Homo sapiens.

But this year has not yet entered winter, and in autumn alone, the temperature has dropped to between minus 15 degrees and minus 30 degrees.

Without the natural heating system of the North Atlantic warm current, the whole of Northern Europe is basically equivalent to Xianbelia, after all, the latitudes of the two are similar.

The headquarters of White Pine is in Stockholm.

The company's CEO, Bretten, looked at the report in his hand with a very ugly face.

Yeke, the business manager on the side, explained helplessly: "President Bretton, the large-scale decline in business this year is not our fault, but the weather has had too much impact."

"What did the insurance company say?"

Taylor, the vice president in charge of this work, said very angrily: "They refused to pay, saying that in the insurance clause, the stipulated winter is from November to February of the following year, these **** bastards!"

Brendan was equally furious, but what's the use of being angry now.

These financial companies are all vampires. When fooling people to buy financial products, they often talk about hype and hype, but when they encounter problems, they try their best to find excuses and exploit loopholes, and they just don’t pay.

Now even if Baisong Company sued the other party to the court, the other party can delay the time, not to mention that the legal affairs of these financial vampires are also very powerful.

Britton had a terrible headache: "We must find a way, otherwise we can only lay off employees and sell assets on a large scale."

"But..." Jake hesitated to speak.

What else can they do now? The core business of their White Pine Company is logging, wood processing, furniture, and papermaking.

It seems that the industry is not affected much by the weather.

In fact, many people overlook an important issue, that is, modern industry is no longer the small workshop of the past, and industry needs electricity and heat.

The forest farm of the White Pine Company can supply wood, but at this time the hydropower station in the Kingdom of Anning has stopped operating.

In previous years, autumn in the Kingdom of Anning was the peak period for hydropower generation. However, as soon as autumn entered this year, large areas of rivers and lakes froze up, and hydropower generation was most afraid of freezing.

45% of Anning Kingdom's power source is hydropower, and 45% is nuclear power, and other power sources account for a relatively small proportion.

The hydropower of Anning Kingdom can generate about 70 to 75 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity every year. They are also one of the electricity exporting countries in the Europa region, and they compete with France all the year round.

However, this year, the terrifying blizzard directly dealt a blow to the Anning Kingdom.

37% of the hydropower stations have completely shut down, 41% of the hydropower stations have less than half of the power generation of the same period in previous years, and the remaining 22% can barely maintain [-]% to [-]% of the power generation.

Don't talk about exporting electricity now, the internal electricity is not enough.

The chain reaction brought about by the ultra-low temperature has further increased the electricity consumption of enterprises and residents. After all, factories need heating, and residents also need heating in their homes.

On the one hand, the power generation has dropped by about 20%, and on the other hand, the demand has skyrocketed. Under the attack of both sides, the power supply of the Anning Kingdom has not only suffered a serious shortage, but also experienced a skyrocketing price.

The paper mill of White Pine Company needs water, and it is hot water, otherwise the equipment will freeze and the pulp will not be able to operate. Although there are emergency diesel generator sets, the power required by the factory is still too high.

Paper companies in Anning Kingdom, like Baisong Company, are facing the problem of insufficient power supply.

As for the addition of nuclear power plants, the largest power company in the Kingdom of Anning, the Waterfall Group, is indeed planning to build five new nuclear reactors to fill the gap in future hydropower.

The problem is, building a nuclear power plant takes time!

Due to population and market reasons, European and American industries have a very fragmented industrial chain. This decentralized industrial chain has many problems, such as coordination and transportation.

The Kingdom of Anning does not have the ability to independently build nuclear power plants. They must cooperate with companies in France, Germany, and America.

The characteristic of European and American companies is that they are slow in efficiency, which can be called "slow work and meticulous work" at a good level, or "slow work and meticulous work" at a bad level.

The five nuclear reactors planned by the Waterfall Group are still in the paper design stage at this time, and even the parts have not been produced.

Apparently this is far from being able to quench thirst.

For other power generation systems, solar and wind power generation depend on the weather, while natural gas and coal power generation. Anning Kingdom itself does not have abundant natural gas and coal resources.

And building a new power generation system also takes time.

Facing the power shortage, Anning Kingdom had to call on residents to reduce electricity consumption. For example, villas with a few hundred square meters used to be heated 24 hours a day.

In fact, without the official call from the Kingdom of Peace, the people could no longer bear the high electricity bills.

Many residents only supply energy in their bedrooms, and dare not turn on the heating 24 hours a day.

