Chapter 390: Chapter 388: Condition Improvement
Under the efforts of Cao Daren and the workers, the pipeline connecting the two heating hubs was finally completed. Although they encountered some troubles during construction, they quickly resolved these issues, allowing the pipeline to be successfully completed in a short time.
A considerable part of the credit also goes to Lin City Hall. To quickly establish the heating hubs, Lin City Hall invested a significant amount of manpower and resources into the project.
They not only provided ample manpower support but also sent all the construction equipment that could be gathered in the city to the construction site.
With several construction points advancing simultaneously, this allowed the entire pipeline to be completed faster than expected.
After construction was completed, the two heating hubs were finally able to operate at full power without any hindrance, and the heating field could be fully expanded.
At the train station, since the heating field had already been expanded previously, it quickly reached its maximum range after the pipeline was completed, "digging" the entire train station out from under the snow.
As the train station reemerged on the surface, the supply of materials to Lin City finally returned to normal.
Lin City Hall no longer had to organize a large labor force to load and unload goods in a rush each time a train brought supplies.
With the train station reexposed to the surface, the unloading station originally planned by Lin City Hall also resumed construction. Once completed, the material unloading capacity in Lin City will be further enhanced, releasing more manpower that can be invested in post-disaster reconstruction work.
After seeing the advantages brought by the heating hubs, Lin City Hall naturally increased its investment in this area.
They not only hired Cao Daren as the head of the municipal engineering team specifically responsible for building heating hubs but also formed several additional construction teams. With the help of Professor Zhang from the geological survey group, they determined other construction sites for the heating hubs and quickly started construction simultaneously, planning to thoroughly expand this heating network in Lin City.
Of course, Chen Xin was happy to see this development. Not only did he make an electromagnetic metallurgy furnace to manufacture components for the newly added heating hubs, but he also enthusiastically participated, helping the engineering team install and debug the heating hubs at the construction site.
More importantly, he also improved the blueprints again and upgraded the existing heating hubs, enhancing their heating efficiency and reducing consumption.
Because of what Chen Xin has done, the situation in Lin City has undergone a tremendous change.
When Chen Xin and his team first arrived in Lin City, the entire city had fallen into paralysis. Although the city hall was still making efforts to improve the situation and struggling with post-disaster recovery, without any external intervention, Lin City, with its collapsed medical system, would have only seen a massive number of deaths and a hopeless situation for the entire city.
However, now, the aid station established by the rescue team effectively contained the worsening of the city’s medical situation. As more and more patients with mild to moderate symptoms recovered and critically ill patients gradually improved, the pressure on the entire medical system diminished, allowing it to effectively operate again, resulting in a significant improvement in the city’s health status.
Coupled with the improvement at the train station, normal turnover of goods ensured an effective supply of materials to the city. All aspects of the situation have finally seen a good transformation and improvement. It can be said that Lin City has finally recovered from the previous disaster, completing the post-disaster recovery work, and reconstruction can now commence.
Evidently, the heating network formed by the heating hubs is one of the focal points for Lin City’s post-disaster reconstruction.
Effectively providing heating and generating electricity using geothermal energy is extremely important for Lin City. Once completed, the prospects it can offer the city are quite promising, so it’s understandable why Lin City Hall has invested everything possible into this plan.
For Chen Xin, improving Lin City’s situation and getting everything back on track was his primary goal in coming to Lin City. Now that the situation in Lin City can get better without further intervention from him, there is no need for Chen Xin to stay any longer.
The heating network he envisioned has taken a preliminary shape with the construction of heating hubs. The next step is merely to increase the number of heating hubs, allowing it to form a true network.
But that would be repetitive labor; once the country has dispatched relevant technical personnel, the task can naturally be handed over to them, without Chen Xin needing to do it personally.
However, for Chen Xin, there is still one thing left undone, which is the construction of the Energy Tower, the initial idea behind the entire heating network.
The Energy Tower is different from heating hubs in terms of equipment size, drilling depth, heating efficiency, and manufacturing investment—all are much greater than those of the heating hubs, making its construction more challenging and requiring greater effort.
For this reason, Chen Xin has not left Lin City immediately but plans to complete the construction of the Energy Tower. After completing the entire heating network, he will then leave Lin City.
"The design of the heating hubs is already very refined. Just spreading them out can help many people and many cities. For Lin City, just building more Energy Towers should be enough. Why do you insist on constructing such a large Energy Tower?" Cao Daren, who has relocated to the camp in the snow-cleared train station plaza, asked Chen Xin curiously.
In his view, the heating hub is already a very practical and perfect tool. Utilizing underground hot spring water for heating is already perfect, with no need to build large Energy Towers and drill thousands of meters deep to exploit deep geothermal energy.
"No, no, their significance is entirely different!" Professor Zhang countered, rebuffing Cao Daren. "While the heating hub is indeed a very good technology, the distribution of such shallow-buried, easy-to-develop hydrothermal geothermal resources isn’t extensive in our country, and their reserves are also limited.
In some areas rich in traditional geothermal resources, it is certainly worthwhile to promote and apply them, but in areas lacking shallow geothermal resources, especially those even lacking underground water resources, the application of such technology is greatly restricted.
However, the technology of the Energy Tower is different. The distribution of deep geothermal resources in our country is much more extensive than that of shallow geothermal resources, and our reserves of hot dry rock resources are also abundant. If we can exploit and apply them on a large scale, it will greatly benefit our existing energy structure and improve the current situations our country faces!"
"This..." For a moment, Cao Daren was at a loss. Although he didn’t fully understand Professor Zhang’s argument, he did grasp that the Energy Tower is very important. So he nodded and asked, "Then how should we build this Energy Tower?"