3 ms·

I see lead (Pb...something) as main ingredient, isn't it banned in most industries because how toxic it is and how hard it's to handle in industrial scale? is

I see lead (Pb...something) as main ingredient, isn't it banned in most industries because how toxic it is and how hard it's to handle in industrial scale? isn't that a problem for potential mass applications? (lots of comments about this discovery call this revolution that will change everything around us and that somehow implies mass production I guess)

thomasmg 3y ago
Lead is still used for example in car batteries (lead-acid), bullets, and solders (electronic components).
- cycrutchfield 3y ago
  Airplane fuel...
pjc50 3y ago
It's banned in the EU under RoHS .. but with a whole load of exemptions, which make it kind of pointless. I suspect this would be exempted pretty quickly once it became important.
deleted 3y ago
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kolinko 3y ago
A high chance that lead can be replaced with other metal, from what I heard. Also, it’s not extremely toxic - romans ate from lead dishes and didn’t even notice the toxicity. You don’t want to consume it, and you don’t want to breathe it, but it’s not as bad as say, asbestos. If you have an ICE car, it probably has a lead-acid battery, and the only thing that prevents us from using lead in grid storage is their short lifespan - not health or ecology :) Also, if you ever took an x-ray, you wore a lead jacket to prevent unnecessary radiation. If we cannot avoid lead in this alleged superconductor, it may limit applications slightly, but not by much.
- yreg 3y ago
  Tesla has a lead-acid 12V battery as well :)
gtsteve 3y ago
If this discovery is confirmed then someone will figure out how to do this safely, using robots or other kinds of machines to produce superconductor wires. The benefit derived would be simply too great to ignore it. Perhaps superconductors don't show up in your home but I can certainly imagine applications in optimising power grids.

thomasmg 3y ago

Lead is still used for example in car batteries (lead-acid), bullets, and solders (electronic components).

cycrutchfield 3y ago
Airplane fuel...

pjc50 3y ago

It's banned in the EU under RoHS .. but with a whole load of exemptions, which make it kind of pointless. I suspect this would be exempted pretty quickly once it became important.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

kolinko 3y ago

A high chance that lead can be replaced with other metal, from what I heard. Also, it’s not extremely toxic - romans ate from lead dishes and didn’t even notice the toxicity. You don’t want to consume it, and you don’t want to breathe it, but it’s not as bad as say, asbestos. If you have an ICE car, it probably has a lead-acid battery, and the only thing that prevents us from using lead in grid storage is their short lifespan - not health or ecology :) Also, if you ever took an x-ray, you wore a lead jacket to prevent unnecessary radiation. If we cannot avoid lead in this alleged superconductor, it may limit applications slightly, but not by much.

yreg 3y ago
Tesla has a lead-acid 12V battery as well :)

gtsteve 3y ago

If this discovery is confirmed then someone will figure out how to do this safely, using robots or other kinds of machines to produce superconductor wires. The benefit derived would be simply too great to ignore it. Perhaps superconductors don't show up in your home but I can certainly imagine applications in optimising power grids.