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With more and more oil and more and more methanol-fueled thermal power plants, Downing wanted to challenge the ideal of wind domination of the energy market, and he came up with a trick to make it possible for places with weak wind power to enjoy the benefits of wind power - artificial wind. (Starter)

To put it bluntly, this is a convection power generation system, especially suitable for hot, weak wind, dry areas, the difference between the high-altitude temperature and the ground temperature in these places is very large, you can build a huge convection tower, the water on the ground is pumped to the high altitude to atomize the water and then spray to cool the air, which is the opposite of the physical effect of the hot air balloon, the cold air suddenly gains potential energy and falls down, and the windmill is installed in the bottom hole, and the "artificial wind" is sprayed along the hole, and after calculation, the energy efficiency of the air that suddenly obtains potential energy is considerable,

About 50% of the energy generated by this artificial wind is used to pump water, and when the convection tower is up to a kilometer high, it will cost much less to generate electricity than the average windmill today. Of course, such a tall building cannot be wasted, and it can also be built on top of a broadcasting and telegraph tower.

The only thing that can be cheaper than the convection tower is hydroelectric power, and there is thermal power generation regardless of environmental costs, which does not seem to happen, because the Windsor Empire has a monopoly on oil, and he will not let the cost of methanol power generation be lower than that of the convection tower, let alone let a large amount of diesel and gasoline refined from inferior petroleum occupy the thermal power market. High-purity methanol power generation will not have a major impact on the environment.

If there is no wind, no dry, and hot place, but there is plenty of sunshine, you can use solar thermal power generation and spread mirrors on the ground to the kind of collector towers that are high up. There was really nothing, so we had to wait for high-voltage power lines to transmit electricity from afar, or to build a methanol power station.

Methanol power stations are best built on railways or ports, and power plants that consume a lot of electricity can even build pipelines to transport methanol. After several years of gratifying development, recent statistics show that wind power accounts for more than 70% of all electricity generation, so its cost is currently the lowest among all options, and even scientists are wondering whether there is a need to develop hydropower.

The discovery of the Texas oil and gas field gave Downing a new idea. Recently, London was testing the transport of emergency patients through the Guò Wind Bird Express network, and those involved in the test generally said that it was uncomfortable in a closed pipe, because there was only one person during the transport, so it was even more unbearable if it was a flustered patient.

The price reduction of helium made it possible to mass-produce airships, and Downing was born with the idea of using helium as a lift force to develop a passenger balloon floating above a street lamp using the electromagnetic propulsion of the windbird network. This kind of passenger balloon is very simple and cheap, and it is supported by tough plastic, and even if the balloon is blown up, passengers will be hung upside down on a suspension cable with a street lamp at most, and there is no fear of their lives.

According to the preliminary design, the suspension balloon can accommodate four passengers, and the enhanced electromagnetic thrust can make the balloon cruise at a speed of 50 kilometers per hour, which is the same speed as the current mainstream trains.

The beauty of this public transport is that it is not congested, so 50 km/h is the speed of a bird in a metropolis, equivalent to reaching any node in London in 15 minutes. You can also take an intercity trip in a balloon. For the general public, intercity travel in the past mainly relied on trains, and they had to be on time, but suspension balloons are like taxis that can travel across the city, and can be picked up and dropped anytime and anywhere.

Where a balloon can inflate a train is its good view, imagine looking out at the beautiful wilderness from the height of a street lamp, would you still be willing to squeeze in a cage-like train car with strangers? When designing this means of transportation, Downing's mind was full of romantic cities full of balloons, and soon, London, Munich, Milan ...... It's going to be a city like this kind of romance. Even office workers go to work in balloons, and the good mood of the day begins to flutter.

Downing wants everyone to be able to float to work, but in the initial stage, this means of transportation will be slightly more expensive than buses, and only middle-income people are willing to spend this romantic money. They are the backbone of society, and in the future, we may know how strong the city is just by looking at how many suspension balloons there are floating in the city.

The suspension balloon does not have a driver, it is actually a "package", the operator sets the destination when boarding the bus at the station, and the information carried by the balloon itself is used to navigate the whole process. The balloon is designed with a panic button, which automatically docks at the nearest station when pressed.

The most likely large-scale failure in a suspension network is a power outage. To this end, Downing designed an emergency backup power system, which is enough to make most balloons emergency stop at the nearest station, and a very small number of unlucky passengers will have an emergency vehicle to rescue them.

To summon a balloon bus, decide on your destination at the stop, choose whether you want to join (prices vary), and the center will calculate the time it takes for the nearest free balloon to arrive at your location, which will probably not take more than three or five minutes, and it will be a little longer during rush hour.

It is the higher income earners who occupy a balloon by one person, and the more powerful one - the private balloon. It stops at your designated stop, so you can go at any time and enjoy a private rail stop without congestion. For business owners, high-ranking officials, this is simply a dream "private train".

