Chapter 210: Electric Arc Furnace

The director in charge of external intelligence cautiously gave his answer.

Before the viral outbreak, the total population of all the civilian shelters within the entire Jianghe City area was approximately 1.05 million.

If you cut that in half, that would be around 500,000 to 600,000.

And, without a doubt, most of them have been relocated to Arshi Shelter.

"That means Arshi Shelter has already taken in nearly a million people."

"Adding to their original population..."

"In terms of population, they are now on par with our official shelters."

Bai Rui'an sighed, bringing the issue that everyone in the room had been avoiding to the forefront.

Then, he turned to the intelligence director and asked again.

"Can they sustain that many people?"

"Well, it's hard to gather concrete intelligence."

"But based on the news they've released."

"We estimate that while it may be a bit difficult at first, they should manage to keep things going overall."

The intelligence director responded with some uncertainty.

It was easy to gather information about the status of Su Wu's affiliated shelters, but the main food production base, Nongjia Shelter, was a different matter entirely.

Because there were no outsiders allowed in, it was essentially a black box when it came to reconnaissance.

They could only glean small hints from the news Su Wu allowed to be released.

And what little they had was already enough to be startling.

"Then let's go talk to them again."

"See if we can offer some incentives."

"Maybe bring some people back."

Bai Rui'an remained silent for a moment before making a decision.

Then, perhaps realizing how unrealistic this was, he paused and added.

"Also, promote to the other civilian shelters."

"Encourage them to move to the official shelters."

Under the pouring rain, in the darkness that enveloped Nongjia Shelter's underground.

Su Wu stood in the mechanical laboratory on the fourth underground level, watching the opening ceremony of a new machine up close.

Not far from him, a metal spherical device, about three meters in diameter and dark gray in color, slowly powered up.

After running silently for several minutes, it poured liquid steel into a mold below.

Su Wu lowered his head.

In his field of vision, a line of light green text appeared, and at the end, a "completed" sign showed up.

[Witnessed the birth of the Electric Arc Furnace (Completed)]

[Task Reward: 15 Survival Points.]

This was the second green task that the post-apocalypse system had refreshed in over a month.

The difficulty was almost non-existent.

Su Wu had essentially gotten 15 Survival Points for free.

But for Su Wu, the task reward wasn't the important part. What mattered was the electric arc furnace itself.

This electric arc furnace was the result of Su Wu burning 50 to 60 points of spiritual energy and spending several days researching it himself.

From the moment it was created, it had not been enhanced with any survival points.

But in terms of performance, it far outpaced the previous high-temperature furnaces.

It boosted output by 10 times without increasing energy consumption.

Previously, it took 500 kWh of electricity to melt one ton of steel from iron ore or scrap metal.

Now, only 50 kWh were needed to achieve the same result.

Moreover, it skipped the preheating time in the process and could be turned on and off at will.

Such minimal consumption wasn't just due to better heating—it was the result of a new theoretical breakthrough, a technology that spanned generations and was, in the eyes of ordinary people in the current world, nothing short of science fiction.

"We can increase the extraction of iron ore and resume the recycling of scrap metal from the city ruins."

Su Wu silently estimated the efficiency of the electric arc furnace.

Without considering anything else, just this test model of the furnace alone could produce 10 tons per hour.

Converted, there was no need to make new furnaces. This single one could easily smelt all the iron ore they had already extracted into finished steel.

And Su Wu's massive need for steel wasn't without reason.

The resources in his warehouse were barely able to support the current pace of development.

First, on the construction front.

After several consecutive days of expansion, the total number of construction vehicles had exceeded 2,000.

This had consumed over 7,000 tons of steel, along with large amounts of rubber and other raw materials.

The outer walls built with quick-setting cement also required a large steel framework as reinforcement.

Additionally, with the expansion of the shelter's space, the fast-growing planting areas needed plenty of steel for various supports and essential facilities.

Also, the gradually expanding remote control center and numerous robot teams further increased the demand.

All these combined demands were rapidly depleting the steel stock at Su Wu's warehouse.

The rate of steel consumption was far outpacing its production.

And because Su Wu had already salvaged all the available supplies from the submerged abandoned shelters, there were no additional resources to replenish the stock.

The only solution left was to rely on iron ore and scrap metal to increase the speed of steel production.

"The construction team can't continue to expand for now."

"And the scale of the robot teams also needs to be controlled."

"Hopefully, it'll be enough."

"If not, we'll have to consider forcibly taking resources from other shelters."

Jianghe City was just so big.

And the resources were quite limited.

Until more mineral resources were discovered, there wasn't much Su Wu could do.

Fortunately, with his current population, he was able to break many invisible rules.

If pushed to the limit, forcibly incorporating other civilian shelters by force wouldn't be impossible.

Returning to the control center, Su Wu pulled up the resource storage status from the warehouse.

Despite the overwhelming pace of development and the massive consumption of raw materials, some things still had to be done.

To be specific, it was time to strengthen the military forces.

The most important factor that allowed Su Wu to coexist peacefully with the official shelters was his heavy artillery brigade.

But now, with floods covering the surface everywhere, the artillery, which could only operate in relatively dry areas, had become far less effective.

Moreover, because of the Rola virus outbreak, Su Wu had absorbed too many people, severely

infringing on the interests of the official shelters.

If no action was taken soon, it was likely that an unwanted war would erupt.

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