From the http://www.amsc.com/ website
How to send electricity across the continent, virtually for free.
By Michael D. Lemonick Newsweek Web Exclusive May 22, 2009
http://www.newsweek.com/id/198942
Remember the Woodstock of Physics? Probably not. Back in the spring of 1987, though, headlines were trumpeting it as the most exciting scientific meeting in history. Three thousand physicists crammed into a ballroom at the New York Hilton to talk about superconductivity-the transmission of electricity with literally zero resistance. The technology was suddenly within reach of being economical. So it appeared, anyway, and that could mean anything from superfast computers to tiny, powerful electric motors to power lines that could carry current with no loss of energy.
In the more than two decades since, superconductors haven't grabbed many headlines. . . "Five years ago, I'd have been skeptical," says Robert Cava, a Princeton materials scientist who was in on the original Woodstock of Physics. "But after years and years and years of people beating their heads against the wall, they've finally got it."
"They" are scientists and engineers at a handful of companies in Europe, the U.S. and Japan who have figured out how to turn brittle, fragile superconductors into flexible wires.
. . . But the big push now is for power transmission. A major element of the "smart grid" is a new set of long-distance power lines to carry electricity from renewables like wind and solar.
Conventional power lines are expensive, unsightly and wasteful-they can lose 14 percent of their energy from the resistance of the copper cables.
Superconducting cables have no such problem. A set of cables carrying five gigawatts of power-the output, of, say, five big nuclear power plants-can fit into a pipe just three feet across, and you could even bury it underground.
Part of the pipe will be taken up with a cooling system . . . The cooling equipment draws some energy from the cable, but still far less than the losses in copper cable. . .
So new power cables will have to link the source to the consumer. And if it's a choice between ugly, inefficient overhead lines and a pipe buried along existing interstate-highway rights of way, the choice seems kind of obvious-assuming that American Superconductor is correct in its claim that the costs are roughly the same. . .
By Michael D. Lemonick Newsweek Web Exclusive May 22, 2009
http://www.newsweek.com/id/198942
Remember the Woodstock of Physics? Probably not. Back in the spring of 1987, though, headlines were trumpeting it as the most exciting scientific meeting in history. Three thousand physicists crammed into a ballroom at the New York Hilton to talk about superconductivity-the transmission of electricity with literally zero resistance. The technology was suddenly within reach of being economical. So it appeared, anyway, and that could mean anything from superfast computers to tiny, powerful electric motors to power lines that could carry current with no loss of energy.
In the more than two decades since, superconductors haven't grabbed many headlines. . . "Five years ago, I'd have been skeptical," says Robert Cava, a Princeton materials scientist who was in on the original Woodstock of Physics. "But after years and years and years of people beating their heads against the wall, they've finally got it."
"They" are scientists and engineers at a handful of companies in Europe, the U.S. and Japan who have figured out how to turn brittle, fragile superconductors into flexible wires.
. . . But the big push now is for power transmission. A major element of the "smart grid" is a new set of long-distance power lines to carry electricity from renewables like wind and solar.
Conventional power lines are expensive, unsightly and wasteful-they can lose 14 percent of their energy from the resistance of the copper cables.
Superconducting cables have no such problem. A set of cables carrying five gigawatts of power-the output, of, say, five big nuclear power plants-can fit into a pipe just three feet across, and you could even bury it underground.
Part of the pipe will be taken up with a cooling system . . . The cooling equipment draws some energy from the cable, but still far less than the losses in copper cable. . .
So new power cables will have to link the source to the consumer. And if it's a choice between ugly, inefficient overhead lines and a pipe buried along existing interstate-highway rights of way, the choice seems kind of obvious-assuming that American Superconductor is correct in its claim that the costs are roughly the same. . .
