Chapter 130: Resources! A New Way to Generate Energy!

[Record]: Random Level 1 resource node has been created near the main shelter, “Underground Shelter”. Please enter the newly-created function to check.

“The Tier One Resource Card actually activated a new function?”

Su Mo looked at the new function that slowly appeared on the game interface in shock.

When he first saw the game interface, there were only five options: attributes, chatting, trading, crafting and items.

But now, a new option appeared after the final segment.

Resources!

Unlike other small functions like the Monster Illustration Handbook, the Resource Function was located directly above the game interface, and was on the same row as the other five main options!

This also signified the importance of the resource function in the game interface.

“Could it be that, in the future, everyone will need to focus on resources…”

“What is the purpose of the invading alien races?”

Kobolds… and lion clan.. and the rat clan that I’ve never seen before, and even the other fantasy creatures that others have mentioned in the World Channel.

These creatures did not come here with the same purpose as humans, which was to survive.

This was a cruel war between races. They would undergo the baptism of natural disasters in the wasteland at certain times. What on earth was attracting these strange creatures to come here to die?

It was never Su Mo’s style to worry unnecessarily.

If the sky collapsed, there would naturally be someone taller to hold it up.

Shaking his head, Su Mo recorded these uncertain speculations in his private message channel. He took the load off his mind, and he completely let go of his worries for the future.

His consciousness turned into an illusory finger that tapped on the resource function.

A panel that was different from other game functions popped up.

This interface was very strange. It was not a simple description of how many resources there were. Instead, it was a map that could be moved with a thought.

The topographic map was flat, and it was not big at the moment. It was exactly the same as the 7.5-kilometer range mentioned in the game interface.

On the map, Su Mo saw the changes in the terrain, and the resource function had even thoughtfully marked out the resources within the shelter’s surroundings.

“Hmm, this yellow one should refer to the sulfur mine?”

Underneath the Underground Shelter, there was another yellow mark. As Su Mo tapped it, the map suddenly changed to 3D mode.

With that, the entire picture of the sulfur mine was revealed, and an attribute panel appeared beside it.

[Sulfur Mine (Level 2)]

[Mine Status: Large amounts of mining have been done, but there is still a small amount of ore left.]

[Mining Value: Half-star (Maximum Value: One and a half stars)]

[Special Ability: None (Two-stars to unlock)]

[Mining Difficulty :Extremely Low-level]

[Current Reserves: 26 tons]

The function of switching perspectives was to allow the user to switch between a vertical plane and a three-dimensional view.

The sulfur mine was originally a squarish cube that was buried underground. However, after mining, it had transformed into an extremely irregular shape.

Unsure of the disaster that followed, the sulfur mines were now compressed into a triangular shape.

The lower he went, the more sulfur mines there were.

“Hmm, what did I create with the random resource card?”

After looking around, Su Mo still could not find the resource that had been added following the earthquake.

However, in the upper right corner, Su Mo suddenly noticed something that looked like a small horn.

He clicked on it and, after a few seconds, he was left with a pleasant surprise. Su Mo returned to the initial interface and changed the view to 3D.

As expected, a magical substance that seemed to be flowing slowly appeared at the center of the Underground Shelter.

The substance seemed to be formless and colorless. There was only a little yellow mixed within and, due to the flow, Su Mo overlooked this place when he first inspected it.

“What a weird looking substance. Is this a liquid or gas?”

At the same time, his consciousness grabbed at the mysterious object and squeezed it. At the same time, a message appeared.

[Geothermal Resource (High-temperature Steam) Level 1]

[Mining Status: Pristine, not yet mined, at its peak.]

[Mining Value: 2 stars (Maximum Value: 2 stars)]

[Special Ability: I’m going to crack. (When there’s more than 50% in storage, the mineral veins will recover 0.2% of the total reserves every day. If the mineral reserves drop below 50% of the total, the ability will disappear.)]

[Mining Difficulty: High]

[Current Reserves: 500 tons]

“Geothermal resource? High-temperature steam? Why does that sound so familiar?”

Su Mo mumbled this familiar term and tried to remember where he had seen it before.

TikTok? Station B? Hupu?

When he thought of something, Su Mo liked to think back from the beginning. By searching from the original memory point, he could slowly bring out the corresponding memories.

“I think it was from a Q & A? Oh yes! From Zhihu!”

At the thought that it was from Zhihu, gradually, a stream of information began to appear in Su Mo’s mind. The stream of information also gushed out like a geyser.

When he first saw the term geothermal resource, it had not been a personal question. Instead, someone had raised this topic amidst a heated argument.

Su Mo remembered the question very vaguely, but he could still remember that they were discussing the principle of nuclear power plants.

Nuclear power plants generate electricity through nuclear power.

The core equipment was the nuclear reactor, which heated up water to produce steam and turned the energy from atomic fission into heat.

The steam pressure pushed the turbine to spin, and the heat turned into mechanical energy. Then the turbine drove the generator to spin, turning mechanical energy into electrical energy.

Therefore, the act of burning the boiler would naturally not be accepted by the netizens.

At that time, someone had already started to argue. Why would a nuclear power plant use such an ‘ancient’ method to generate electricity? Was this a joke?

Sure enough, not long after, a big shot posted a theory below and proposed the current successful method of generating electricity, which was geothermal resources.

