I was a little ied by the fact that the two stru teams at this facility were still w here at this time of year. We're now in early fall, and usually by now, the reservoir would be drained, so they'd be w there again. However, after iigating the matter, I found that the new aqueduct is actually about three-quarters done, and that has resulted in not only a rger amount of water reag the reservoir in spring, but a rger amount of water year round, meaning the reservoir is also draining slower. They expect that around wiime, it will be fully drained, and they go expand and do maintenan it.

  Holy, as long as we have a good source of sto this point we don't really he reservoir to be expanded much more. It already hold a signifit amount of water, and helps smooth out the city's water supply signifitly. The only time we might o be ed is if we experienced multiple strong hurries in a single season, over a short enough period of time that we couldn't safely drain it. If that happens, we'll probably be dealing with bigger issues, like mudslides or rockslides destroying the dam.

  I also haven't done a checkup ounnel in quite a while, so I figured it'd be a good idea to do so. What I found was that the scouting tunnel had reached the midpoint almost two years ago, and they'd started work from the other side now. The expaunnel portion is getting close to reag the midpoint as well. From what I gather, the fort on the far side of the isnd, along with some of the buildings and inns over there, are being used as a staging area fging the tunnel from that side, though I'm not sure what they're doing with the stohey're excavating over there. I'd hope that they're stockpiling it, so there will be an excess for stru of buildings on that side of the isnd once we're done.

  I also found out that the dwarf who had access to their version of teise was among those who left the isnd st year, meaning we haven't had any scouting capabilities for new ore deposits for a while now. So, realistically, I should probably do that myself, as most of our ore refining and smelting is plete at this point. There is still some lead refining to make silver left to do, sihat relies on cupels that we make from recycled fish bones, but other than that, our ores have all been turned into ingots.

  I took a total of fifteen days cheg the new portions of the tunnel for any anomalies ioh teise. The far side tunnel's stru is actually going much slower than the near side, sihey don't have a medium sized mana crystal underground to assist them. However, they should soon be deep enough to install one, and sihe wideunnel oher side is nearly plete, we'll probably just move the crystal from one side to the other.

  The rge part of my time was actually spent recharging mana on the far side of the isnd. I did notie point of i he end of the near side tu the ter of the mountain, but it was nearly thirty-five feet diagonally down meaning we'd o dedicate quite a bit of resources to reach it, and for all I tell, it just seems to be a yer ge, meaning spending that time could result in basically urns. I'd rather wait until the tunnel is fully plete before dedig ao that task. If, however, we end up low oal in the near future, then it's at least something we could pursue.

  Oeresting aspect of the tunnel, and one I'm gd I prepared for, is the amount of water draining out of it. It's actually quite a lot. The partial tunnel is miles long, and quite a bit of it has slow dripping water. Over that total length, it es out to quite a det sized stream. I have some ideas for long term pns for the tunnel as a whole, whivolve digging a sewer line uhe tunnel and a rest area in the ter of the mountairavelers stop.

  With the pace that the tunnel is being built, I think the main tunnel will be fi around the same time that the area within our main city's wall is starting to bee filled enough that we would sider building another circle of walls. Instead, it might be good to adjust our primary stru focus to the far side of the isnd at that point, to distribute out popution to make defense and overall use of our isnd easier.

  We're also reag a point of industrialization that it would probably be worth establishing a material sce b to start determining the real quality of certain struaterials over others. If, for instance, acid washed lightstone ends up being very easy to make and structurally strohan the regur stone we've been w with, then we could, in theory, build taller buildings, increasing our poputioy, which would keep more of our nd avaible for other projects.

  After going on that brief vacation, I went back to the research base to start designing the cryogenics facility. The rgest of the heat driven stirling engines drive six of the rge cryocoolers by my estimates. If I were to use hydrogen as the internal medium for the rge stirling e could probably drive even more of them. I'd actually prefer if we could use the Joule-Thomson effect to produce a tinuous stream of liquid air, but we ck a lot of the necessary resources to make various pos of the quality o exploit the effebsp;

  So instead, I want to make a lot of the rge cryocoolers in a hallway, where they reject their heat to the atmosphere outside the hallway. That way, the efficy of eadividual cooler should increase as well, sihe ambient temperature should drop within the cryogenics facility due to all the cooling. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if operators in the facility end up needing protective leather to hahings in the facility.

  e cryocooler is capable of produg a bit over 100 gallons of liquid air in a year. Of that, there is about 1 gallon of liquid argon. Doing some quick mental math, if I want to have a giant mana crystal capable of surviving any mana storms in 10 years time, then we'd need around 25 rge cryocoolers produg liquid air.

  It's actually pletely doable to make that. If I at for mainteimes, I think I should up the o around 30 cryocoolers. That would mean we'd need five rge stirling engines as the main power source for this building. That means we'd also be produg about ten gallons enic air a day, which still isn't anywhere near enough to do a tinuous distiltion, meaning we'll still be doing batch distiltion. If we're doing batch distiltion, we'll also o make plenty enic ste tanks for handling all this fluid.

  Some of it will be useful as part of extrag fluorite from the existing deposit, but we'll still have an excess of liquid nitrogen after that. The i nature of nitrogen could be useful for a bunch of processes. As a gas, it could be used for st other reactive chemicals we might make. If we end up being able to attempt the haber process, then we could also end up making ammonia, given we have a hydrogen source as well. There is also the option of using it for cooling in locations where building a cryogenic cooler isn't feasible, or only a small amount of cooling is necessary for a brief amount of time.

  There will o be a lot of other peripheral devices as well. First, I'll want fans to drive air over the hot ends of the cryocoolers and the cold ends of the power produg stirling engines. I also will need additional cryocoolers for ste tanks and a batch distiltion tower. Realistically, we probably want more thach distiltion tower, with a smaller one for processing the Argon. We'll also need a smaller system of desit and freezers to remove most of the water and some of the CO2 from the air before it ehe facility for densing.

  Overall, simir to the hydrogen facility, I think having a lot of the tanks underground will be a good idea. In the event of a failure, there is less risk to the enviro. Though uh the hydrogen, we'll actually need a way to remove the liquid from the bottom, rather than only needing to pull it out from the top.