Transmigrated as the Crown Prince

There are 12 locks in the Panama Canal system.

From the entrance to the Pacific Ocean to the canal, the first set of locks is called the Miraflores Locks, a two-stage lock that can raise or lower ships by 45 meters.

Then there is the Pedro Miguel Lock, a first-class lock that can raise or lower ships by 4 meters. After passing the Pedro Miguel Locks and passing through the Culebra Channel, we arrived at Lake Gatun.

The last lock is the Gatun Lock, which is a three-level lock that can raise or lower ships by 9 meters and leads to the Atlantic Ocean.

All three sets of locks are in pairs, thus ensuring, at least in principle, that ships can pass in opposite directions.

Some people may wonder why it is so troublesome to build such a lock. Wouldn't it be more convenient to directly dig through the Panama Canal and build a flat waterway like the Suez Canal?

There is a saying that there is a freshwater lake in the middle of the Panama Canal. If the lake water is opened and replaced with seawater, it will destroy the local ecological environment.

Obviously this statement is nonsense. How much has humankind destroyed the environment? Do you still care about this?

The biggest problem is cost. The canal was dug from 1880 to 1914. It took 34 years to dig 300 million cubic meters of soil and consumed tens of millions of kilograms of explosives. During the process of digging the canal, 60,000 to 70,000 migrant workers died due to poor conditions. .

If we really want to dig it out, we will have to dig out nearly 1 billion cubic meters of soil. Even if we use the Bagger 260 giant excavator of the German Krupp Company in 1962 to dig 110,000 cubic meters of soil every day, it will take 25 years. And it was possible to dig it out without any accidents or mechanical failures and by digging day and night. Such a huge project would scare even the wealthy United States.

At this time, Major Miller, who was taking a nap in the duty room, was awakened by the piercing ringing of the phone. He rubbed his sleepy eyes and saw that the time was three o'clock in the morning. "What's going on?" He muttered, and just as he picked up the phone, an anxious voice came from the other end of the phone. "Major Miller, no, there's a ship on fire in the Miraflores lock!"

"What?!" Major Miller suddenly lost all sleep. "Fire? What kind of ship is it? Why did it catch fire?!"

"It's the San Francisco bound for New York Harbor, carrying coconut oil."

"Coconut oil?" Major Miller frowned in confusion. “Does coconut oil burn?”

The other party was not sure either. "I don't know, it's all oil, it should burn, right?"

In any case, Major Miller hurriedly called the canal governor (who was also an American general). The governor who was woken up from his sleep was breathless. "What happened in the middle of the night?" When I heard that a ship was on fire in the lock, I was terrified on the spot! "Hurry up and put out the fire! I'll go over now!"

Major Miller drove his car all the way to the Pedro Miguel Lock, and sure enough he saw thick smoke billowing from the freighter. "Where are the people on the boat? Why don't you get the boat out?!"

A lieutenant ran over and reported. "Report, I saw them abandon the ship and escape!"

"What?" Major Miller was stunned for a moment. "These bastards!" If there was an explosion or something and the lock was damaged, then he might be in court-martial. "Quick, send people up to put out the fire. Even if you can't put out the fire, you can't explode here and block the channel!"

As soon as he finished speaking, a dazzling fireball suddenly burst out from the cabin. Along with an earth-shattering explosion, a terrifying energy storm spread with devastating force, and the area within a radius of several hundred meters was instantly wiped out by the explosion.

"Oh God!" The governor who came in a hurry looked at the blazing fire and the messy ship lock, and he almost cried without tears. His good days may have come to an end. What a loss this would cause! It would be strange if the tycoons in the country don't torture him to death! "Who!? Who did it?!"

The hysterically yelling governor would not have thought that the explosion was the second and more terrifying thing behind. In addition to the ten tons of air-fuel bombs, there are five kilograms of nuclear waste on the ship!

Before the nuclear fuel reaches the reactor, it is in a stable state, and the possibility of decay or fission is very small, so it is very safe. When nuclear fuel reaches the reactor, it first needs to be excited with a neutron beam. After the nuclear fuel is excited, it will begin to fission, and the elements produced will also decay, fission again, and decay again. The chain-tree nuclear reaction will produce many elements.

A neutron is absorbed by U235, forming U236 in an excited state. U236 is unstable, fissions into two light nuclei, and emits 2-3 neutrons. The principle of the fission reaction in the reactor is the same as that of the atomic bomb, which is a chain reaction. But in a reactor, the nuclear reaction rate is slower.

Until the various elements individually fission or decay into stable, non-radioactive elements, the fuel becomes waste.

These waste materials contain hundreds of isotopes with half-lives ranging from a few milliseconds to thousands of years.

For elements with short half-lives, just wait patiently and let them decay naturally, and they will turn into non-radioactive waste, which can be disposed of together with other chemical waste.

For waste materials with a long half-life, the elements that still have use value will be recycled first and continue to be used to make fuel or other uses.

For elements that cannot be used anymore and have a long half-life, they can only be stored. At present, there is no effective way to eliminate the reflectivity of nuclear waste. It is mainly processed through deep burial, such as digging deep holes in remote natural salt lands for storage to reduce pollution to human society.

Now, a full five kilograms of nuclear waste are scattered evenly within a few kilometers along with the shock wave of the explosion.

Radiation is a very scary thing, but there is a saying in chemistry: To talk about toxicity without talking about dose is to be a hooligan, and the same is true for radiation. Most people regard radiation as a holistic concept. As long as there is "radiation", it will "cause cancer" or "lethal", and the dose is completely ignored. This is a misunderstanding.

Human beings live under the exposure of radiation all the time. Cosmic rays, building materials, natural ores, gold and silver jewelry, etc. all emit radiation. These radiations are collectively called natural background radiation. Radiation is not something that will kill you immediately. Creatures in nature have already evolved a mechanism to resist low-dose radiation. It can be said that radiation is harmless at safe doses.

But once the safe dose is exceeded, it will be fatal. People who are exposed to light radiation will slowly develop lesions, measured in months or years. They are not serious or even fatal, but the impact is far-reaching. For example, some survivors of the Chernobyl incident in later generations gave birth to children who were either deformed or stupid. .

But if you are exposed to a strong dose of radiation, it can be measured in days, and you will definitely die and be hopeless. Lima will not die immediately after exposure, but the body will react and it will be over soon.