CHAPTER 176: CHAPTER 174 NUCLEAR BATTERY

The way others live doesn’t really concern Chen Xin; what he needs to worry about now is his own life.

His original plan to upgrade the shelter was also impacted by this incident. The plan to collect supplies through Li Yulong’s trading market was temporarily shattered as the trading market and the plantation were halted, and the special police team’s supply trading wouldn’t have the energy to spare in the short term.

After all, with the trading market project suspended and the special police team needing to invest their forces into investigating this incident, the material exchanges with Chen Xin can only be maintained at the level of basic living supplies.

This makes it impossible for Chen Xin’s original shelter upgrade plan to continue in the short term.

Although after the geothermal pump unit started running smoothly at the special police team, the survival points were cleared, bringing Chen Xin’s reserve of survival points close to five figures, and the daily acquisition of survival points broke through a hundred, allowing him to upgrade the shelter using survival points after saving for some time, Chen Xin still didn’t want to upgrade in such a manner.

On one hand, the cost is too high; on the other, a single upgrade plan cannot meet Chen Xin’s needs.

When calculating survival points at the special police team, Chen Xin also discovered that according to the rules set by the system, the maximum survival points he could obtain at once from a single shelter or settlement was 5,000 points, and the daily survival points acquisition limit increased by 50 points at a time.

This clearly restricted Chen Xin’s idea of quickly acquiring a large number of survival points in a short time to directly upgrade the shelter using survival points.

Perhaps he could choose one upgrade plan first and make adjustments later, but if possible, Chen Xin still hopes to upgrade the shelter as a whole in one go.

So, due to the shortage of supplies, Chen Xin had to temporarily shelve his shelter upgrade plan and focus his energy on other things.

For example, upgrading and modifying his vehicle.

These days, due to frequently entering the city to deliver food to Qin Lan, the demand for the vehicle has increased, and Chen Xin has more requirements for his car, making the vehicle upgrade and modification become his current priority.

However, this is not considered a major impact. After all, vehicle modification was already among the prioritized tasks in his list, now it’s just prioritizing this over the overall shelter upgrade.

Previously, to go out, Chen Xin upgraded the wheels, improving the tires’ ability to cope with snowy roads.

But that’s only the most basic upgrade and cannot transform the vehicle’s performance significantly.

Though this is sufficient in the current situation, Chen Xin wants more.

The previous tire modification merely enhanced the grip of ordinary snow tires, adjusted the chassis height and suspension system, but if he wants to further improve performance and ride comfort, more components must be upgraded.

For instance, the chassis structure.

Currently, Chen Xin’s vehicle has a wheeled chassis, offering advantages like low fuel consumption, lightweight, and good maneuverability, but the passability is inferior to a tracked chassis.

Tracked chassis is heavier and has higher fuel consumption, but it has stronger carrying capacity and can tow a heavier car body.

Additionally, the tracked chassis has greater traction and lower ground pressure, thus exhibiting good off-road performance and stability, greater climbing ability, and is more suitable for complex road conditions with elevation changes.

Especially when driving on snow, wheeled chassis can easily encounter tires getting stuck in snow, while tracks don’t have such issues, enabling vehicles to travel stably across the snow surface without wheels getting trapped.

For Chen Xin, he prefers to replace the SUV’s chassis with a tracked one, upgrading it to an ATV all-terrain vehicle.

Yet, despite various benefits of the tracked chassis, energy consumption is a crucial issue Chen Xin cannot avoid, as without a powerful engine he cannot drive the tracked chassis, and high power also means high fuel consumption.

"So it still comes back to nuclear power, huh!" Chen Xin looked at the design sketch he drew on the computer and thought he still needs nuclear power for his car.

Considering his calculations, only nuclear power can meet his usage needs, as switching to a tracked chassis would lead to severe fuel consumption.

As for nuclear power, it’s not really considered high-tech; although many associate nuclear with radiation and find it dangerous, it must be said that with humanity’s current technological level, we can cleanly and efficiently utilize nuclear energy.

Moreover, the sustainability and reliability of such things are quite dependable. The nuclear-powered lighthouse built during the pre-Sovia era is still running today, though radiation leaks occurred due to long-term lack of maintenance and aging equipment.

Thus historically, those people who resorted to nuclear solutions not only built nuclear-powered tanks with four tracks but also used nuclear bombs to build reservoirs and extinguish oil reservoir fires.

Implementing nuclear power in vehicles is not complicated, just a radioactive isotope thermoelectric generator is needed.

The principle of this device is utilizing the heat-emitting rays released during the decay of radioactive substances, converting heat energy into electric energy within thermoelectric elements.

Radioactive substances are stable throughout the decay process, with released energy size and speed unaffected by external environmental temperatures, chemical reactions, pressure, or electromagnetic fields, hence radioactive isotope thermoelectric generators are known for strong interference resistance and accurate reliable operation.

Another feature is the long transformation time, dictating that nuclear batteries can be used for a long time.

Chen Xin certainly doesn’t have a nuclear battery at hand, nor does he have a place to buy it, but having a system means he can upgrade on his own.

Creating a nuclear battery requires making isotopes with long half-lives into fuel, wrapping them with thermoelectric elements, and for safety perhaps coating them with a layer of lead to prevent radiation leaks.

But upgrading through the system is not complicated; Chen Xin just needs to prepare isotopic material with long half-life, thermoelectric elements, and lead to upgrade his SUV’s car battery to a nuclear battery.

Needless to say, upgrading using survival points without these materials is also fine.

After carefully considering the pros and cons, Chen Xin decided to first directly use survival points to upgrade to a nuclear battery, then consider acquiring isotopic materials.

Considering isotopes are regulated materials in Flame Country, unlike thermoelectric elements and lead which are easily obtainable, he certainly won’t be able to acquire isotopes directly.

But having a nuclear battery as a sample, claiming he can manufacture nuclear batteries, Chen Xin thinks there’s some hope of acquiring isotopic materials.

Thinking this, Chen Xin picked up a wrench and screwdriver from the workbench, deciding to first remove his car’s battery and upgrade it to a nuclear battery.