“… Four flaming horses, galloping in the fiery sky, from East to West, morning to night, illuminating the world.”
Lu Zhou and Minister Novak were sitting in the backseat of the car. He looked outside the window and sighed.
“What are you talking about?”
Novak, the leader of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, smiled and spoke to Lu Zhou like a tour guide.
“Homer’s Odyssey! The description of Helios… The nuclear power plant we are heading to!”
He spoke emotionally.
“The son of Helios once accidentally ignited the ground in order to bring light, turning it to a desert, burning the skins of Ethiopians. Homer probably never would have imagined humans finding a way to release the energy of a sun.”
Lu Zhou: “… How come I’ve never heard that version of the story before?”
Minister Novak smiled and said, “That’s not surprising, there are many versions of the story. If you’re interested, we can chat in depth since I’ve done some research in this area.”
Lu Zhou politely refused, “Thanks, but I’m not particularly interested in mythology.”
He didn’t have any time to spare outside of academia.
Especially since the ICM was soon about to begin.
“Okay, I understand, not everyone wants to become a poet…” Novak shrugged and looked outside the window. He saw a tall wall surrounding a building and said, “We’re here.”
The Helios nuclear power plant was located on the coast of the Baltic Sea, surrounded by a circle of towering walls. Just like the fusion power station in Helios, this power plant was guarded by Russian troops.
Lu Zhou saw three trademarks on the side of the wall, one was the Guangdong Nuclear Power Construction Group, the other was the East Asia Energy, and finally, the true owner of the power plane—Rosatom.
Rosatom controlled almost all production links of the Russian nuclear industrial chain and owned the vast majority of uranium mines in Siberia.
This was one of the reasons East Asia Energy chose to work with this company.
According to the contract between East Asia Energy and Rosatom, East Asia Energy would sell a core to Rosatom at a high price and would also send engineers to the Helios power station for 20 years of technical service.
These technical services included the maintenance and upgrade of the core control system, as well as the nuclear core safety inspections.
On the other hand, East Asia Energy would also take 13% of the profits over the 20 years.
Even though this kind of profit sharing was usual, it wasn’t like there was anyone to compete against East Asia Energy.
While the European Union and America were still contemplating, the Russians were the first to sign this agreement. Because of this, they became the first overseas customer for the East Asia Energy nuclear core project.
And now, the nuclear core from China had finally arrived.
In order to welcome this historic moment of nuclear fusion ignition, the Ministry of Energy arranged the ignition date to be in early August, specifically for Lu Zhou.
In fact, they could have achieved fusion ignition a week ago if they didn’t have to wait for Lu Zhou.
An old man with gray hair stood at the entrance of the Helios fusion power station. When he saw Lu Zhou get out of the car, his eyes lit up as he smiled.
“Welcome, Professor Lu! We meet again.”
“Hello, Academician Sivali.”
Lu Zhou shook this man’s hand and smiled. He then looked at another serious-looking middle-aged man standing beside Sivali.
“And this is?”
“Lermontov,” the man said. Unlike Academician Sivali, Lermontov had a serious look on his face as he said, “I’m one of the people in charge.”
Lu Zhou gave a friendly nod and looked at the entrance.
Suddenly, he saw someone.
“Academician Wang? What are you doing here?”
This was Chief Engineer Wang, from the China National Nuclear Corporation!
He was one of the veterans that worked on the Haizhou fusion plant!
He, Zhou Chengfu, and Li Jiangang were the three nuclear industry giants of China.
Because Lu Zhou didn’t publish engineering theses, Mr. Wang might actually have a bigger influence in the nuclear industry than Lu Zhou.
Lu Zhou was astonished, he didn’t expect Academician Wang to be here at all.
“After all, this is our first overseas nuclear fusion engineering project, I can’t just leave it alone,” Wang Zengguang smiled and said, “Let’s go, the people from Rosatom have been waiting for a long time. Don’t you see how impatient Lermontov is getting? Let’s head inside.”
The group didn’t stay at the entrance for long.
Minister Novak didn’t want Lu Zhou to make small talk outside.
He couldn’t wait any longer for the fusion ignition.
While walking to the fusion power station control tower, Lu Zhou was told that Academician Wang arrived a week ago.
They planned on beginning fusion ignition a week ago, but it was postponed due to various reasons.
Even though this wasn’t the Chinese’s fault, the technicians and management of Rosatom were quite annoyed.
After all, delaying fusion ignition by a week had huge economical impacts.
It would be fine if there were safety or technical issues, but they postponed fusion ignition just to wait for a Chinese scholar.
Regardless, this day had finally come.
A group of people was standing in the command tower.
The person in charge was obviously Minister Novak, and standing next to him were senior officials of the Ministry of Energy and nuclear power technicians.
Reporters with their cameras were standing around the command room, making it even more crowded.
However, no one cared about that. Everyone’s attention was on the control console as they held their breath.
They had been ready for a week now.
All they had to do was press the button!
Minister Novak tried to calm himself down as he rubbed his fingers together.
Finally, he took a deep breath and looked at the cameras, as well as the Rosatom engineers.
“This is a historic moment!
“This will bring never-ending energy to the Russians, this is a symbol of our friendship with the Chinese… May it be as endless as the sun, may we wish for eternal energy.”
After that, he pressed the button.
Then…
It seemed like nothing was happening.
Lu Zhou stared at the radiation data and plasma temperature on the console screen. He frowned and remembered that the ignition in Haizhou was different.
Academician Wang and Sivali also noticed this, and they had a serious look on their face.
The reporters, as well as Minister Novak, didn’t cheer either.
Suddenly, the command room door was pushed open. An engineer wearing a hard hat walked up to Minister Novak and spoke in a trembling tone.
“Minister!”
Novak saw the look on the engineer’s face and instantly began to worry.
However, he maintained a calm demeanor as he asked with a dignified look on his face.
“… What happened?”
“There’s something wrong with the nuclear core.”
The command room went silent.
The reporters stopped taking photos.
Minister Novak froze.
After he snapped back to reality, he began to sweat.
“What happened?! What do you mean something went wrong?”
The engineer wearing a hard hat gulped and spoke.
“It seems like our nuclear core…
“Wasn’t ignited.”
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