3 ms·

What if we could make really light and strong superconductors that could transfer energy in the stratosphere where the average temperature is -60°F (-51°C), bet

• deepsun 2y ago
  Superconductors all have limits on current and voltage. So really thin wires cannot transmit huge amounts of power.
  • barfbagginus 2y ago
    Unless you're Larry Niven, in which case you can hang huge portions of your plot from superconducting piano wire which can transmit unlimited amounts of heat and current
• frodo8sam 2y ago
  Running cables over a long distance in the sky between balloons and planes sounds a lot more challenging than cooling cables on earth. Also High voltage DC is already quite good.
• ben_w 2y ago
  It might not work as well as you expect: the air temperate may be low, but because the pressure is close to a vacuum the air is also a great insulator, and your material is in stronger direct sunlight. Also politically speaking this may just be a non-starter: on paper, we can already build a conventional low-resistance[0] ground-level planetary power grid for very reasonable prices and material requirements, but much smaller projects connecting Europe to the Sahara have stalled. [0] 1 Ω at 40,000 km [1] material costs of a few hundred billion USD, a little over a year of current global aluminium production, more to actually install it