Chapter 433: Post-Oil Era

The storage of electrical energy is a very troublesome thing. Various chemical batteries have their own theoretical limits. Once the upper limit is reached, it can no longer be improved. The upper limit of nuclear energy batteries is higher, but they cannot be recharged in reverse and cannot be reused.

However, the issue of "electrical energy storage" is very important for the safety of spacecraft. When flying in the vast universe, various life-support equipment must be turned on at all times, so the battery is the last backup safety measure, and the larger the reserve, the better.

Until now, people are still working hard to study ultra-high-performance batteries... Let alone various chemical batteries, the most outstanding one at present is a "large superconducting flywheel battery".

This battery does not store chemical energy, but mechanical energy!

On the surface, this flywheel battery looks like a very huge turntable with a mass of 100,000 tons!

It is located in the gravity-free zone of Noah.

When charging, the turntable will be rotated rapidly by force; when you want to discharge, use a high-speed rotating turntable to cut the magnetic flux lines to discharge.

Although it is just a turntable, it contains the wisdom of generations of technicians, and it uses a lot of superconducting magnetic levitation technology. If the turntable rotates at a high speed, it can undoubtedly store a huge amount of kinetic energy due to its large mass. And the efficiency of converting kinetic energy into electrical energy is very high, reaching more than 90%.

"Could a low-level civilization also have such means? The cost of a superconducting flywheel battery is not low." Yu Yifeng was a little surprised. This report was written by an authoritative scientist, so he did not doubt whether there was any exaggeration in it.

He couldn't help but ask: "Has a low-level civilization also developed something good? Is it also a super flywheel battery?"

The female worker said with some amusement: "Don't think too much, it's a very simple device: hydroelectric energy storage. During the day, they use the remaining solar power to pump a large amount of water resources to the upper reaches of the reservoir and convert it into gravitational potential energy."

"At night, the solar panels do not generate electricity, the reservoir opens the gate to release water, and then uses the kinetic energy in it to generate electricity... This can solve the problem of insufficient electricity at night."

"Is that so..." Yu Yifeng was stunned, and then nodded. The reservoir energy storage method is actually quite good, and it is also often used by people...

It seems that there is nothing to learn from, and he is not discouraged, but continues to read along the report.

This civilization uses solar energy on a large scale, of course, not because they naturally like energy conservation and environmental protection.

It's because...they have no fossil fuels!

Two thousand three hundred years ago, they used up almost all fossil fuels and uranium resources, and even the combustible ice that was easy to mine on the seabed was almost used up, so naturally a huge war broke out...

Fortunately... the Yufu civilization survived that huge energy crisis, and after recovering from the war, the population had been reduced by more than half. After struggling through the nuclear winter, they slowly developed renewable resources until now, forming a stable social structure.

"The number of countries has also been reduced from hundreds to fifty-three. There are local wars on the planet, but it is generally stable."

"Finally, after the nuclear winter, clean energy with solar energy as the core replaced the original fossil energy little by little... More than two thousand years have passed, and the entire planet has once again restored its green mountains and clear waters."

"Using up fossil energy has become a good thing for the entire planet!"

"Interesting." Yu Yifeng smiled, which is very similar to people's previous speculation.

If a low-level civilization does not have a reasonable enough system and ideology to complete the "uncontrollable nuclear fusion" with a huge economic scale, then... the large-scale use of renewable energy will be the final direction of the illumination civilization.

Because... solar energy is almost endless.

The solar energy obtained by a planet is usually more than 10,000 times that consumed by low-level civilizations, which can easily support the survival of these indigenous peoples. It is just a matter of convenience...

According to research during the Earth period, solar energy occupies too much area, and the power generation is not stable enough, and the cost may be much higher than fossil energy. Because the energy consumption of manufacturing solar panels, through recycling, it takes 2-5 years, this time is still a bit long.

I don’t know how this civilization... will solve it?

Yu Yifeng instantly thought of several possibilities. First, reduce the quality of life. There is no way. There is not enough energy, so it can only be reduced; second, reduce the population; third, vigorously research and improve the power generation efficiency of panels.

In short... life can’t be as moist as before.

He asked casually: "So, they are very good at using clean energy?"

"Yes, after so many years of research, even low-level civilizations have made great progress. Generally, 20 months can cover the energy consumption in the entire production and use cycle. Because of the energy transition, they no longer have enough power to challenge nuclear fusion, but are going further and further in the use of solar energy..."

"They should be... better than us in this regard!"

The young girl quietly stuck out her tongue, seeming a little ashamed.

As a new human of interstellar civilization, she was not as good as low-level civilizations in the use of solar energy, which made her feel embarrassed: "The photoelectric conversion efficiency of solar panels is much higher than ours... and the conversion of various electrical energies has also reached a deeper level, which is worth learning from."

Yu Yifeng smiled again and said: "This is normal. For more than two thousand years, they have been developing renewable energy continuously. They must be more powerful than us... Any civilization has something to learn."

"When we carry out scientific research, we can also get a few solar panels to study..."

Of course, the main task of this scientific expedition is not to steal things, but to understand the culture of this indigenous civilization and collect more information. By the way, a small deep-sea scientific research base will be established to solve the problems related to microorganisms so that people will not get sick easily.

The location of the scientific research base was chosen near the South Pole of "Yufu 2". This place is rarely visited and is the best place to land secretly.

The mission was carried out by two hundred carefully selected researchers, both men and women, including various biologists, information scientists, linguists, etc., plus twenty soldiers.

These more than two hundred pioneers are all superhumans!

The immune system and survival ability of superhumans are much stronger than those of ordinary people. They can adapt to local microorganisms faster and are more convenient to make immune vaccines.

When the perfect immune vaccine is born, even ordinary people can travel to this planet.

Seeing that all the preparations were ready, Yu Yifeng walked to the front of the soldiers and said loudly: "These more than 100 biologists are our treasures, and they have conquered the ecosystems of several planets. There are other experts who are also authorities in various fields. I won't say more. You must cooperate with their instructions! Do you understand?"

"Understood!"

"Let's go!"

...

A week later, a small country in "Auriga 2" reported an inconspicuous news: satellites in the sky observed that several meteorites that had never been discovered before fell into the Antarctic region. After these meteorites made huge splashes, they sank into the local ocean.

For this news, except for some astronomy enthusiasts who paid a few glances, the whole incident did not cause much waves.

The universe is so big, there are so many meteors, and almost tens of thousands of tons fall on the planet every day. It seems that it is no big deal to drop a few large meteorites near Antarctica.

Moreover, places like Antarctica are full of sea areas and do not have much economic value. Because of the large-scale use of fossil fuels, a huge greenhouse effect was triggered more than 2,000 years ago, causing all the glaciers to melt and the ecosystem to suffer a devastating blow.

It was not until the nuclear winter that the thick ice layer condensed back again.

But after such repeated experiences, Antarctica no longer has much scientific research value.

Besides... the light intensity here is very weak, and there is no value in power generation. The combustible ice has been mined out. There is nothing except a few glaciers and the vast sea water.

So no one really intends to go to the ocean and spend a lot of effort to catch meteorites...

However, a few days later, a quiet deep blue submarine just quietly emerged from the sea... Its color is almost the same as the sea water, and it is sailing at a speed of 60 kilometers per hour.

Several figures emerged from the submarine, and the one leading it was the soldier captain Zhao Yao!