<h4>Chapter 507: Comparing Technologies</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>Henyee Trantions <strong>Editor: </strong>Henyee Trantions


    What happened at the seminar was only a minor disturbance for Lu Zhou.


    He hadn’t done any research on the tokamak. Therefore, he obviously didn’t read the thesis from the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy.


    The main reason he attended this academic conference was for the “technical exhibition” segment. He woke up a bit too early on the first day of the conference, so he found his way into a random seminar, causing the previous incident.


    After correcting Professor Botham’s mistake, Lu Zhou left the lecture hall. He already killed quite a lot of time, so he slowly wandered to the technology exhibition hall.


    Compared to the academic conference happening nearby, there was another level of liveliness in the technology exhibition hall.


    What was shown at the exhibition wasn’t theoretical research results. Instead, it was actual technology.


    Because of this, it wasn’t just schrs and researchers that paid attention to advancements in this area, but many entrepreneurs and investors interested in controble nuclear fusion were also standing here with great interest.


    Even though human civilization was still a long way from fusion energy, this didn’t prevent the imaginative people from turning their heads into this untappednd.


    What was interesting was that most people thought the emergence of controble nuclear fusion would inevitably affect the profits of the energy giants. They also thought that most energy giants hated controble nuclear fusion to the bone and wanted to get rid of nuclear fusion...


    However, the truth was theplete opposite of what they thought. Many investors of nuclear fusionpanies were precisely the energy giants that were seemingly on the edge of losing their profits.


    For example, the famous General Fusion Company was led by the Canadian oilpany Cenovus. As for the Max nck Institute for sma Physics sterator project, not only were they funded by ITER and the German Energy Agency, but part of their research project was also funded by French oil giant Total S.A.


    Of course, other than those oilpanies, there were also a bunch of wealthy techpanies that were equally as interested in the cool-sounding controble nuclear fusion.


    Like Google’s investment in Tri Alpha.


    Lu Zhou personally thought Tri Alpha might be defrauding investors. However, looking at it objectively, this privatepany was able to build a fusion reactor from scratch within a year. Even the famous Nobel Prizeureate Burton Richter was shocked, which meant the team at Tri Alpha had a certain amount of skills.


    Professor Guo Houyang, who was the chief scientist and experiment operation director of Tri Alpha, was also a nutty Chinese schr in the field of sma physics. Even though his name didn’t sound familiar, but this big name was in the 1996 edition of Marquis Who’s Who. This was a manifestation of the academicmunity’s recognition of him.


    Because there were so many talented people entering the field, and because of the capital being invested into the field, this field was able to go from being unwanted into one of the most popr fields in academia.


    Coincidentally, not long after he walked in, he saw Benderbauer, who he chatted with at the cafe the day before yesterday.


    This chairman and chief technology officer of Tri Alpha was standing in front of a gray curtain. He was presenting a PowerPoint presentation, which was about their C2-U fusion machine as well as their world-leading field-reversed configuration, to some schrs and investors who were interested in the controble nuclear fusion field.


    Even though Benderbauer’s speech on stage was enthusiastic, Lu Zhou thought about what Bendebauer said to him the day before yesterday, and he felt that this enthusiasm was somewhat fake.


    “Life is just like a movie, you really do need acting skills.”


    Lu Zhou shook his head and didn’t say anything. He listened to a brief exnation of the FRC machine technology and walked toward the booth next to it.


    Other than Tri Alpha, Baosheng Group also had a booth in the technology exhibition hall.


    After all, state-ownedpanies were not the same anymore. Even though this high techpany had special subsidies from the state, they still had to worry about sales.


    Otherwise, by the time they finally increased their production capacity, they might have to actually decrease their excessive production capacity.


    At Baosheng Group’s booth, they demonstrated their SG-1 wire technology, which they developed in cooperation with the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study, to schrs from all over the world.


    Even though the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres had also mastered this technology, this technology was still dominated by Baosheng Group due to their production cost and production scale advantages. Even though the Germans had received this technology, they still had to pass on arge number of orders to Baosheng Group due to their insufficient production capacity.


    In short, when the representatives from major research institutes saw this wire, which was only a few thousand nanometers in diameter, they couldn’t believe it was real.


    That was until Chief Engineer Cao calmly operated the experiment equipment in front of everyone. He showed them the thermal conductivity of the SG-1 wire and the most important one—superconducting properties. The people around the booth had their eyes wide open in disbelief.


    At the end of the first day of the conference, Lu Zhou originally nned on going back to his room and rest.


    But General Manager Sun insisted on treating his guest. Therefore, the group found a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown and sat down around a table.


    At the dinner table, General Manager Sun Chengwu raised his ss and looked at Lu Zhou.


    “Professor Lu, thank you so much!


    “We’ve secured more than US$200 million worth in orders just this morning alone!


    “This toast goes to you!”


    Even though a few hours had since passed, General Manager Sun still couldn’t forget how the foreigners responded when Engineer Cao was showing them their SG-1 wire technology, and how shocked and astonished the foreigner experts were.


    As the general manager of Baosheng Group, there was nothing more exciting than watching his ownpany be at the forefront of the industry...


    Lu Zhou toasted with General Manager Sun and smiled as he said politely, “There’s no need to thank me, you deserve this.”


    US$200 million in orders was a lot, that was almost 1.4 billion in yuan.


    ording to the current cost of the SG-1 wire, Lu Zhou roughly estimated that the US$200 million worth of wires was enough to build the outer-field coils of three medium-sized sterators.


    If it was the tokamak, it wouldn’t need as many wires.


    However, Lu Zhou didn’t know much about the Tokamak. Therefore, he couldn’t give an urate estimate.


    “What do you mean? Without your technology, we couldn’t havee this far by ourselves.” General Manager Sun downed his shot ss and cheerfully said, “If Professor Lu has any more good suggestions in the future, I hope you’re generous enough to share them with me!”