If practical superconductors were available

[TecHNooB]

I'd start by making everything levitate

 

[KIAman]

Lossless power transmission

 

[bobdole369]

Bullet trains become cheap.

Mass Transit less expensive. We'd all go back to trolley cars, or some kind of bumper car setup because power would be much cheaper than it is today.

 

[Veramocor]

Energy storage.


Cheaper MRI machines.

 

[BrownTown]

Originally posted by: KIAman
Lossless power transmission

losses in transmission lines really are not very big, maybe like 5%.

 

[f95toli]

Originally posted by: BrownTown

Originally posted by: KIAman
Lossless power transmission

losses in transmission lines really are not very big, maybe like 5%.

That depends, the losses can be significant.
One reason why there is so much research on superconducting cables in China is that they have a serious problem with losses in their transmission lines. The reason is simply that most of the power plants (hydroelectric dams etc) are located in the sparsely populated parts of the country (e.g the northwest) but most of the people live in the east and at the coast.
Since China is such a big country that means that they waste a lot of energy getting the electricity from the power plants to the consumer.

 

[futuristicmonkey]

Originally posted by: BrownTown

Originally posted by: KIAman
Lossless power transmission

losses in transmission lines really are not very big, maybe like 5%.

Oh, 5% isn't screw-all really.....


5% of ~2GW is a metric shit-tonne of power. And that's only a single circuit of a larger line.

 

[Cogman]

Well, if I can include supercapaciters into the equation. Then I would say that an electric car becomes MUCH more feasible. Suddenly a 2 second charge time isn't all that unrealistic (as you wouldn't have to worry about overloading any circuits, assuming everything in the car is superconducting as well).

With a system like that, Oil usage on a person/person bases would be much more limited. And since bigger generators are more efficient, its somewhat of a win win for everyone.

I think power generation would become much more centralized, after all, why build 1000 plants everywhere when you can build 100 high power plants in the central of a country and have all the engineers you could want in a close vicinity.

It would be interesting to see what this implies for something like computers. After all, a super conducting cpu doesn't generate (much) heat, if your cpu isn't generating heat, how fast do you think you could clock it?

At very least, the possibility of bringing back DC power might be an interesting one. Most electronics run on DC, so why suffer a loss for converting from AC to DC. (AC has more efficient transmission rates. However, with a superconducting wire, there is no reason to us AC power.)

 

[BrownTown]

Originally posted by: futuristicmonkey

Originally posted by: BrownTown

Originally posted by: KIAman
Lossless power transmission

losses in transmission lines really are not very big, maybe like 5%.

Oh, 5% isn't screw-all really.....


5% of ~2GW is a metric shit-tonne of power. And that's only a single circuit of a larger line.

Well, I'm just saying that your electricity prices would drop at MOST 5% if we had super conductors. Sure 5% of a shit ton of money is still a shit ton, but it will be barely noticeable in your electric bill.

 

[Born2bwire]

Originally posted by: BrownTown

Originally posted by: futuristicmonkey

Originally posted by: BrownTown

Originally posted by: KIAman
Lossless power transmission

losses in transmission lines really are not very big, maybe like 5%.

Oh, 5% isn't screw-all really.....


5% of ~2GW is a metric shit-tonne of power. And that's only a single circuit of a larger line.

Well, I'm just saying that your electricity prices would drop at MOST 5% if we had super conductors. Sure 5% of a shit ton of money is still a shit ton, but it will be barely noticeable in your electric bill.

It may not be something that would show up on the dotted line, but the increased efficiency would greatly help the infrastructure of the power grid as a whole. There is actually a superconducting power line in New York I believe. It's just a short line between power stations.

 

[Rubycon]

Imagine a power compression free MF/HF driver wound with RTSC voice coil! Where is the drool icon? :laugh:

 

[Veramocor]

Its on Long Island. You can transmit power in a much smaller line, and this is including the LN2 line surrounding it to keep it at the proper temperature.


LI Superconductor

Originally posted by: Born2bwire

Originally posted by: BrownTown

Originally posted by: futuristicmonkey

Originally posted by: BrownTown

Originally posted by: KIAman
Lossless power transmission

losses in transmission lines really are not very big, maybe like 5%.

Oh, 5% isn't screw-all really.....


5% of ~2GW is a metric shit-tonne of power. And that's only a single circuit of a larger line.

Well, I'm just saying that your electricity prices would drop at MOST 5% if we had super conductors. Sure 5% of a shit ton of money is still a shit ton, but it will be barely noticeable in your electric bill.

It may not be something that would show up on the dotted line, but the increased efficiency would greatly help the infrastructure of the power grid as a whole. There is actually a superconducting power line in New York I believe. It's just a short line between power stations.

 

[bobdole369]

I thought (perhaps mistakenly) - that the magnetic and static fields that surround a conductor go away when it becomes a semiconductor. If so then no such thing as a supercap, and supermagnets couldn't exist. I'm probably wrong.

