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Chapter 616: Dyson Cloud

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

When the Blacklight, the first extraterrestrial emigrant spacecraft in human history, entered the subspace, it disappeared from this universe and no signal would be transmitted back. Chen Chen would not know whether it succeeded, became trapped in the subspace or had been annihilated at once.

Before it returned to the solar system, no one would know anything about the Blacklight.

On this side of reality, Chen Chen’s experiments on subspace navigation were still going on, and he did not slack off just because the Blacklight had gone on a mission.

At the same time, with the birth of the subspace engine, Chen Chen decided on his own to build ten large transport ships comparable in size to aircraft carriers. These ships could carry over a thousand small unmanned mining ships that were less than ten meters in length.

In this way, the large transport ships could warp directly into the subspace from the Mars orbit each time, then sail out at the Mandeville Point of Pluto, and finally enter the Kuiper belt, where they could gather more resources and bring them back to human society.

A round trip like this would save them an endless amount of time. At the same time, short-term subspace navigation was not that dangerous. Even if a large transport ship ran into trouble and was damaged, this kind of loss was fully bearable.

Meanwhile, this simple and efficient resource collection system also gave Chen Chen a bold idea...

“What, you want to build a Dyson sphere?”

On the top floor of the Blacklight Building in the Eco Science City, Little X looked at Chen Chen incredulously as if she wanted to see if he was pulling her leg. “We don’t lack energy for the time being. Do you want to do this?”

“No, building a Dyson sphere is completely impractical.”

Chen Chen shook his head. “Let’s not talk about the technical feasibility. With the resources we have now, if we want to build a Dyson sphere that envelops the sun, I’m afraid we’ll practically have to take apart all the planets of the entire solar system. What I want to build is not a Dyson sphere. It’s a Dyson cloud or a Dyson ring.”

Chen Chen slowly stood up with a fanciful expression. “To avoid long-term problems, we must solve them in the present. Although our nuclear fuel is mainly composed of deuterium from seawater and helium-3 from the moon for nuclear fusion reaction, we must acknowledge that the helium-3 on the moon is limited. According to our current prospecting, there are about 700,000 tons of helium-3 on the moon. Based on the power consumption standard of human society in 2040, 700,000 tons of helium-3 can supply humanity’s consumption for three centuries.”

“Three hundred years is already a long time for humankind.”

Little X persuaded. “Perhaps three hundred years later, humans will still be able to discover new helium-3 mines and even new energy sources.”

“That being said, why not act now?”

Chen Chen’s tone changed. “And don’t forget, this number looks a lot, but do you still recall the electricity consumption standard in 2020?”

“2020?”

Little X was stunned and then she blurted out in realization, “Twenty years ago, the global power generation was 2.8 trillion kWh and in 2040, the global power generation was 56 billion kWh, an increase of two thousand percent over this period.”

“That’s right, that’s twenty times!”

Chen Chen solemnly said, “Human demand for electricity in twenty years will be twenty times that of what it was before. This number will continue to expand with the continuous development of human society. Can you say that in ten years, the helium-3 resources on the moon can provide for humanity for three hundred years?”

Little X fell silent at once.

Indeed, if human electricity consumption continued to expand according to this index, it was likely that the helium-3 resources on the moon would be exhausted in 50 years at most.

“Therefore, we mustn’t put all our eggs in one basket.”

Chen Chen said gravely, “In the foreseeable future, we have to find a new energy solution, and now, a path has already been laid out in front of us over a century ago. This is the best way forward for us so far.”

Little X nodded with some understanding at this. “So, we have to develop a Dyson cloud.”

The so-called Dyson cloud was the same thing as a Dyson sphere. The only difference was the amount of engineering labor required. The concept of the Dyson sphere was first proposed by Freeman Dyson, Einstein’s assistant, in 1960.

He once imagined that the energy contained in a planet like the earth itself was very limited, far from enough to support the development of civilization to an advanced stage. In a star system, most of the energy — the radiation from stars — was wasted as it dissipated into thin air. Although humans had solar energy devices, the energy received was only a grain of sand in a desert compared with the total energy radiated by the sun at any moment.

