Not only was the Q value greatly improved, but the volume was also greatly reduced.

The reactors, which were tens of meters high and tens of meters long and wide like a small mountain when research first began, are no longer seen.

The latest nuclear fusion reactors are only a few meters high and less than ten meters wide and long.

From the outside, it looks like a cargo box.

But such a cargo box, when operating at full power, has an installed capacity of up to 5,000 megawatts, meaning it can generate 5 million kilowatt-hours per hour\!

Despite generating so much electricity, its consumption is only a mere 100 grams of deuterium.

To generate the same amount of electricity using uranium-235, approximately 500 grams would be needed.

The current nuclear fusion reactor is still slightly too large, and its installed capacity is too high; currently, it can only be installed on Earth-class battleships or large cargo ships, while Venus-class and Mercury-class battleships cannot accommodate it.

However, Venus-class and Mercury-class battleships do not need such powerful energy; correspondingly, their installed capacity, volume, and mass can be proportionally reduced.

Tom continued to research improving the Q value of nuclear fusion reactors while also beginning research on miniaturization.

Although controllable nuclear fusion technology has not yet fully matured, one thing can now be started.

That is, a comprehensive upgrade and replacement of the current energy supply system\!

At this stage, Tom's energy sources are almost entirely nuclear fission.

To mine uranium ore and perform uranium enrichment and refinement, Tom had to allocate a large number of clones and industrial power to search for uranium ore throughout the solar system and build factories on site.

Now, all of that can be canceled\!

Because even the nuclear fusion reactor, which is not yet fully mature, already has a much higher comprehensive efficiency than nuclear fission reactors.

Tom quickly began the construction of the first nuclear fusion power station.

For building ground-based nuclear fusion power stations, there is no requirement for miniaturization, so Tom can make them very large and very complete, thus further improving efficiency and total installed capacity.

The total installed capacity of this nuclear power station reached an unprecedented 100,000 megawatts\!

Operating at full power, it can generate 100 million kilowatt-hours in one hour\! And up to 876 billion kilowatt-hours in a year\!

When Human Civilization was still in the national era, its total annual electricity consumption was approximately 30 trillion kilowatt-hours. Based on this figure, only 35 such power stations built by Tom would be needed to supply all the electricity consumed by all of humanity\!

Countless electric vehicles speeding, countless heavy machinery roaring, countless lights shining, and so on—all electricity demands would only require 35 power stations.

And these 35 power stations, running at full power for an entire year, would only consume less than five hundred tons of deuterium-tritium fusion gas.

Converted to coal, generating this much electricity would require at least 10 billion tons.

The difference is a staggering twenty million times\!

Of course, 35 nuclear fusion power stations are only sufficient for Human Civilization in the national era. For Tom at this moment, it is far from enough.

Tom has now fully developed two rocky planets and a total of more than 30 dwarf planets and large moons, bringing his total number of planets under control to 40.

The electricity generated by 35 nuclear fusion power stations is not enough to support the entire industrial system; it's not even enough for a single planet\!

For example, Ganymede, which Tom considers his base, has more than 5,000 nuclear fusion power stations with an installed capacity of 100,000 megawatts, while Mercury and Mars, these two large planets, have even more nuclear fusion power stations, reaching over 20,000.

To carry out the Earth ecological environment restoration project, Tom even built a few such power stations on Earth.

Anyway, nuclear fusion energy is clean and pollution-free, so there's no need to worry about its impact on the environment.

Thus, throughout the solar system, Tom built over 100,000 such-level or larger nuclear fusion power stations, all operating at relatively high power, to fully cover the electricity consumption of the entire industrial and scientific research systems.

Over 100,000 nuclear fusion power stations generate 87.6 quadrillion kilowatt-hours annually, which is equivalent to more than 2,900 Human Civilizations of the national era.

There's no way around it; the more advanced the technology, the more energy it consumes.

With more nuclear fusion power stations, the corresponding fuel consumption increases. Over 100,000 fusion power stations would consume approximately 17 million tons of deuterium annually.

In a deuterium-tritium fusion reaction, one gram of deuterium requires 1.5 grams of tritium, so the consumption of tritium is higher.

However, tritium is produced by neutron bombardment of lithium-6, so what is actually consumed in the reaction process is lithium-6, not tritium.

And lithium-6 is abundant in the solar system and relatively easy to mine, so this part can be ignored, and only deuterium consumption needs to be calculated.

To extract approximately 17 million tons of deuterium annually, Tom specifically developed an aircraft.

This aircraft resembles Human Civilization's airplanes, possessing a relatively large size and excellent aerodynamic layout.

But it does not fly on Earth; instead, it is designed to fly within Jupiter.

Jupiter is a gas giant; apart from its core, the rest is composed of gas, and its atmosphere is more than a thousand or even ten thousand times larger than Earth's.

Within such a vast atmosphere, various weather phenomena emerge endlessly.

Thunderstorms, hurricanes, turbulence, eddies, torrential rains, hail, and so on, are countless.

At this moment, the first batch of Jupiter aircraft built by Tom was transported by cargo ships and released into Jupiter's clouds.

The release point of the Jupiter aircraft was a location with relatively good weather specially chosen by Tom.

The wind speed here was only about 200 meters per second, which is considered rare good weather on Jupiter.

On Earth, the highest wind speed of a hurricane is less than 100 meters per second.

But on Jupiter, hurricanes exceeding the speed of sound are all too common; at merely 200 meters per second, which is twice the speed of Earth's strongest hurricane, it is indeed extremely rare.

Under the strong winds of 200 meters per second, the Jupiter aircraft entered Jupiter's cloud layers. The next moment, its massive engines began to operate, soaring through Jupiter's atmosphere with the wind.

Deuterium exists in Jupiter's atmosphere in the form of hydrogen deuteride, with a content of approximately 0.002%. Thus, one ton of Jupiter gas can separate out about 20 grams of hydrogen deuteride.

20 grams of hydrogen deuteride can then separate out about 13 grams of deuterium.

One Jupiter aircraft can process approximately 30 tons of Jupiter's atmosphere per minute, thus collecting 390 grams of deuterium per minute, which is about 540 kilograms per day, and around 200 tons per year.

Based on Tom's current annual deuterium consumption of approximately 17 million tons, Tom would need 85,000 Jupiter aircraft operating continuously to ensure a sufficient supply of deuterium.

Including spares and accidental losses, Tom would need to maintain a massive fleet of at least 100,000 Jupiter aircraft to be sufficient.

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