Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones.

Chapter 163 Jupiter Aircraft
Not only is the Q value greatly improved, but the volume is also extremely reduced.

Just like when the research was first started, the reactor, which was dozens of meters high, long and wide, like a small mountain, is no longer seen now.

The latest nuclear fusion reactor is only a few meters high and only ten meters wide and long.

From the outside, it looks like a cargo box.

But if such a cargo box is running at full power, the installed capacity can reach 5000 megawatts, which means it can generate 500 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per hour!

Despite generating so much electricity, it only consumes less than 100 grams of deuterium.

To generate the same amount of electricity using uranium 235, you would need about 500 grams.

At this moment, the nuclear fusion reactor is still a little too large, and the installed capacity is too high. It can only be equipped on Earth-class battleships or large cargo ships, and cannot be installed on Venus and Mercury-class battleships.

However, Venus and Mercury-class battleships do not require such powerful energy. Accordingly, the installed capacity, volume and mass can be reduced accordingly.

While continuing to research on improving the Q value of nuclear fusion reactors, Li Qingsong also started research on miniaturization.

Although controlled nuclear fusion technology has not yet been finalized, there is one thing that can be started now.

That is to comprehensively update the current energy supply system!
At this stage, Li Qingsong's energy source is almost entirely nuclear fission.

In order to mine uranium and enrich and refine uranium, Li Qingsong had to dispatch a large number of clones and industrial forces to search for uranium mines throughout the solar system and build factories on site.

Now, all of this can be undone!

Because even though the nuclear fusion reactor has not yet been finalized, its overall efficiency has already far exceeded that of the nuclear fission reactor.

Li Qingsong quickly started the construction of the first nuclear fusion power station.

If building a ground-based nuclear fusion power station, there is no requirement for miniaturization. Li Qingsong can build it very large and very complete, so the efficiency and total installed capacity will be further improved.

The total installed capacity of this nuclear power plant has reached an unprecedented 10 megawatts!
Running at full power, it can generate 8760 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per hour, which works out to billion kilowatt-hours per year!

Back in the nation-state era, human civilization's annual electricity consumption was approximately 30 trillion kWh. Based on this figure, only 35 power stations like the one Li Qingsong built would be needed to supply all of humanity's electricity needs!

Countless trams are running, countless heavy machines are roaring, countless lights are shining, and so on and so forth. All electricity needs only require 35 power stations.

These 35 power stations only need to consume less than tons of deuterium and tritium gas when operating at full power for a whole year.

If converted into coal, generating this much electricity would require at least 100 billion tons.

The gap is as much as 20 million times!
Of course, 35 nuclear fusion power plants are only for human civilization in the national era. For Li Qingsong at this moment, it is far from enough.

At this stage, Li Qingsong has fully developed two rocky planets, a total of more than 30 dwarf planets and large satellites, and the total number of planets under his command has reached 40.

The power generation capacity of 35 nuclear fusion power stations is not enough to support the entire industrial system, let alone a mere planet!

For example, on Ganymede, which Li Qingsong regards as his base camp, there are more than 5000 nuclear fusion power stations with an installed capacity of 10 megawatts. On the two major planets, Mercury and Mars, the number of nuclear fusion power stations is even greater, reaching more than .

In order to carry out the earth's ecological environment restoration project, Li Qingsong even built several such power stations on Earth.

Nuclear fusion energy is clean and pollution-free, and there's no need to worry about its impact on the environment. So, across the solar system, Li Qingsong built over 100,000 nuclear fusion power stations of this magnitude or larger, all operating at high power levels to cover the electricity needs of the entire industrial and scientific research system.

More than 8.76 nuclear fusion power plants have an annual power generation capacity of 2900 quadrillion kilowatt-hours, equivalent to the human civilization of more than countries.

There is no way. The more advanced the technology is, the more energy it consumes.

The more fusion power plants there are, the more fuel they consume. Over 1700 fusion power plants would consume approximately million tons of deuterium gas annually.

In the deuterium-tritium fusion reaction, one gram of deuterium requires 1.5 grams of tritium, and the amount of tritium gas used is even greater.

However, tritium is produced by bombarding lithium-6 with neutrons, and in fact, it is lithium-6 rather than tritium gas that is consumed in the reaction.

Lithium-6 has huge reserves in the solar system and is relatively easy to mine, so this part can be ignored and only the deuterium consumption needs to be calculated.

In order to mine the approximately 1700 million tons of deuterium gas each year, Li Qingsong specially developed an aircraft.

This aircraft looks a bit like the aircraft of human civilization, with a relatively large size and excellent aerodynamic layout.

But it is not flying on the earth, but flying among Jupiter.

Jupiter is a gas planet. Except for its core, the rest is composed of gas. The volume of its atmosphere is more than a thousand times that of the Earth.

In such a vast atmosphere, various meteorological changes occur one after another.

Thunderstorms, hurricanes, turbulence, torrential rain, hail, and the list goes on and on.

At this moment, the first batch of Jupiter aircraft built by Li Qingsong were transported by cargo ships and released into the clouds of Jupiter.

The release site of the Jupiter plane was a place with relatively good weather specially selected by Li Qingsong.

At this moment, the wind speed here is only about 200 meters per second, which is a rare good weather on Jupiter.

The maximum wind speed of a hurricane on Earth is less than 100 meters per second.

But it is very common for hurricanes on Jupiter to exceed the speed of sound. At this moment, it is only 200 meters per second, which is twice the speed of the largest hurricane on Earth. It is indeed extremely rare.

Driven by a gust of wind at 200 meters per second, the Jupiter plane entered Jupiter's cloud layer. The next moment, the huge engine began to work, riding the wind to soar through Jupiter's atmosphere.

Deuterium exists in the form of deuterated hydrogen in Jupiter's atmosphere, with a content of about 0.002%. In this way, about 20 grams of deuterated hydrogen can be separated from one ton of Jovian gas.

20 grams of deuterated hydrogen can be separated into about 13 grams of deuterium.

A Jupiter aircraft can process about 30 tons of Jupiter's atmosphere per minute. In this way, 390 grams of deuterium can be collected per minute, which is about 540 kilograms per day and about 200 tons per year.

Based on the calculation that Li Qingsong currently needs to consume about 1700 million tons of deuterium every year, Li Qingsong needs 8.5 Jupiter aircraft to operate continuously to ensure an adequate supply of deuterium.

Taking into account spare and accidental losses, Li Qingsong needs to maintain at least a large flight fleet consisting of 10 Jupiter aircraft to be sufficient.

(End of this chapter)