Therefore, he believed that the sun was a gift from the universe to humankind. A highly developed civilization must have the ability to enclose the sun in a massive spherical structure so that most of the sun’s radiant energy was intercepted. Only in this way would enough energy be captured to support the development of human civilization.

Thus, he envisaged the Dyson sphere — this was a giant man-made structure with a diameter of about 200 million kilometers, used to encase the sun. Such a structure was composed of satellites orbiting the sun that completely blanketed the surface of the sun. Moreover, through a method similar to solar energy conversion, most of the energy emitted from the sun was intercepted and converted into electrical energy required by humans.

This was the definition of a Dyson sphere.

However, later generations refuted this theory because most people thought that ordinary civilizations did not have the ability to make Dyson spheres because a giant celestial structure with a diameter of more than 200 million kilometers would cost an ordinary civilization over a thousand or even ten thousand years. At the same time, it would consume almost all of the materials in the entire galaxy, which was an impractical project for an ordinary civilization.

As for those advanced civilizations that could pursue the stars and seize the moon in the wave of a hand, naturally, they would already have energy conversion technologies that were more sophisticated. The construction of a Dyson sphere was beneath them.

To put it simply, the idea of a Dyson sphere was a little pointless. The civilization that needed it was not capable of building it and the civilization that was capable of building it might not necessarily think that it was worthwhile. That was all.

Therefore, gradually, later generations designed a compromise based on the idea of ??the Dyson sphere, that was, turning the Dyson sphere into a series of circles. Countless rings would surround the sun, just like clouds over the sun.

Compared with the engineering labor of the Dyson sphere, the Dyson cloud might only need one-thousandth to one-ten-thousandth of the work. Of course, the energy obtained would be reduced accordingly, but the advantage was that humans could control the construction cycle at will and quickly harvest the corresponding solar energy source. With the continuous development of human civilization, the number of Dyson clouds could be constantly increased until a Dyson sphere was fully formed one day in the future.

Little X quickly understood Chen Chen’s plans. After all, humans could not use the helium-3 resources on the moon forever. It was the same with petroleum, which was a limited resource. Before nuclear fusion had been developed, humans kept relying on the conversion of petroleum to energy. Forget about the fact that it was limited, it even polluted the earth’s environment.

Consequently, humankind started to experiment with nuclear fusion a long time ago, but now, Chen Chen was just like people in the past, looking for a new energy system in advance.

A Dyson cloud was the one that best met the requirements.

Thinking of this, Little X’s supercomputing capabilities instantly came up with several construction plans, but all of them had some flaws that needed to be refined. She could not help advising, “Sir Godfather, if you build a Dyson cloud, Mercury should be a good choice.”

“Naturally.”

Chen Chen replied, “First of all, Mercury is the planet closest to the sun, so it’s simple to collect the materials. Second, the main components of Mercury are metals and silicates. These elements are also required for the construction of solar panels. These conditions all align as if they are a blessing from heaven.”

Little X spread out her hands and said again, “If you want to build a Dyson cloud quickly, I’m afraid you’ll need an entire industrial chain.”

“That isn’t difficult either.”

Chen Chen replied, “The surface temperature of Mercury is around 400 degrees Celsius. This temperature is still bearable to some robots with thick armor. We only need to build one kind of robot, which must have three abilities:

“First, it must be able to withstand the high temperature of Mercury’s four hundred degrees; second, it has the ability to replicate itself; third, it can automatically complete a series of complex processes from collecting and smelting to manufacturing. As long as these three points are achieved, we’d have guaranteed half the success of the Dyson cloud’s construction.

“Moreover, there’s no atmosphere on Mercury, so the escape velocity isn’t very high. We only need to use electromagnetic technology to directly launch the Dyson cloud created on Mercury into the solar orbit. All that’s left is to use a type of satellite robot to receive the dispersed Dyson cloud and assemble it.”