As long as you're not an explorer, off-road enthusiast, it's better to have a private balloon than a private car. This personal balloon is ready to serve you at your remote call. "Sweetheart, I'll send my balloon to pick you up!" The mantra of the local tyrant in the new era when picking up girls is like this.

In fact, the idea of balloon transportation is the same as that of the subway, which is to avoid conflicts with other means of transportation in space, most of the traffic is crowded on the ground, and the sky and underground are very open. Comparatively speaking, the construction cost of near-ground air mobility is much lower, and the view is good. For the same cost, would you rather float in the sky or drill in the ground? It must be heavenly, otherwise the ancients would not have imagined the opposition between heaven and hell.

Due to the size of the balloon, those old crowded streets cannot be passed, and the Wind Bird Express Company announced the project in the Telegraph, asking the city planning department interested in using suspension balloons to relieve traffic congestion to make room for the balloons.

The romantic Italians were very supportive of this plan, and Milan became the first city to be realized. The French definitely don't support this thing, not only because they are very repulsive to the Windsor consortium, but also because their bus industry is relatively developed, and this product is obviously suspected of running on ordinary buses.

As the mysteries of wireless telegraphy were revealed, and the secrets of broadcasting were quickly clarified by various research institutes in Science magazine, the era of universal broadcasting finally arrived. The British Wireless Communications Commission, which led the country, sent an invitation to government officials from all over the world, and this was an international conference on the allocation of radio communication bands, and among the invited countries, only France and Russia did not participate, and even Brazil, which was being beaten, sent people.

It is intended to take this opportunity to ask governments to auction off the radio wave frequency bands to ensure that they will not interfere with each other in the legal use of the various commercial applications. Of course, the British and German federal governments soon began to auction and bought nearly half of the national communication bands in the two countries, while other countries are still considering it, and some of their government officials do not understand the significance of the division of radio bands, and some of them let this broadcasting and communication giant buy it at a low price because they are afraid that there will be no corresponding commercial organizations in China to compete.

Under the study of the British Wireless Communications Commission, the band is divided into long-wave broadcasting, short-wave broadcasting, aviation band, and military band. Although the countries did not formally pass the guò law, most of them acquiesced to this plan, but France, which did the most anti-Windsor, did not obey this allocation, and a large number of broadcasts were used for commercial broadcasting in the flight band, so Airbus warned that it would suspend all flights to France.

The stubborn French did not give in, and France became the only country in all of Europe without flying traffic, and it was impossible for them to use that immature powered paraglider for passenger transportation. Even though radio stations have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain, there are only three national and international ones: the one founded by Downing, the International Broadcasting Corporation, and the Daqing Royal Radio.

The radios sold in the areas where these three stations operate are set up with more than a dozen buttons for direct listening, such as: the first button is an English channel, the second is a German channel, the third is a French channel, the fourth is an Italian channel, the fifth is a Chinese channel (Daqing Royal Radio), and the sixth is a Japanese channel...... Channels that are not on the button are the familiar knob-style search method.

If it is sold in Daqing, the Chinese channel will be put first, and German, French, etc. will be treated in the same way. Compared to the cheap radios that have sprung up, the price is obviously not Downing's strong suit. To this end, Downing launched a new generation of radio. It adds a small eye-catching LCD display that replaces the old-fashioned fixed channel buttons with dynamic text that allows the channel to be customized. When you use the knob to find your favorite station, you can press the "Favorite" button.

This is nothing more than a "little dessert" type of improvement, and the real revolution lies in the emergence of the "on-demand" mode. The broadcast mode has relatively low bandwidth requirements, anyway, it is a brain to release radio waves to the whole universe, and the on-demand mode is currently only available to Downing's products, because it is connected to the wire to obtain large bandwidth, directly from the information distribution center to obtain lossless digital audio, and then stored in the radio tape. Each tape can hold an hour's worth of audio program, which can be reused or replaced to save the program for repeated enjoyment.

Because of the digital audio transmitted by wires and optical fiber, it is very suitable for on-demand music programs, and the sound quality is worse than vinyl records, but it is not far worse than that of audiophiles, and Downing himself does not hear the difference anyway, and his ears have become a private standard for professional and non-professional judgments. （http:/／.）。

On-demand programs are generally 60 minutes long, the first 10 minutes are free, and when you are attracted to the ********, the program stops abruptly, and continuing to "download" will be charged in the form of a listen-first-pay-later credit. As a result, all customers who buy such radios will be asked to provide a credit card, and at present, the main banks that issue credit cards are Zurich Bank, and other banks are rapidly imitating them.

Even if you don't want to spend money on music, dramas, etc., this type of radio is very attractive because it allows you to actively access regular programs for free without being restricted by on-time listening. And it's incredibly cheap, renting for just £1 a year, like a Round Table Rider bike.

With excellent sound quality and a low-price strategy, on-demand radios have stubbornly suppressed the onslaught of cheap radios, and even the trouble-loving French cannot defeat technological innovation with nationalist passions. A whole bunch of "traitors" quietly bought such radios.

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