In the past month, their family used thousands of kilowatt-hours of electricity, but now they save a little, and only use about 500 kilowatt-hours.

A blessing in disguise, Serris's electric blankets and thermal sleeping bags are selling well.

There is no 24-hour heating in the whole house, and many people cursed and even went to Stockholm to make trouble. Obviously, this kind of gap is not something everyone can bear.

The pampered Nordic people, especially the new generation who have not had a hard life, do not accept this low-quality life at all.

For example, a certain environmental protection little princess who gained three laps of weight has been exported crazily on the streets of Stockholm.

However, these street artists did not realize how serious the deteriorating weather in the Nordic region was at this time.

If it's just a world of ice and snow, then it's not a big problem. If it's a big deal, it's an early winter.

But as time went by, another situation emerged.

The seasonal ice sheet goes all the way south from the northern part of the Scandinavian peninsula. Without the neutralization of the North Atlantic warm current, the whistling north wind, like a long knife, swept across northern Europe and reached Western and Central Europe.

Galaxy 2, February 11nd.

The seasonal ice sheet pushes southward from the Perai Sea in the east of the Kingdom of Anning, freezing the Gulf of Bothnia, the Selkai Sea, and then entering the core waters of the Baltic Sea.

It's the winter solstice in December.

The entire Baltic Sea was frozen, and the ice thickness in the northern sea area reached 3 to 4 meters.

In the central sea area near Stockholm, the thickness of the ice layer is also about 1 to 2 meters.

This situation directly caused the Baltic Sea to lose its normal shipping value. Even if Lucia transferred a nuclear-powered icebreaker from the North Pole, there was still no way to guarantee the Baltic Sea's waterway.

The ice on the Baltic Sea has cut off the maritime traffic in Northern Europe and Western Europe, which has put the Nordic region, which needs to purchase a lot of supplies, into a dilemma where money can't buy things.

And because of the impact of the snowstorm, aircraft transportation has also been seriously affected.

At the same time, there is also a crisis in the North Sea, that is, icebergs.

Icebergs floating down from the Arctic Ocean have begun to appear in the North Sea, which has seriously affected the safety of shipping in the North Sea.

This winter solstice, the entire middle and high latitudes of the northern hemisphere are covered in white, and both seasonal and semi-permanent ice sheets are expanding southward.

Chapter 548 Unprecedented scale

For the ice and snow in the northern hemisphere.

Homo sapiens company didn't care too much. Although there were people from the free world who came to Homo sapiens company to work every day, and there were not a few of them, it didn't affect the various internal plans of Homo sapiens company.

As time came to Xinghe in January 3rd.

Although Li Qingye is still in the Pangu Realm in Africa, researching biological evolution experiments, this does not mean that he is deaf to the outside world. On the contrary, he is very clear about many things in the world.

For example, America's research progress on the brain chip is still in a state of dystocia, and the combination of the chip and the brain is extremely difficult.

In a series of animal experiments, not only did the chip and the brain fail to cooperate, but side effects occurred, resulting in mania, mental disorders, and brain death in the obtained experimental animals.

America has not made breakthroughs in the brain chip.

On the contrary, Lucia, who was desperate, conducted a nuclear fusion power generation experiment project through archaeological work on his father's legacy, and successfully completed a 500-megawatt nuclear fusion power generation experiment.

Li Qingye rubbed his temples, listening to Bagheera's report.

"...Lucia built this nuclear fusion power plant in a mine in the southern Ural Mountains. Its power generation principle is the same as our nuclear fusion power plant, and it uses a nuclear explosion furnace scheme."

"Their miniaturization of the hydrogen bomb is so good?" Li Qingye was slightly surprised.

Bagheera explained: "They have cooperated with Seris, and now they can achieve a low-pollution 300-ton equivalent. Therefore, the mine cavity must be large enough, otherwise it will not be able to withstand the explosion."

"300 tons equivalent? Not bad!" Li Qingye smiled and shook his head.

Obviously, under the huge environmental pressure, human beings can abandon some concerns.

Is nuclear fusion power generation difficult?

No, it's not difficult at all.

The key is which way to use.

If it is the nuclear explosion furnace plan that Lucia currently adopts by Homo sapiens, there is basically no difficulty. As long as there is a small hydrogen bomb technology of several hundred tons and a large enough furnace, it can continuously generate electricity.

And if you want to make a tokamak device or stellarator, it is indeed quite difficult.

Even Homo sapiens, which now has a high-temperature superconductor with a temperature of more than minus 20 degrees Celsius, still has not made much progress in the tokamak device.

