Two different groups have recently claimed to have developed a room temperature superconductor. One was patented, the other (which received much press attention) was not.
None of these claims have been verified and many scientists are skeptical, but if any of them were true and could be produced at a reasonable cost, it would have serious implications.
Especially its utility in a global power grid that would allow the entire planet to run on solar energy. Such a network is already possible, but superconducting wires would make it even more attractive.
Unlike current-carrying wires, superconductors are 100% efficient. Cables today lose a small amount of power due to the resistance of the cable to flow, but the loss increases as the length of the cable increases.
Superconductors have no resistivity. Put in 1000 MWh and you get 1000 MWh at the other end regardless of cable length.
Superconductors exist and are used in devices such as MRIs, but these superconductors only work when kept very cold, hundreds of degrees below zero. Maintaining this temperature for long cables would be very difficult and expensive.
So a superconductor that works at room temperature would be a really big innovation.
One obvious application of such a superconductor is the more efficient transmission of electricity over long distances, which we would need to transport if we were to rely entirely on solar energy.
Solar energy is very intermittent locally. In winter, the days are shorter and the sun sinks sharply above the horizon. My rooftop photovoltaic panels produce only one-fifth as much electricity per month in mid-winter as they do in summer, and there is no way to store enough energy to last all the time.
Remote transmission will avoid storing huge amount of energy for local use during winter, night and bad weather.
The sun is always shining somewhere. Night in America, day in Asia. When it's winter here, it's summer south of the equator, and vice versa.
Remote transmission, with a global network, would allow us to use the sun's energy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, where current conditions are favorable (no pun intended).
An advantage of grid-integrated solar is that it uses existing technology, as opposed to hypothetical proposals such as hydrogen fusion, orbital solar, or "green" hydrogen.
The World Wide Web was impossible when Buckminster Fuller proposed it in 1930 But in 2015, advances in technology made it possible, Clark W. Gillings said
Less than 10 years after Gelling's proposal, it appears that parts of a global network are already being built, but not by the people who want to build such a network. Instead, they are grassroots entrepreneurs who are using new technologies to build larger networks.
The next step would be to connect all these networks together to form a global network that would require complete reliance on solar energy.
And all this was happening before room-temperature superconductors even existed. Common losses due to cable resistance are reduced by using high voltage direct current (HVDC). Although these losses are painful, they are economically acceptable.
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If none of the recently announced superconductors work, it will be interesting to see how long it will be before someone finally solves this problem. In the meantime, global networks will continue to be built using existing technologies.
But if the new superconductor works, its 100% efficiency will make the global grid much more accessible.
Incidentally, Gillings mentioned the possibility of using superconducting wires for key parts of the network, as I did in an unpublished 1972 paper.
Paul F. Dellespence is professor emeritus of political science and computer science at Adrian College. He can be contacted at pdeles@proaxis.com.
This article originally appeared in The Daily Telegram. In Paul de Lespinas. Room Temperature Superconductors, World Wide Web
