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What would room temperature superconductivity actually buy society? I can think of a few things but I'm not sure about the implications. * Long distance trans

What would room temperature superconductivity actually buy society? I can think of a few things but I'm not sure about the implications. * Long distance transmission is currently high voltage AC to work around losses. The whole distribution network would become efficient but would need reinvestment. This would offset the utility of local instant-response power generation. * Things that need big magnets would get easier: MRI, particle accelerators, etc. Is this a big deal? Maglev trains would get more attractive. * What else?

wcarss 9y ago
Tokamak fusion reactors need big magnets. Superconductor advances already have made big impacts on the feasibility of practical fusion in the near term, and true room temperature operation would only help.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ars 9y ago
Much more powerful magnets, so electric motors would get even smaller and more powerful. Currently a big limitation on small electric motors is heat, so a fully superconducting motor could handle huge loads.
sschueller 9y ago
The LHC at CERN would be a lot easier to operate without requiring such an enormous amount of Helium as well as the long time it takes to cool down to superconductivity after maintenance.
pipio21 9y ago
Nuclear fusion. The main problem today is superconductors' size. You need space for refrigerator circuits, that are not superconductors. If superconductors operational temperature are high enough, you could just refrigerate the entire room. Making superconductors more dense and powerful. Making fusion possible in extremely small spaces and making it even cheap. That is you could do fusion expending millions instead of billions.
XorNot 9y ago
Low voltage distribution networks in data centers. Forget 48v - you could centrally distribute 3.3v power for CPUs. 1000s of 80% step down converters become 100% efficient. Superconducting ring storage of electricity. Probably some break throughs in electrical storage because SQUID devices can now be commodity parts in hard disks.
- Dylan16807 9y ago
  > Low voltage distribution networks in data centers. 3.3v (or lower, for modern chips) requires big cables. I doubt that's worth it. > 1000s of 80% step down converters become 100% efficient. How does this happen? Are you excluding the efficiency of the central step-down converter? > Superconducting ring storage of electricity. Can you actually fit a meaningful amount of energy in there before it saturates?
  - Robotbeat 9y ago
    Big cables not needed as superconductors can carry more current per unit cross sectional area than copper. Even one central step-down converter could be 98% (or whatever) efficient, plus you could actually generate power at 3.3V if you wanted to, making step-down not required. As far as storage of energy, yeah, you can store a lot of energy in a superconducting ring. It is a viable energy storage method. THAT ALL SAID, the physics of superconductivity mean that even if you ARE able to get room temperature superconductivity to work, you can get even BETTER critical current (i.e. current per cross section area that can be handled while maintaining a superconducting state) so you'll still probably want to cool the cables in some applications, and for a certain current carrying capacity, you'll probably want to use a higher voltage than just 3.3V, even if you don't have any voltage drop, because that would increase the power that can be transmitted for the same cable investment.
    - nbadg 9y ago
      Not only is it a viable energy storage method, it's already used commercially (predominantly in power conditioning systems). See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnetic_energy_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnetic_energ...
ridgeguy 9y ago
Room-temperature levitation with permanent magnets. A diamagnetic material repels external magnetic fields. Unlike other materials, superconductors have very high diamagnetic constants. [1] This is why one can float a magnet over a superconducting plate (or float a superconductor over a magnet). If we had room temp superconductors, we could tile a floor with them, mount magnets on carts and float the carts across the floor. Or highway. Or whatever. Lots of uses for levitation that consumes no power. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamagnetism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamagnetism
sien 9y ago
The improvements already in superconductors over the past decades have already made a fusion reactor that is much smaller than ITER a possibility. A group primarily from MIT proposed such a reactor called ARC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARC_fusion_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARC_fusion_reactor
ben_w 9y ago
Personal quantum computing, assuming the press releases about the lastest breakthroughs are right about them being made of superconducting elements. Assuming the price, mass density, critical magnetic field density, and critical current density are all good, you could launch satellites magnetically against Earth’s magnetic field (but only from the poles and with some cute tricks for efficient horizontal motion).
gene-h 9y ago
It depends really. High temperature superconductors were incredibly hyped when they first came out, but the problem is they had a limited critical current and critical field strength so applications were(and to some degree still are) limited. These are the maximum current and magnetic field a superconductor can carry before superconductivity breaks down. If room temperature superconductors turn out to have a high processing cost and the critical current/field strength isn't that high, then the applications are going to be limited.
amelius 9y ago
> Long distance transmission is currently high voltage AC to work around losses. High-voltage DC actually has less losses. (Why? Because a high-voltage AC signal is actually low-voltage two times per cycle)

wcarss 9y ago

Tokamak fusion reactors need big magnets. Superconductor advances already have made big impacts on the feasibility of practical fusion in the near term, and true room temperature operation would only help.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

ars 9y ago

Much more powerful magnets, so electric motors would get even smaller and more powerful. Currently a big limitation on small electric motors is heat, so a fully superconducting motor could handle huge loads.