“Then what about when enough energy is collected?”

Little X continued to ask, “Do we use laser or antimatter transmission?

“Do we have the technology to make a large amount of antimatter now?”

Chen Chen shook his head, pondering. “Of course, it’ll be a laser. Converting the energy collected on the Dyson cloud into a laser and transmitting the energy to the space station, the space city, and all human-colonized planets in the solar system over a long distance — that’s the most suitable and simplest way at present.”

“...”

Little X was silent for a while and then added. “It can be used as a weapon at critical moments too.”

Chen Chen did not answer, but continued. “I initially had some doubts about the implementation of this plan. After all, even if Mercury is entirely dismantled, it will be difficult to produce a decent Dyson cloud, but now the birth of the subspace engine has smoothly resolved this.

“Using the subspace as a springboard, we can adjust the trajectory of the Dyson cloud at any time. As a result, the probability of collision between Dyson clouds due to orbital problems and accidents is much smaller.”

After listening to what Chen Chen said, Little X immediately closed her eyes and began to extrapolate Chen Chen’s plan and proposals. Even so, after a few seconds, she nodded. “The plan you envision is indeed the most convenient. I’ve added some details according to your plan and optimized some processes.”

“Let’s have a look.”

Chen Chen’s eyes lit up and he said immediately.

Suddenly, a huge screen appeared in thin air before him, with a series of numbers and formulas densely lined up upon its face. This was the Dyson cloud plan compiled by Little X.

In this plan, Little X designed the Dyson cloud as countless ring-shaped celestial bodies. These man-made objects surrounded the entire sun like huge rings.

The first phase was planned to take three years. Blacklight Biotechnology needed to establish an industrial system on Mercury and launch the first Dyson cloud unit to the surface of the sun within three years.

According to the description of the plan, a Dyson cloud unit was a huge solar cell with a surface area of ??136 square meters, shaped like a regular hexagon as a whole. The middle was an integrated section and only the six edges would be made of a material that could withstand high temperatures. Not only could these edges transmit energy, but they could also link up securely with other units.

After the first Dyson cloud unit was successfully launched, the next step was very simple. Namely, countless replications would connect these hexagons one by one, finally forming a closed loop that spanned the entire sun.

This would be the first Dyson cloud and it was also the target of the second phase of the plan. It would take about 30 years in all.

Eventually, after the end of the second phase, the Dyson cloud would form a huge man-made ring-shaped celestial body that could surround the entire sun. At the same time, there would be a large laser generator every ten thousand kilometers, so that no matter how the Dyson cloud rotated over the sun, it would be at the right angle to irradiate the collected laser to the required place.

Then, when the Dyson cloud had formed the first closed loop, they could see how things progressed or form a new Dyson cloud ring or continue to increase the number of units on the original Dyson cloud. These were all options.

After reading the plan, even Chen Chen felt like slamming the table in excitement. He was responsible for the framework of the plan and Little X was responsible for filling in the details. The entire plan was perfect.

“This is it.”

Chen Chen immediately made a decision. This was the benefit of autocracy. Both the decision-making period and the speed of the process were simplified to an extreme. If this was a national project, it might take several years from the establishment of the project to the start of implementation. As for them, from the moment Chen Chen discussed it, it took less than half an hour.

Next, since the project had been set, the following step was to inform the world. After all, the sun was not only the sun of Blacklight Biotechnology but the sun of all mankind. This kind of project naturally needed to be told to the world.

On the official website of Blacklight Biotechnology, Little X personally issued this notice, giving a brief overview of the entire plan, completed with a sufficiently shocking name — the Blackwatch Dyson Cloud Plan. After that, the entire company became like a single industrial machine running at high speed!

Blacklight Biotechnology controlled most of the influence in human society. Its every move swayed the minds of countless people, so almost within a few minutes of the announcement, it had caused a shockwave throughout the entire Earth Federation.

All at once, the entire word was astounded!