After entering the 21st century, the mining of coal and oil became more and more rampant. When technology reached a bottleneck and couldn’t advance toward ‘controllable nuclear fusion’, the main focus of the exploration was to use renewable energy resources.

Among all the resources, geothermal resources naturally became the center of attention. Due to their high energy efficiency, they gradually developed to become more efficient.

In certain areas with sufficient geothermal resources, heating was already being used to its fullest extent. Although the effect was not fully satisfactory, the cost was low.

As for geothermal power, the first step was to convert heat into kinetic energy, and then convert kinetic energy into electricity.

There were three types of geothermal resources used for generating electricity: water and heat resources, ground pressure resources, dry lava rock resources. The last two had not improved even before transmigration. Only the first type, water and heat resources, gave rise to an entire complete branch in the technology tree.

Underground hot water needed to be separated from steam first. The water then had to be discharged so that steam could enter the steam turbine. This system was called the Flash Steaming System.

Among them, the reason why geothermal steam energy was the simplest to make use of was because geothermal steam was both a medium and a source of energy, so this step was omitted.

The famous Yangbajain Geothermal field in Tibet had been operating for over 40 years. It operated more than 6,000 hours a year and generated more than 120 million watts a year.

This fully demonstrated the advantage of this resource.

“Geothermal resource. It’s good, but it’s too difficult to mine them to generate electricity at this current stage!” Su Mo looked at the ball of steam in his hand with envy, and a sense of helplessness welled up in his heart.

The deeper one went underground, the higher the temperature was, but the depth of the “heat source” was directly related to the development cost.

The key to using geothermal technology were wells and injections, and the cost of drilling was also a constraining factor.

In addition to the high technical requirements for drilling deep, the terrain also put important restrictions on the choice of wells.

With the help of the system, it was not a problem to reach the hot steam area that was located about five kilometers underground. However, the amount of survival points consumed was not something that could be sustained at this stage.

Of course, most people did not know the cost of drilling down 5 kilometers.

Huaxia had over 5,000 drilling rigs, and they were currently located in the northern part of Tarim. Furthermore, the cost of a well was estimated to be in the range of hundreds of millions.

In addition, that was only because there were thousands of meters of salt rock in the area. If the “butter-like” soft salt rock was replaced with hard rock, the cost would be exponentially higher.

Walking over to the generator, Su Mo called up the property panel of the diesel generator. This time, there was indeed a new pathway option to upgrade the generator.

[Diesel generator]

[Efficiency: 300kw (300 degrees/h at full load)]

[Oil consumption: 230 grams per kilowatt-hour (82L/h at full load)]

[Description: A diesel generator produced by the Siemens Conglomerate in Jiangsu, Wuxi. The circuitry is intact and can be used normally. The damage is negligible.]

[First upgrade direction: Change the core components of the generator. Increases the power supply of the generator and reduces the power consumption of the generator. Survival points required (1680).]

[Second upgrade direction: Change the production method of the generator. Change energy source to bioelectric power, increases conversion efficiency, and reduces the wear and tear of the circuitry. Survival points required (6500).]

[Third upgrade direction: Drilling a five-kilometer underground well with a shaft. Changes the structure of the generator to a geothermal generator, greatly increasing the efficiency of the generator. Survival points required (36,800).]

“Wow, do you think I’m stupid? With 36,000 survival points, would I choose to upgrade to geothermal power? I might as well find a psionic generator to upgrade instead!”

This was the first time the system had given him a quotation of survival points required that was more than four digits. It was five digits, and the first number was a three. This left Su Mo stunned for quite a while.

With so many survival points required, even if he did not spend for a year, and saved everything, he would not be able to accumulate that many survival points.

“Sigh, if only I could add in materials and reduce the price!”

“Hmm?”

As he sighed, a bold idea suddenly appeared in Su Mo’s mind.

According to the upgrading difficulty, these expenses must have been spent on drilling through the well, but Su Mo remembered the consumption when he had opened the escape route.

When creating something out of nothing, the system’s expenditure would be terrifying but, when digging holes, the cost could be reduced without limit.

After trying to open the materials list for the third upgrade, Su Mo said, “Oh joy!”

Among the required materials, 5000 units of iron ore were needed, and each unit cost 3 survival points. 2000 units of copper ore were needed, and each unit cost 5 survival points.

Excluding these, by providing a generator, the points could be reduced by 500, with an upper limit of six possible input additions.

Providing an ordinary drill would reduce the points by 500 as well. Providing a Diamond Head drill would reduce it by a whopping 2000 points!

The higher quality the drill, the better the reduction of points would be, with the maximum being a 4,500 point reduction.

In the best case scenario, if all these reductions were accumulated, the cost of upgrading the generator would be reduced to just 4,300 points.

If we can find the other things that we’ve never even heard of to add to it, the final tally would only amount to…

“2,000 points! As long as I have 2,000 points, I can have a generator that generates at least 350 watts of electricity per day. Also, due to my special ability, as long as I stop on time or upgrade the generator, it would be equal to…”

“Perpetual motion machine!”

Su Mo slowly said the words that only a folk scientist would say. His eyes burned as he looked at the resource cards in his storage space.

“Iron ore…”

“Copper ore…”

“I still have three cards, and I have more than a hundred treasure chests waiting to be opened! I have a chance to get them all!”

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