age of superconductors

[xfactor9]

Does anyone remember the big hoopla in the 1980s and early 90s about superconductors? I remember hearing about how research was progressing on them at the rate such that within 25 years, they would revolutionarize the world. Well here we are, 25 years later and I don't see or hear anything about them.

So did they turn out to be like the flying car or robotic maid (ie, vaporware)?

 

[Donald]

I think the issue was that they had to be kept extremely cold and that made it unrealistic.

There is a significant loss in distributing electricity.

 

[JHZR2]

Actually, guys in my lab are the tops in the world in this area, and they are useful for some things.

Problem is that high-temperature is still like 77K.

 

[xfactor9]

Originally Posted By: Donald
I think the issue was that they had to be kept extremely cold and that made it unrealistic.

There is a significant loss in distributing electricity.


That was the problem at the time, but researchers said they were making progress in getting to work at more reasonable temps. I guess they weren't able to after all

 

[MolaKule]

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) systems use superconductors with liquid helium, etc.

There is also much research being done on room temp superconductors as well.

 

[jaj]

There's a lot of interesting stuff going on in my neck of the woods - five miles from each other and about ten miles from where I live, there are two companies - one developing quantum computers and one developing a fusion reactor. They both sound a bit far-fetched but when you look at the science and then then look at who's backing them, you realize they both might just succeed.

 

[Kestas]

I remember the fevered pitch of superconductor research in the late 80s. There was even a weekly newsletter to keep people abreast of the latest developmnets.

 

[kschachn]

There are still as many applications, maybe more, for traditional superconductors. And there are some applications out there for the high-temperature ones (liquid nitrogen), but they are limited.

I used to work for a company that did research into the high-temperature (LN2) superconductors back in the day. The problem then, as it is now, is that they are more sensitive to magnetic field extinguishing than are traditional superconductors. As a result they generally can't be used where the goal is to produce high magnetic fields such as in NMR machines.

The real Achilles's heel is the constant and absolutely critical requirement to keep the conductor cool. If for any reason it stops being a superconductor then all h3ll breaks loose. Just recently one segment of the Large Hadron Collider went "warm" and significant damage occurred. The wires that are capable of carrying thousands of amps of current when superconducting suddenly become ridiculously tiny when quenched.

 

[PandaBear]

The last I heard is they are useful for power transformer in certain area, using liquid nitrogen is more efficient than wasting some energy as heat.

However like JHZR2 said it won't be that wide spread of an application until the temperature goes much higher, to something that doesn't require liquid nitrogen.

 

[kschachn]

For long distance, high voltage transmission lines the power loss is already very small. They have large aluminum conductors, and as you know they operate at very high voltages - both of which help the loss to stay small. Nowhere enough of a loss to justify a 500-mile long, LHe or LN2 cooled line made from very expensive wire. When I worked for Commonwealth Edison I can't remember the losses on their transmission lines, but even for very long ones it was in the low single-digit percentages. We pioneered the use of 765kV lines south of Chicago and those had even lower losses.

Despite the science fiction predictions of yesteryear, the only really big application for superconductors is some sort of magnetic device where you want a very high field in a small volume. Like NMR or particle accelerators. The chaos that ensues when there is a failure is enough to deter most any thought of more widespread use.

Originally Posted By: PandaBear
The last I heard is they are useful for power transformer in certain area, using liquid nitrogen is more efficient than wasting some energy as heat.

However like JHZR2 said it won't be that wide spread of an application until the temperature goes much higher, to something that doesn't require liquid nitrogen.