Struggle in the Steam Age

"Don't be depressed, it's very good that you can make it this far." Lawrence and Viscount Surrey comforted at the same time, watching the engineer who was now a little frustrated after talking about the shortcomings of briquettes.

"It's great to have this kind of waste-to-resource idea, and it's a very, very powerful thing to put it into practice," Lawrence told the engineer.

"To be honest, you have this kind of thinking, which can be said to be a very pioneering, but also very valuable." After throwing the coal ball into the coal pile next to him, Lawrence clapped his hands and said.

"And on the basis of your invention, I have come up with a good solution that can solve most of the defects in your current invention."

After seeing these briquettes, Lawrence immediately thought of briquettes. Although in his previous life, as a post-90s generation living in the city, his home used heating instead of a briquette stove, but this kind of thing is not uncommon for him.

Especially after he went to college, because he read a lot of novels about time travel and used briquette as the starting point of starting a business, so he also researched some knowledge about briquette production for this purpose.

Although he couldn't understand the pictures of the machines that make briquettes because of professional problems, he could still understand and memorize the small equipment used to make briquettes by hand for simple reasons.

So, soon Lawrence took out a pen and drew on a piece of paper a machine for making briquettes by hand, and then handed it to the engineer.

"Is this a tool for changing the shape of honeycomb?" As a professionally educated engineer, he quickly saw the structure and usage of this small tool.

"Yes, I think your idea should be right. However, such a loose but solid interior is naturally not so easy to burn when it is burned, and it is easy to fall apart after burning." Lawrence pointed to the pile Said the large pile of briquettes in the corner.

"However, if it is pressed into such a hollow shape, there will be a channel for the flame to pass through, so it is not easy to have the problem of insufficient firepower or incomplete combustion and smell of burning coal balls." Lawrence pointed to the blueprint. The three views of briquettes said.

"More importantly, it is different from the briquettes that are shaken out. This briquette has a extrusion process in the manufacturing process. This can avoid the problem of the artificial fuel being scattered all over the ground after burning. .”

Although there are not many machines in this coal mine now, there are a lot of various tools. Therefore, there is naturally a small workshop for repairing and processing some simple tools or tool parts.

For this kind of professional small-scale machinery manufacturing factory, the simple briquette production tools on Lawrence's drawings are very simple for them to make, as long as they have raw materials, they can be easily manufactured.

So after waiting for less than half an hour, several workers wearing leather aprons and goggles gave Lawrence and the others a few samples, and then Lawrence and the others went to the factory that produced briquettes to start testing this new tool. .

After making the briquettes, they immediately dried the briquettes by magic, and then put them on a table and burned them.

"There is still some smell, but ordinary people should not be able to smell it." Viscount Surrey said after sniffling.

As an extraordinary person, his sense of smell is naturally much stronger than ordinary people. But even so, he could only smell a very faint wisp of soot. This also means that the honeycomb briquettes have solved the problem of the original smell when the briquettes burn.

Over time, the briquettes gradually turned from black to earthy yellow. However, unlike before, there is no such problem as coal briquettes burning while burning during the entire briquette burning process.

In this way, the original kind of coal ash flying around during burning is naturally much less, which makes the surrounding area much cleaner.

"In addition to burning this briquette as ordinary coal, you can also use some matching coal stoves." As he spoke, Lawrence drew a few sketches based on the stove he remembered from his hometown in the countryside when he was burning briquettes just now.

In these pictures, in addition to a pipe that leads the exhaust gas to the outdoors, the stove also has rings of different sizes for different containers, a vent cover that simply adjusts the amount of air entering the furnace, and a kettle attached to the stove.

"I checked the information before, and almost all cities of this generation rely on geothermal heat to maintain their temperature." Lawrence said, pointing to the briquette stove he drew.

"However, relying on those cities alone is naturally unable to sustain people's demand for development on this island. In other words, after occupying those key points with geothermal heat in the early stage, intelligent races must march to those desolate and cold plains in order to survive. .”

"And my coal stove can solve some of the heating problems. At least those solid rooms with thick walls in the wasteland, if equipped with such a coal stove, at least in terms of space utilization, it is much better than the fireplace. .”

"You're right." Viscount Surrey said after looking at the size of the ventilation duct marked on the map.

"At least compared to this thing, the chimney of the fireplace is really too big. Not only is it easy to lower the temperature, but it is also easy to be attacked by some cunning monsters as the weak point of the building."

"It's not just that." Lawrence said, pointing to the stove on the blueprint. "I remember that the simple shelters in the wild are often very small in size, so it's just a fireplace built in the lobby on the first floor. Although it is said that everyone can't freeze like that, it naturally doesn't get much warmer."

"And after having this kind of coal stove, they can have one such stove in each house. Compared with the kind of integral fireplace, this decentralized coal stove is more flexible."

"At the same time, this new type of heating equipment is obviously more advantageous than those old-fashioned fireplaces in terms of volume and fuel consumption."

"Yes, it turned out that those old fireplaces occupied a large part of the first floor of the room. In addition to reducing the space in the room, it is also very unfavorable to deploy defenses on the first floor during battle."

The Viscount Surrey said after recalling his previous impressions of visiting scattered settlements. "Knocking out those fireplaces should reduce the original shooting dead spots on those buildings, while allowing more items to be placed on the ground floor."

"More than that, I see that you are also trying to build some micro-visions around to grow vegetables, right?" At this time, Lawrence remembered some buildings that were obviously used for agricultural production that he saw around the city.

"That's right, it's not a good idea to always rely on imported edible vegetables. But the practice of eating several kinds of fish and boiled moss to supplement the various nutrients needed by the human body is simply unbearable for ordinary people." Surrey The Viscount looked helpless.

"Actually, the medical research institute under me is extracting the nutrients needed by the human body and making them into some medicines. You only need to take one pill when you need it." After watching several people present staring at him, Lawrence shrugged.

"Of course, those things can only be used as emergency supplies, but they should taste better than drinking moss soup."

"Unless I have to, I will never take the initiative to take medicine." Viscount Surrey shook his head with a smile, and then asked Lawrence. "By the way, are you asking what the reason is for those things about vegetable cultivation?

"Because this coal stove can be used to build a greenhouse." said Lawrence.

"Compared to the brazier, this thing is less likely to poison the staff in those greenhouses because of the vents. Compared with the fireplace, this thing is obviously cheaper."

"You're right. Now I think this item really needs to be ordered." Viscount Surrey nodded in agreement.