Chapter 373: Chapter 371: Difficulties at Every Turn
Since the well-drilling location has been selected, Cao Daren’s drilling rig naturally came into play once more.
He took the workers Chen Xin assigned to him to Lin City’s Seventh Middle School to prepare for the return water well drilling. Meanwhile, Chen Xin needed to continue working with the remaining workers to complete the installation and debugging of the heating hub.
As the two groups had to operate separately, Cao Daren’s team needed to establish a new base at the Seventh Middle School to set up their tents.
This led them to dig a pit in the snow as the first thing they did upon arriving at the Seventh Middle School.
After Cao Daren and his team of workers left the space in the snow cave near the railway station, it was not wasted. Professor Zhang and the members of the geological exploration team moved in and helped make some improvements to the snow cave, making it more comfortable to live in.
For those who have spent years conducting geological exploration in the wild, the time they spend in tents far exceeds the time they spend in houses.
Their constant travels through mountains and rivers have long eroded the bookish air from these geological scholars. Instead, they have accumulated a wealth of wilderness survival experience, and each one of them can be regarded as a master of wilderness survival.
In Professor Zhang’s view, the living conditions in snow cave tents were not much worse than when they were in the wild back then, and in many aspects, they were even better.
"This is much better than when I first started working! Back then I was just in my twenties, a young kid fresh out of school, joining the geological team to Wulingyuan for surveying. We didn’t have tents at that time; we just used branches and leaves to construct a shack and endured the wind and frost outdoors for a whole month!" During lunch, Professor Zhang, holding a well-worn aluminum lunch box, recounted his youthful experiences to Chen Xin while eating: "Unlike now, with tents, sleeping bags, and rain ponchos, we’re fully equipped! Back then, having one rubber raincoat was already quite remarkable."
The stories told by Professor Zhang touched Chen Xin quite a bit.
Considering Professor Zhang’s age, when he was in his twenties, it was the most turbulent era of the Flame Country. To endure harsh conditions to conduct geological research instead of engaging in movements was truly commendable in those days.
"Professor, why have you always used this old lunch box? In such severe weather, this old-fashioned metal lunch box cools down quickly and is very inconvenient to use. Let me get you a new lunch box!" Chen Xin noticed the lunch box in Professor Zhang’s hand. Though he didn’t know why the professor used such an old lunch box, Chen Xin wanted to get him a better one that at least could retain heat.
However, Professor Zhang shook his head, smiling as he declined Chen Xin’s kindness: "No need. This lunch box has been with me my whole life; there’s no need to replace this old companion when I’m old, and this lunch box holds great significance for me."
Professor Zhang’s words made Chen Xin raise an eyebrow, but he said nothing more about it.
"Professor, what is the distribution of dry hot rock resources around Lin City?" Chen Xin shifted the topic to work, asking about another issue he was currently most concerned about.
Compared to utilizing hydrothermal resources at a heating hub, what Chen Xin truly wanted was the Energy Tower capable of extracting deep-layer geothermal resources. After all, whether in terms of power or efficiency, an Energy Tower is far superior to a heating hub.
But what the Energy Tower requires is drilling deep into the ground for several kilometers, not just a few hundred meters.
Both in terms of construction volume and technical difficulty, they are entirely different.
"The terrain of Lin City is typically flanked by two mountains with a valley in between, with higher terrain in the south and lower in the north. Although the city is aligned east-west, the overall terrain still forms a north-south geological fault. The major geothermal resources of Xiang Province are distributed along this fault line." While eating, Professor Zhang explained to Chen Xin the topography and geothermal resource distribution of Lin City: "On this fault line, the main reserves of dry hot rocks of Xiang Province are distributed.
Due to the cause of the geological fault, the exploitation of shallow and intermediate geothermal resources around here is relatively easy, with many areas forming natural hot springs erupting to the surface. However, because of the fault formation, the geological structure here is relatively complex. If you want to exploit deep geothermal resources, drilling will be a huge challenge."
Hearing this, Chen Xin couldn’t help but feel somewhat disheartened.
Professor Zhang’s implication was clear: Chen Xin should focus first on developing shallow and intermediate geothermal resources, and think twice before exploiting deep underground resources.
Chen Xin naturally took Professor Zhang’s advice to heart, but he did not abandon his ideas about developing deep geothermal resources; instead, he considered them more carefully.
"Even if it’s a challenge, we have to face it now." Chen Xin’s tone was somewhat heavy, but equally determined, as he asked Professor Zhang, "Professor, if we want to extract deep geothermal resources in Lin City, what difficulties would we need to overcome?"
"There are indeed many. The first problem you must solve is the drilling rig issue." Putting down his spoon, Professor Zhang pointed out the biggest difficulty upfront: "To extract deep geothermal resources, you need a professional drilling rig. Your friend’s drilling rig not only falls short in depth but also has limited bore diameter. It’s fine for developing shallow and intermediate geothermal resources, but to go deeper is not so simple.
The geological structure of Xiang Province is very complex. When you drill, you never know what you’ll encounter. Rock layers are okay; you can drill slowly, but hitting other geological layers could be very troublesome. Without enough experience, it’s difficult to deal with various problems that may arise during drilling."
"Don’t worry about the drilling rig issue; I will resolve it." Of the problems Professor Zhang pointed out, the drilling rig was the least of Chen Xin’s worries, as it only required an upgrade to solve.
But the geological complexity mentioned by Professor Zhang was not something Chen Xin could address, because no matter how much he upgraded, he could only improve the drill head, without affecting the strata itself.
Unless Chen Xin could develop a gigantic laser drilling rig or a planetary mining device to cut through strata directly, any drilling machine would have to contend with different layers.
As for laser drilling rigs and planetary mining devices, these were clearly not issues Chen Xin should consider now. With that free time, he might as well come up with a world engine to directly transform the Earth’s environment.