Chapter 16: Copycat is also a technical job (Part 1)
Among the many advanced technologies in the Marvel world, the most coveted thing by the modern Chinese government is Iron Man’s Ark Reactor: safe, cheap, and compact, it can provide endless energy, which is enough to trigger The new energy source for the next industrial revolution!
Its great historical significance to the progress of human civilization is no less than that of Watt's invention of the steam engine!
So, how much energy can an Ark reactor in the Marvel world output?
Not to mention those large Ark reactors, it was Tony who was captured in the plot of "Iron Man 1". In the prison of a terrorist organization in Afghanistan, Stark used various weapon parts to piece together the energy core of the first Iron Man suit. The crudest version of the miniature Ark reactor installed on his chest to drive electromagnets. The output power reached an astonishing three billion joules per second!
This number is equivalent to approximately three million kilowatts of power generation. In the real world of China, what is the total installed capacity of the so-called "project of the century" Three Gorges Dam? About 22.5 million kilowatts! In other words, the total installed capacity of the entire Three Gorges Project is only equivalent to seven and a half of the earliest version of the Iron Man power source! Moreover, considering that the water level of the Three Gorges Reservoir will fluctuate, it is impossible to maintain the ideal state of full power generation. The actual power generation can drive three Iron Man. Imagine that, Tony. By tinkering in a small illegal workshop for two or three days, Stark can create a portable energy source equivalent to one-third of the Three Gorges Hydropower Station...
So, now that there is such an exaggeratedly powerful energy core, Iron Man Tony. What supersonic flight, vertical lift, palm cannon, diving, and laser weapons Stark wants to play, they are all just a drizzle worth mentioning! Don't talk about Tony. Stark, the Iron Man, is unreasonably tough. Tony is using enough energy to drive an aircraft carrier to drive a small Iron Man. How can he not be tough? What does it matter if the appearance of the Iron Man suit is not aerodynamic? Have you never heard that as long as the power of the engine is large enough, even bricks can be lifted into the sky? !
——Don’t say that Iron Man’s reactor is so small in size but so powerful in power. It is definitely unscientific. In fact, the progress of human technology is increasing by orders of magnitude. For example, as a power machine, the early Watt steam engine generally had only three to five horsepower, but was as large as a house. After subsequent improvements, even the most powerful marine Watt steam engine can only reach about 75 horsepower (the steam turbine used on modern aircraft carriers is a completely different thing). And modern car engines, even the slightly better ones, start with 200 horsepower... If you take a modern car engine and move it through time and space to Watt, you can say that such a small thing has a power of 200 horsepower. , then this poor Mr. Watt probably thinks you are crazy, or is going to shout "This is unscientific"...
In short, if you can master Iron Man's Ark reactor technology, then you only need to build a palm-sized reactor to meet the daily power supply needs of a city, and the power generation costs can be reduced to almost zero: users only need to bear the daily maintenance costs of the power grid. That's enough! For the Chinese who need to import huge amounts of fuel and natural gas every year, such endless cheap energy is simply an irresistible temptation!
With such clean, pollution-free, portable and miniaturized energy power, not only China's manufacturing industry can get rid of the bottleneck of energy shortage, but also many current scientific fantasies, such as space travel, space cities, orbital elevators, alien colonies, etc. There is also the possibility of realization.
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So, what is the working principle of such an amazing Ark reactor that can provide endless energy and is like an artifact?
Simply put, it's how the sun burns: nuclear fusion - As early as the Cold War era, nuclear fusion has been considered the main option to solve human energy problems. One kilogram of nuclear fusion raw material generates electricity equivalent to 11,000 tons of coal. Compared with the nuclear fission reactors of various existing nuclear power plants, nuclear fusion produces less nuclear waste and the radioactivity will disappear in a short period of time. It can be called an excellent clean energy.
Nuclear fusion is divided into two types: cold fusion and thermonuclear fusion. The application product of the latter is the hydrogen bomb, but the former has always been a science fiction until the emergence of the Ark Reactor - the operating principle of the Ark Reactor is not complicated, it is just the practical application result of a long-standing cold fusion theory. . It is significantly different from the vast majority of nuclear fusion reactors currently being tested, mainly reflected in the reaction mechanism.
First of all, the Ark reactor does not use light elements in the periodic table to achieve fusion. At present, the vast majority of fusion experiments around the world use hydrogen and its two isotopes "deuterium" and "tritium" as the ignition fuel of the reactor core. When these light elements are used as fuel, fusion is easier to ignite and control. No harmful substances are produced during the reaction, and the end product is water. It is a clean fusion method, so it is favored by many scientific research institutions. The Ark Reactor goes in the opposite direction. It is a nuclear reactor that uses the fusion of heavy elements. Howard invented it. Stark uses the metal palladium as fuel for its fusion core. Because it is one of the heaviest known elements, and compared to other platinum series heavy elements, metal palladium is the easiest to ionize, so it is an ideal core fuel.
But the problem is that compared to the fusion of light elements, the fusion process of heavy elements like metal palladium is much more complicated. Just the formulas for the changes in physical and chemical properties involved in the reaction could fill a blackboard. In the process of actual production and use, each reaction step in the reactor must be controlled very precisely, otherwise it is likely to explode directly after igniting the core.
Of course, if these technical problems are perfectly solved, then the Ark Reactor will be a very practical and reliable energy source. After a mature Ark reactor is started, it only takes a very short time to output a large amount of energy, and can maintain the burning of the core for a long, long time.
On the contrary, although hydrogen reactors popular in the real world are easier to ignite, they are difficult to maintain a long-term fusion reaction.
However, even with the above advantages, the Ark reactor cannot be said to be a perfect fusion reactor. Because unlike traditional nuclear fusion reactors that rely on the fusion of hydrogen to produce energy, the Ark reactor that relies on heavy metal fusion is not a clean energy source. Because palladium is severely toxic, and treating heavy metal poisoning is a medical problem, Tony installed the Ark reactor directly on his chest at first. It was impossible to avoid the damage of palladium poisoning (during the bombing in Afghanistan, There are many small shrapnel remaining in his blood vessels. An electromagnet must be placed on his chest at all times to absorb the shrapnel and prevent it from entering the heart, causing Tony's death. (The Ark reactor is the one that powers the electromagnet.)
Moreover, he had to fly around as Iron Man all day long, punishing evil and promoting good, so his consumption of palladium naturally became more severe, and his poisoning became more serious.
Therefore, in the early stages of the plot of "Iron Man 2", Tony, who discovered that his poisoning was so severe that he was not expected to survive for a year, gave up on himself, became extremely decadent, and did many ridiculous things... However, when Wang Qiu and the others entered Before the Marvel Universe, Tony had successfully solved this problem - relying on his father Howard. Following the clues left by Stark, Tony geniusly used a particle accelerator to create a safe and non-toxic new element to replace the palladium that would poison him, thus allowing himself to successfully overcome the life crisis of palladium poisoning.
Next, the civilian version of the Ark reactor sold publicly by Stark Industries also used this new element to replace palladium. However, the discovery and application of this new element, for Iron Man Tony. Of course, this is good news for Stark, but it is tantamount to a nightmare for real-world Chinese researchers who want to reverse engineer these civilian versions of Ark reactors and make copycat copies...
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