sschueller 9y ago

The LHC at CERN would be a lot easier to operate without requiring such an enormous amount of Helium as well as the long time it takes to cool down to superconductivity after maintenance.

pipio21 9y ago

Nuclear fusion. The main problem today is superconductors' size. You need space for refrigerator circuits, that are not superconductors. If superconductors operational temperature are high enough, you could just refrigerate the entire room. Making superconductors more dense and powerful. Making fusion possible in extremely small spaces and making it even cheap. That is you could do fusion expending millions instead of billions.

XorNot 9y ago

Low voltage distribution networks in data centers. Forget 48v - you could centrally distribute 3.3v power for CPUs. 1000s of 80% step down converters become 100% efficient. Superconducting ring storage of electricity. Probably some break throughs in electrical storage because SQUID devices can now be commodity parts in hard disks.

Dylan16807 9y ago
> Low voltage distribution networks in data centers. 3.3v (or lower, for modern chips) requires big cables. I doubt that's worth it. > 1000s of 80% step down converters become 100% efficient. How does this happen? Are you excluding the efficiency of the central step-down converter? > Superconducting ring storage of electricity. Can you actually fit a meaningful amount of energy in there before it saturates?
- Robotbeat 9y ago
  Big cables not needed as superconductors can carry more current per unit cross sectional area than copper. Even one central step-down converter could be 98% (or whatever) efficient, plus you could actually generate power at 3.3V if you wanted to, making step-down not required. As far as storage of energy, yeah, you can store a lot of energy in a superconducting ring. It is a viable energy storage method. THAT ALL SAID, the physics of superconductivity mean that even if you ARE able to get room temperature superconductivity to work, you can get even BETTER critical current (i.e. current per cross section area that can be handled while maintaining a superconducting state) so you'll still probably want to cool the cables in some applications, and for a certain current carrying capacity, you'll probably want to use a higher voltage than just 3.3V, even if you don't have any voltage drop, because that would increase the power that can be transmitted for the same cable investment.
  - nbadg 9y ago
    Not only is it a viable energy storage method, it's already used commercially (predominantly in power conditioning systems). See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnetic_energy_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnetic_energ...

ridgeguy 9y ago

Room-temperature levitation with permanent magnets. A diamagnetic material repels external magnetic fields. Unlike other materials, superconductors have very high diamagnetic constants. [1] This is why one can float a magnet over a superconducting plate (or float a superconductor over a magnet). If we had room temp superconductors, we could tile a floor with them, mount magnets on carts and float the carts across the floor. Or highway. Or whatever. Lots of uses for levitation that consumes no power. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamagnetism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamagnetism

sien 9y ago

The improvements already in superconductors over the past decades have already made a fusion reactor that is much smaller than ITER a possibility. A group primarily from MIT proposed such a reactor called ARC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARC_fusion_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARC_fusion_reactor

ben_w 9y ago

Personal quantum computing, assuming the press releases about the lastest breakthroughs are right about them being made of superconducting elements. Assuming the price, mass density, critical magnetic field density, and critical current density are all good, you could launch satellites magnetically against Earth’s magnetic field (but only from the poles and with some cute tricks for efficient horizontal motion).

gene-h 9y ago

It depends really. High temperature superconductors were incredibly hyped when they first came out, but the problem is they had a limited critical current and critical field strength so applications were(and to some degree still are) limited. These are the maximum current and magnetic field a superconductor can carry before superconductivity breaks down. If room temperature superconductors turn out to have a high processing cost and the critical current/field strength isn't that high, then the applications are going to be limited.

amelius 9y ago

> Long distance transmission is currently high voltage AC to work around losses. High-voltage DC actually has less losses. (Why? Because a high-voltage AC signal is actually low-voltage two times per cycle)