Inside the office.
Lü Yongchang sat in his chair, brows tightly furrowed, his conflicted gaze fixed on the Holographic Projection before him.
Tao Yuda was right.
He had just run a simple calculation himself. At the current power output of their fusion reactors, humanity would need to turn Light Satellite One into an energy-producing planet covered in fusion reactors to meet its wartime demand for antimatter.
Antimatter did not come from nothing.
When matter and antimatter came into contact, they released energy.
Producing antimatter from matter, however, required an equal or even greater amount of energy.
After all, energy losses during production were inevitable.
In other words, the current [Phoenix One] was essentially a large, highly efficient energy storage device.
Some might ask:
What was the point of antimatter, then?
Why not use the energy from fusion reactors directly?
That came down to energy conversion efficiency.
Compared with antimatter, fusion reactors were too "gentle," releasing energy far too "slowly."
One gram of antimatter could annihilate with one gram of ordinary matter, directly releasing the entire energy equivalent of two grams of matter in an extremely short time.
The energy released by two grams of fusion fuel fell far short of that produced by matter-antimatter annihilation-in both quantity and release rate.
Even a hydrogen bomb had an energy conversion efficiency of only 0.7%.
Antimatter's energy conversion efficiency was more than 140 times that!
Thus, even though producing it consumed more energy, it remained the undisputed choice for a level four civilization!
"Tap... tap... tap..."
Lü Yongchang loosely curled his right hand into a fist, tapping his knuckles lightly against the desk before him in a steady rhythm.
Turning Light Satellite One into an energy-producing planet certainly did not meet his expectations.
*Then... what about turning the other planets in the Gliese