, “That’s not what it says in the contract.”
Lermontov aggressively said, “Yes, but you guys did not ensure normal operation of the reactor, you guys breached the contract first!”
“I don’t think we are in breach of contract, we are actively helping you solve the problem!”
Continuing on like this was meaningless. Academician Wang turned toward Minister Novak, hoping he could calm Lermontov down.
However, it seemed like Novak’s stance was swinging toward Lermontov’s side.
After all, the Helios fusion power station was part of Novak’s vision for Russia’s future.
It was important to maintain a relationship with China, but that didn’t mean the Russians would always compromise. The nuclear fusion power station could not be ignited, nor could they find the origin of the problem.
Therefore, by process of elimination, he had reason to believe that the problem lied in the nuclear core.
Lu Zhou, who hadn’t said anything yet, suddenly spoke.
“Can I look at the plasma turbulence monitoring data?”
“Monitoring data?” Lermontov frowned and glanced at the security director next to him. He then looked at Lermontov and said, “Why would the noisy data help with anything?”
The plasma turbulence data displayed the plasma movement in the reaction chamber, observed by the He3 atom probe. It used a mathematical model of the microfluidic movements of the plasma inside the reaction chamber.
Back then, this was a sensational research result in the physics community, and many scholars declared this a Nobel Prize level achievement. It provided a theoretical basis for a series of magnetic confinement fusion devices, such as the Stellarator.
However, for most people, this data was nothing more than noise.
Just like how there was no programmer on earth that could read code in binary numbers, that was the CPU’s job.
More importantly, the reactor wasn’t able to achieve ignition. What was the point of monitoring the plasma turbulence?
Lu Zhou shrugged.
“No harm in trying.”
Lermontov shrugged as well.
“Go ahead then.”
Even though Lermontov didn’t think Lu Zhou would be able to do anything with the data, he still asked technicians from Rosatom to retrieve the plasma turbulence monitoring data.
The data was printed on a 200-page report, which was delivered to the conference room.
Academician Wang looked at the thick stack of paper and couldn’t help but frown.
Forget about analyzing the data, just reading through the data would take hours.
Lermontov sat with his arms crossed, waiting for Lu Zhou’s next move. Academician Sivali and Minister Novak also curiously looked at Lu Zhou, wondering what his next move was.
In fact, Lu Zhou didn’t have anything special up his sleeve.
He flipped through the pages and found the plasma turbulence for the first five seconds after the reactor ignition was attempted.
After five minutes, he put down the stack of papers.
Lermontov smirked and said, “Have any insights for us, Mr. Mathematician?”
However, Lu Zhou’s response was unexpected.
After putting down the report, Lu Zhou spoke confidently.
“Of course.
“The problem is not in the nuclear core.”
There was a commotion in the conference room.
Obviously, as the authority figure in nuclear fusion, Lu Zhou’s words had weight attached to it.
Lermontov was a little stunned. He couldn’t believe Lu Zhou was able to make inferences from the noisy data, not to mention in such a short amount of time.
However, soon after, he spoke with a tone of disapproval, “I knew you would say that, but the problem is not in the power plant itself.”
Lu Zhou nodded.
“You’re right, the problem is not in the power plant. I think I know where the problem is.”
Lermontov wasn’t the only one stunned; the experts from Rosatom and Academician Wang were all astonished.
Minister Novak was the first to ask.
“Where’s the problem then?”
Lu Zhou paused for a second and spoke.
“It’s the power grid.”