Chapter 155: Power Surge
“Get to work!”
The villagers responded with a roar, ignoring the attempts of He Liang and the others to stop them, and enthusiastically set up the stove, erected tables, and took out various ingredients.
Cured meat with a brownish-red color, cabbage and winter melon with dew on them, rehydrated wood ear mushrooms, and so on, totaling dozens of kinds.
Not long after, a large pot of hearty, distinctly rustic big stew, filled with aroma, was ready.
“Kids, time to eat!”
The old man called out, and the power transmission tower workers gathered around noisily.
The old man had already taken out large bowls from the basket, and the snow-white steamed buns had been heated, steaming.
After taking a bite of the fragrant stew and biting hard into a large piece of steamed bun, He Liang felt his stomach, which had been protesting for days, suddenly warm up.
“This meat is fucking way more fragrant than the stuff raised in the livestock building… In the city, this kind of natural cured meat wouldn’t sell for a hundred bucks a pound?”
Even with everyone eating freely, a large pot of stew still had half left at the end.
“We can save some for another meal tonight.”
He Liang thought to himself. He really didn’t want to eat instant noodles and canned food anymore.
Unexpectedly, the old man directed several old buddies to lift the pot directly and pour it out.
“Old man, no, don’t, hiss…”
Heartache.
The old man laughed: “These days we don’t lack that bit. How can we let the kids eat leftovers? Don’t worry, don’t worry, there are plenty of ingredients. We’ll make new ones for you tonight.”
“Alright then.”
He Liang said grudgingly.
By afternoon, several old men started bustling again.
This time it wasn’t steamed buns, but rice instead. One old man pulled out several cured fish from the basket like magic and tossed them into the red soup, while another old man cut tomatoes into large chunks and cracked over a hundred eggs into a large basin, dumping it straight into another pot.
He Liang had never felt his stomach so satisfied.
These were all natural ingredients, the kind you’d need a high-end restaurant in the city for! With his salary, he could eat farmed lobster and king crab casually, but this natural stuff he could only afford once a month, any more and it’d hurt.
After a full meal, the old men packed up and prepared to drive the donkey back.
“There’s some left, heat it up tomorrow morning for a meal, and we’ll come back at noon.”
“This, this… that’d be too embarrassing, the road is rough. We’re fine, we have food, no need to go to such trouble.”
He Liang and the others refused repeatedly.
The old man said seriously: “How can that be? The ingredients you ate today came from Aunt Wang and their families. Later, your Aunt Sun, Brother Liu, and dozens of other families are still in line. You can’t play favorites, right?”
The old man’s reason was so compelling, so irrefutable.
As the sun set in the west, the bell on the donkey’s neck jingled, and the old men gradually walked away.
Retracting his gaze from seeing off the old men, He Liang looked at his colleagues.
“Guys, get to work! Work through the night tonight, overtime!”
“Got it!”
……
What was originally a half-month project had, after just ten days, reached the final stages.
The colossal structure, 60 meters tall and weighing dozens of tons, now stood majestically on the mountaintop.
The superconducting cooling cycle module had also been installed. What remained was only precision welding, debugging, and most importantly, laying the circuitry.
A heavy-lift unmanned helicopter roared, pulling a thick cable with a diameter of a full centimeter from a distant power transmission tower. At the top, He Liang tied a safety rope, temporarily secured the cable end, then carefully connected it.
Behind him, another unmanned helicopter hoisted the cable from the other side.
The cables from both directions had to be connected simultaneously. Otherwise, the power transmission tower couldn’t withstand the cable’s own weight and would be pulled down.
It was too thick and too heavy.
This thick cable with a diameter of a full centimeter had only a 3-centimeter diameter core for transmitting electric current; the rest was thick layers of heat dissipation and insulation.
Liquid carbon dioxide existed in that annular space, ensuring the core cable remained in a low-temperature superconducting state.
Only when connected from both sides simultaneously would the weight balance, converting the tension into vertical pressure, transmitted through the power transmission tower’s body to the underground.
Each power transmission tower also served as a refrigeration cycle equipment.
The liquid carbon dioxide in the cable would be cooled at the power transmission tower, then flow back into the cable, absorbing the cable’s temperature while warming itself, then returning to the power transmission tower, cycling like this.
This way, these transmission lines could remain in a zero-resistance superconducting state.
There was no choice; the ion drilling equipment’s electricity consumption was simply too high. Conventional cables couldn’t handle the power transmission task.
Forcing it would generate too much heat, directly burning out the cable. So here, only superconducting cables could be used.
Fortunately, superconducting technology had advanced rapidly in recent years, allowing a single line to handle this task. Otherwise, just the power transmission system would be endlessly troublesome.
Using the final two days to complete the finishing work on this power transmission tower, and confirming everything normal after starting the cooling cycle equipment, He Liang and the others reached departure time.
“Old man, goodbye!”
“You kids are all great!”
The convoy moved slowly, gradually leaving the small mountain village. The figures of the villagers standing at the village entrance seeing them off also faded.
He Liang looked up, and through the car window, he saw numerous helicopters still shuttling in the sky, with faint roars of heavy machinery in the air.
The battle had just begun, far from over.
……
In factory after factory, heavy truck after heavy truck departed, heading to other factories or to docks and ports.
Electric ships’ turbofans spun wildly, propelling million-ton giant cargo ships through the seas. In the sky, electric helicopters, passenger planes, heavy cargo planes, and more shuttled trip after trip, connecting regions and continents.
Amid this frenzied flow of supplies and personnel, in a meeting room of the Apocalypse Project Command, a researcher in a white coat looked deadly serious.
“According to the Global Power Grid Monitoring Center report, since the Apocalypse Project launched, global electricity consumption has surged.
At present, the peak power consumption has risen from the previous 17TW to 18.1TW, and with subsequent large-scale projects, especially the ion drilling project starting up, the peak will continue to rise.
Our current global power grid is already showing signs of insufficient power supply.”
