Reborn Before the Apocalypse: My Backing is the Nation

Chapter 159 Extinction of Plants
The change from solid to gas implies an extreme expansion of volume.

At this moment, the space downhole is limited. Moreover, extremely high-pressure argon gas is being blown out from the drill bit area, forcibly pushing away the rock vapor that is trying to expand.

The only remaining space was the annular gap between the drilling equipment and the well wall.

As a result, the high-pressure gas exploded and began to spread upwards along the well wall.

Meanwhile, a kilometer away from the Earth's crust base No. 1, the cooling pipes laid on the ground, covering hundreds of thousands of square meters, and the condensation towers that could release hot air into the sky, together with the condensation nuclei and refrigerants dispersed by the aircraft, successfully lowered the atmospheric temperature in this area.

Lower temperature means lower pressure, which means that surrounding air will flow towards this area, thus creating wind.

At the same time, inside the Earth's crust No. 1 base, those huge argon separation devices were also operating at full power.

Argon is an inert gas with extremely stable chemical properties. It is also the most abundant rare gas in the air, making up about 1% of the air.

At this moment, the argon separation equipment continuously separates argon from the air and then pumps it directly into the drill bit through a high-pressure pump. This cools the rock vapor and protects the drill bit, while also creating a high-pressure airflow that causes the tiny dust particles condensed from the rock vapor to rise directly upwards.

The "waste gas" after the argon gas is separated is blown violently towards the top of the well, along with the other air gathered there, by a specially allocated "wind wall" that is tens of meters high and has a total area of ​​thousands of square meters.

This wind wall was divided into dozens of small compartments. Each compartment contained a giant fan that was even more powerful than a jet engine.

When dozens of giant fans start up together, the airflow they create is enough to blow a small car into the air.

Thus, in this irresistible hurricane, the condensed dust, toxic and harmful gases from the rocks that had just emerged from the well were blown directly toward one side of the well.

After being blown hundreds of meters away, the wind from the wind wall weakened and could no longer lift the dust. But that was alright; the "natural wind" created earlier using condenser pipes, cooling towers, and aircraft seeding of condensation nuclei took over, continuing to blow some of the rock dust into the distance.

Amidst the deafening roar, fueled by an energy supply comparable to that of an entire large city, endless gray-black rock dust and gas surged forth like a giant dragon, roaring and attempting to burst forth from the wellhead. However, it was always forcibly dispersed the moment it emerged from the well, then scattered and released into the vast natural environment.

Outside the base, one giant truck after another continued to arrive, while the employees, amidst the strong winds and noise, kept adding drill pipes.

On average, this giant drill rod descends about 0.7 meters every minute, which means that a single drill rod can only support the drill for less than two hours before a replacement drill rod must be connected.

At the same time, a descent rate of 0.7 meters per minute also means that approximately 55 cubic meters of rock, soil, water, etc., weighing about 100 tons, will be directly vaporized by the ion drilling equipment every minute and then ejected as gas from the wellhead.

Under the high temperature of plasma, which can reach thousands or even tens of thousands of degrees Celsius, no matter what the material in front of it is, whether it is basalt, obsidian, soil, iron, copper, aluminum, gold ores, etc., no matter what it is, there is only one outcome.

It vaporizes instantly, turning into gas.

No material that humans have mastered can withstand such a level of burning.

With the activation of the Earth's crust device 1, the backup thermal power plant was also quickly put into operation, and the previously fluctuating global power grid returned to stability.

Then, the Earth's crust 2 device can also be started.

As the power output of ultra-supercritical units in thermal power plants continues to increase, the number of ion drilling devices entering operation is also increasing.

Ultimately, it took three days to get all the equipment up and running. The global power grid withstood the shock without experiencing significant fluctuations.

At this moment, equivalent to decades ago, half of the electricity consumed by the entire Eastern Kingdom is continuously flowing into these five hundred power black holes, vaporizing the hard rocks in front of them that would require replacing the drill bit frequently when using ordinary drilling rigs, and the huge drilling equipment itself continues to penetrate deeper.

After only one day of operation, the excavation depth of the No. 1 Earth Crust Base reached 1500 meters.

Correspondingly, approximately 16 tons of rock particles and toxic gases were released into the atmosphere surrounding the base.

At this moment, the sky above the base changed from its usual azure blue to a hazy gray.

The once-clean factory rooftops were now covered in dust. A pungent smell filled the air, and people even had to wear gas masks to leave the factory.

This is after artificial wind was used to purify the air as much as possible.

Downwind of the base, in just one day, the once lush green grass withered and turned yellow, the trees lost a lot of their leaves, and even the clear river water began to turn turbid.

Fish floated belly up on the surface of the water, birds flying over here cried out and fell down, and small animals such as rabbits and pheasants staggered a few steps and collapsed to the ground, losing their lives completely.

The earth and the sky were both shrouded in a gray haze.

But that's not the worst part.

Dust formed from the condensation of rock vapor is a type of condensation nucleus. The appearance of a large number of condensation nuclei at this moment resulted in a much larger amount of rainfall than previous artificial rainmaking.

The rain falling at this moment is not ordinary.

They are acid rains with strong corrosive properties.

Under the gray sky, rain pattered down on the village and onto the beautifully designed houses.

In the past, the countryside in the rain always possessed a unique beauty. But now, that beauty has completely vanished, replaced only by desolation and filth.

Fortunately, all the surrounding villages had already been relocated in advance. Otherwise, this acid rain and severe air pollution would have killed countless people.

The person in charge of the Earth's crust No. 1 base stood in front of the window, staring blankly at the gray sky outside.

He knew that before long, the area around the No. 1 Earthquake Base, spanning at least several kilometers and hundreds of square kilometers, would be devoid of vegetation, animals, fish, and shrimp.

There are 500 similar places on Earth.

But... so what?
The person in charge turned around, his expression serious: "Notify all units and systems that you must ensure the progress of the tunneling and that your respective modules are operating normally!"

"Yes!"

(End of this chapter)