Now I know that super-conductors were created on accident, but I want to know if a room temperature super-conductor could be feasible in the near future. Also I would like to know what could be the possible benefits both commercially and militaristic besides, of course, near free clean energy.
Very Respectfully,
Empathy
The highest temperature super conductors work at around 130’k
Uses of superconductors could be things like very high performance microchips, long distance power transmission , maglev trains, MRI machines, tokamaks, particle accelerators and lots of other uses.
If I remember correctly, there is currently no theory that adequately explains how high-temperature superconductors work. This leads researchers to hope that room-temperature superconductors are possible. but there has been little progress in many years.
How would room temp superconductors provide “near free clean energy”?
They would obviously be widely used in the transmission grid, and would eliminate the transmission losses where they were used. But the transmission losses are only about 6-9% (not counting the 2-5% loss from theft of power, which presumably would continue the same). Also, the extent that superconductors are used would depend on their cost – would it be cost effective to replace the lines down the alley that power a half-dozen houses? But much of the transmission loss occurs in the last mile of the distribution system.
I can see room temp superconductors reducing or nearly eliminating the 6-9% cost of transmission losses. But that’s along way from making electricity free. How do they do that?
But one reason that losses are currently so low is that they limit the length of transmission lines to keep them low. If you could cut the losses further, you could exploit power resources farther away, as this reference make clear:
http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/library/technical-articles/transmission/cigre/present-limits-of-very-long-distance-transmission-systems/index.shtml
So there certainly is an advantage to room-temperature superconductors. It wouldn’t make power free, but it would open up more resources.
Define “near future.”
As far as I can remember, we have also been about twenty or thirty years away from practical commercial fusion power for the past fifty years.
Another benefit I read of was using superconductors as batteries - build a loop, dump power into it (through induction) and the electrons circulate forever until extracted to be used.
The problem with the current grid (sorry) is that it needs to have enough capacity to handle the highest peak, the hottest day of summer plus dinnertime cooking. Power needs to be consumed when it is made. Putting a form of large, low-maintenance battery in the middle would considerably simplify the system and eliminate the marginal power plants that contribute the most to pollution.
Plus - the biggest problem with solar power today is that we need the power most when the sun isn’t shining - any cheap effective storage would be ideal. You could put solar cells on everyone’s roof, charge up their in-house storage loops, and use that power for the night. A cheap efficient storage would also help with electric cars, although I wonder about secondary effects - cars rear-ending each other because the front is north magnetic and the back is south… 
The same has been proposed already with low-temperature superconductors, with the caveat that should the refrigeration system fail and the ring stops superconducting, a few hundred megawatt-hours of power would turn to heat fairly quickly…
Stand back, she’s a gonna blow!!!
I apologize, what I meant to say is coupled with fission reactors, it would be near free clean energy.
Fusion.
And, I suspect we’ll see room-temperature superconductors before we see practical fusion generators.
Not trying to jump on you but power from fission reactors is not free either. Far from it.
I know in the early days of nuclear power there were suggestions power from them would be too cheap to meter.
The reality has been quite different. While the fuel costs are indeed pretty low in comparison to other generating methods all the other stuff (redundancy, safety measure, waste disposal, etc.) costs a lot thus mitigating the cost savings on the fuel. Been awhile but IIRC the fuel costs are less than 10% of the cost of operating a nuclear power plant.
Perhaps attached to a fusion reactor but, as noted above, fusion reactors have been 20 years away for the last 50 years and so far it seems a pipe dream. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see it working. Just not holding my breath.
Those things cost a lot for all other current power-generation technologies, too. The difference is for other things, we don’t bother to pay those costs.
Even without superconductors, meanwhile, practical fusion reactors (which we’ll get eventually, but certainly not within 20 years-- An optimistic figure would be more like 40) would still make energy extremely cheap.
About the only connection between the two is that superconductors might, themselves, make it easier to build a fusion plant, since superconductors would make it easier to generate the magnetic fields used to contain the plasma.
Remember last year or so when there was an accident at the LHC that set the timetable back significantly? That’s what happened. The liquid nitrogen cooling system on one of the superconducting magnets failed, and the magnet quenched.
I have read that there is no known reason the room temperature superconductors are impossible. But prediction is hard, especially of the future.
Another point is that many superconductors lose their superconduction if you send too much current through them. To be truly useful, they wold have to have high current capacity.
Liquid helium, which is a whole lot more expensive than liquid nitrogen. Throws yet another kink in the practical superconductor, at least the super cold superconductor.
From what I can figure out, there won’t be a practical fusion reactor anytime during the current century, unless one of the blue sky approachs, like the Polywell turn out to work. We might have a working fusion reactor by 2050, but a practical fusion reactor would have to have capital costs comparable with a fission reactor and that doesn’t seem possible with anything resembling current technology.
Eric Drexler said to make fusion technology cost effective would require such improvements in manufacturing that solar cells would be practically free.
http://metamodern.com/2010/01/20/why-fusion-won%E2%80%99t-provide-power/
That said, the combination of room temperature superconductory and practically free solar cells would also mean pretty much free energy, since you could store and transport energy from when the sun is shining to where and when it isn’t.
Quoth Duke of Rat:
:smack: I knew that. Thanks.
This… coming from Hari Seldon? Oy vey!