 

[Born2bwire]

Originally posted by: bobdole369
I thought (perhaps mistakenly) - that the magnetic and static fields that surround a conductor go away when it becomes a semiconductor. If so then no such thing as a supercap, and supermagnets couldn't exist. I'm probably wrong.

In superconductors, the resistance of the conductor drops to zero as the electrons pair up in what are called Cooper pairs. This was described in the BCS theory which, along with two others, John Bardeen got another Nobel Prize (shameless plug for my Uni, hahaha).

Anyway, the associated electromagnetic waves and fields that arise from currents still occur with superconductors. In fact, many of the applications of superconductors rely on this, like in the use of SQUIDS to make magnetometers.

Supercaps as I recall are not given the prefix super for anything dealing with superconductivity. They are just called super as a superlative modifier. It's more of a buzz word but from what I have seen it is exclusively applied to electrochemical double layer capacitors so it doesn't mean just any high density capacitor, it does refer to a specific type.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: bobdole369
I thought (perhaps mistakenly) - that the magnetic and static fields that surround a conductor go away when it becomes a semiconductor. If so then no such thing as a supercap, and supermagnets couldn't exist. I'm probably wrong.

A super magnet could probably be associated with the magnetic field induced by a persistent current in a ring of material that flows after starting it. I've seen a talk where a lady from Stanford managed to make persistent currents in rings of non-superconducting material by exploiting a neato trick that I can't recall right now.

 

[Cogman]

Humm, you could use this in a MRI device, the problem would be, how to turn the thing off. You couldn't just discharge it, as 1. Thats a lot of electricity that will flow out and 2. A quick change in magnectic fields will electricute the person in the device (not usually a good thing.)

Though, That does give rise to an interesting from of the death penalty, Death by MRI electrocution... It would be pretty clean.

 

[Mark R]

Originally posted by: Cogman
Humm, you could use this in a MRI device, the problem would be, how to turn the thing off. You couldn't just discharge it, as 1. Thats a lot of electricity that will flow out and 2. A quick change in magnectic fields will electricute the person in the device (not usually a good thing.)

MRI magnets are usually superconductors anyway, just cryo-cooled. MRI use low temperature superconductors (helium cooled) rather than high temp superconductors (nitrogen) because the performance of high temp SC isn't good enough.

Anyway, they have the same problem as you suggest, which is that you can't turn the magnet off easily, and if you do need to turn them off, there is a huge amount of electrical energy that needs to be dumped from the magnet coil. It takes a minute or so for the magnetic field to collapse anyway, so it shouldn't cause any particular physiological effects - certainly not electrocution. Although, that said, someone who was in an MRI scanner at the time the SC magnet underwenrt spontaneous quench said that they did feel something which made them feel a bit sick.

Anyway, MRI scanners have hugely strong switchable electromagnets in them, with very rapid ramp times. Although, the manufacturers are supposed to ensure that when these control fields ramp up and down, they don't cause physiological effects, on very high end MRI machines, they might depending on the situation. Ball twitching was the side effect quoted to me by a friend who gave a super-high field one a test drive.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
Imagine a power compression free MF/HF driver wound with RTSC voice coil! Where is the drool icon? :laugh:

You can get the same thing from either winding with constantan (yes, there are disadvantages) or powering with a current-drive amp (i.e. an amp with a high output impedance).

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: Howard

Originally posted by: Rubycon
Imagine a power compression free MF/HF driver wound with RTSC voice coil! Where is the drool icon? :laugh:

You can get the same thing from either winding with constantan (yes, there are disadvantages) or powering with a current-drive amp (i.e. an amp with a high output impedance).

High Z never sounds musical at live levels where the power is needed though. Like ES - there is detail but dynamics are extremely disappointing with these systems!

 

[Howard]

Why do you suppose that is?

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: Howard
Why do you suppose that is?

Well if it were practical it would be commercialized by now? Avante garde audiophile systems seem to have no bounds to amounts of money spent for minuscule improvements (if you can call them that!) in sound or listening experience.

Of course I have musician bias.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: Rubycon

Originally posted by: Howard
Why do you suppose that is?

Well if it were practical it would be commercialized by now? Avante garde audiophile systems seem to have no bounds to amounts of money spent for minuscule improvements (if you can call them that!) in sound or listening experience.

Of course I have musician bias.

It's hard to tell what audiophiles are actually looking for.

Anyway, I'm not sure if you've seen this but check it out:

http://www.essex.ac.uk/dces/re...%20current%20drive.pdf

 

[BladeVenom]

Better railguns. You know weapons would be the first thing governments would make with them.

 

[Ben]

If you believe the movie "Brainstorm", it will allow us to make headset size thought recorders that will allow us to record our experiences and then play them back for someone else.

 

[Nathelion]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a limit to how much current a given superconductor can take before it stops being superconducting?