The careless Lucia obviously didn't have the cost and energy to build a tokamak device, but picked up the nuclear explosion furnace plan left by his father before.

The method is simple and crude, but the key is that it is very easy to use!

Now that high latitudes are affected by global cooling, the future situation is not optimistic. Of course, Lucia will not sit still.

The safety of the nuclear explosion furnace scheme is also good, even safer than ordinary fission reactors. After all, the hydrogen bomb exploded directly, and a lot of radioactive substances were reacted, and the remaining radioactive substances were also concentrated in the ground furnace.

If there is better technology in the future, it is completely possible to seal the furnace and let the radioactive materials inside decay naturally.

This technology can be used in Xianbeilia, which is sparsely populated, and the desert areas of Central Asia, as long as it is not close to towns and agricultural areas.

Homo sapiens, on the other hand, has a smaller and more efficient firefly-type hydrogen bomb, so the furnace can be built smaller and have higher thermal efficiency.

On some remote islands, Sapiens Corporation likes to build such nuclear explosion furnace power stations.

……

Li Qingye saw the annual report of the Space Division again.

In Xinghe’s 2 years, Homo sapiens launched a total of 738 million tons of materials into outer space, which is an unprecedented scale.

And specific to the project.

Last year, the Space Division completed a total of 37 space projects, large and small.

These include: the Homo sapiens space station with a spiral arm of 700 meters, the Earth-Moon Lagrangian L1 transit space station, the Lunar Copernicus base, the mass projector on the back of the moon (35% progress), the Mars exploration project, the Venus-Cloud Palace project (23 %), asteroid belt exploration project, Jupiter exploration project, solar storm warning system, etc.

In addition to these completed achievements, the Space Division also made a rough report on this year's work arrangement.

Li Qingye has no opinion on this, although at this stage new humans cannot live in outer space for a long time, but these investments are laying the foundation.

For example, the Homo sapiens space station, this project plans to expand to a radius of 1000 meters this year, so that the pseudo-gravity cabin at the end of the rotation can ensure that creatures can live in it for a long time.

Once the spiral arm length of the Homo sapiens space station reaches 1000 meters, the gradient difference produced by the centrifugal force will become relatively indistinct.

This is also a sign that the project is ready to enter a long-term test. After the spiral arm reaches 1000 meters, the Homo sapiens space station will not continue to expand.

The other is to prepare for the construction of the Homo sapiens 2 space station, which is also located in the middle orbit, but at an altitude of about 2400 kilometers.

Space Station 2 is purely a microgravity laboratory, specially prepared for the synthesis of biological materials in outer space.

The Copernicus base on the front side of the moon will not be expanded, but plans to build two more sub-bases.

The mass projector project on the back of the moon will continue to build the remaining part this year, and the project is expected to be completed in Xinghe 4.

Suddenly he saw another large project.

Gyro-class starship project.

To put it bluntly, this project is a spacecraft similar to the Homo sapiens space station, which can rotate by itself to meet the gravity requirements inside the spacecraft, and create a bionic environment inside the spacecraft where new humans can live for a long time.

Obviously this is an experimental spaceship specially prepared for the long-distance exploration of alien planets.

This project is expected to start in August this year and be completed in August next year. At that time, a bionic environment will be arranged in the quasi-gravity cabin, and then some primate monkeys, cats and dogs will be put in to test the long-term interstellar voyage. What changes will happen.

The gyroscope-class 001 spacecraft will go to Mars and then return to Earth. It will take about 4 years to go back and forth.

Li Qingye flipped through the ideas related to the gyroscope-class interstellar spacecraft. Although the gyroscope-class is quite large, Homo sapiens can still afford it.

So he directly approved the project.

As for dozens of other small projects, they were also approved by Li Qingye with a swipe of his pen.

Projects like the Super Astronomical Telescope are actually small projects for Homo sapiens.

With Homo sapiens' current productivity and space delivery technology, it is more than enough to send tens of millions of tons of materials to outer space a year.

If you have money and resources, you can be so willful.

The current various investments of Homo sapiens all reflect an adjective: ignorance and humanity.

In fact, the four major forces can also increase investment in outer space on a large scale and achieve leapfrog development in the space industry.

However, in reality, most of the current resources and funds of the free world are eaten up by the two gold-eating beasts of military industry and medical treatment, and only a small part can be left for the aerospace industry.

In the internal friction of human beings, too many resources are wasted.

Li Qingye's Homo sapiens company can get rid of this internal friction because of technological progress.