Opening a new window into superconductivity by reimagining a classic tool
phys.org
For more than a century, condensed matter physics has grappled with one of its greatest unsolved challenges: how to build superconductors that operate at room temperature and transmit electricity with no loss. Now, in a paper published in Nature, a team of Harvard physicists has reported new insights into why one promising superconductor has yielded mysteriously uneven results.
  • DoubleDongle@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2 months

    My favorite application for room-temp superconductors is low-speed generators. They have exactly one application, but it’s big: Wind towers without a giant gearbox. Wind power is cheap, but without the truck-sized gearbox with a bazillion moving parts that you can’t lift without the biggest cranes known to man, it’s even cheaper.

    • WanderingThoughts@europe.pubEnglish
      2 months

      I like that you can build a global energy grid with superconductor. Power Europe at night with the solar panels in Australia, that kind of thing.

      • boonhet@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        2 months

        Would possibly take care of my country’s little problem of having 30 minutes of sunlight a day in the winter.

        We don’t have nuclear either so you can imagine how nasty our energy mix gets in the winter.

          • boonhet@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            2 months

            Not even. It’s even worse there, I’m in Estonia.

            Summer sunshine is ridiculous though. More so in Norway of course.

    • thanksforallthefish@literature.cafeEnglish
      2 months

      Can you expand on how that works please ? The gearbox converts the slow rotational speed of the turbine into a high rpm output because that is needed for the generator to make useful power as I understand it.

      How does the superconductor convert that slow rpm ?

      • DoubleDongle@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2 months

        With a superconductor, you can create a much more powerful electromagnet through which the coil will still produce a lot of voltage even when turning very slowly. Thus, you can use a much simpler gearbox or even just skip it entirely.

    • DataCrime@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2 months

      Right? You got to love the fancy gauge package on what looks like a busty old lab power supply. And what looks like half of Thor Labs inexplicably just sitting on top… Did I actually read the article or (presumably) the related paper, which is no doubt cramp was so many buzz words that I wouldn’t understand it with a dictionary? No I did not 😅 But that gizmo ain’t really making sense… I suppose as some kind of measurement apparatus? I guess just holding up the actual superconducting material would not be enough to really keep a press conference entertained… OK, I’ll just show myself out of the physics lab 🥸