581–590 of 821 posts
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He's thinking of superconducting magnetic energy storage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnetic_energ... Currently they're only feasible as high quality power sources for fabs and other industrial uses because of the operating costs of cooling the superconductors.
Also used for grid stabilization.
The ramifications of the inflection point we are currently at is mind boggling. I had a hard time explaining this last night but we may very well be witnessing the beginnings of a technological transformation era much like when the p-n junction was invented. From the 1940s standpoint it would be hard to envision all we had today. - Lossless transport of energy - Batteries that don't take any time to recharge - Faster…
> Can I have my flying car now? Let's not forget the flying skateboard of the film "Back to the future". I loved it in the film and it's a dream that I still have today - I'm now almost 50 years old so I would probably crash and get killed by using it, but I would still give it a try :)
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None of the things you listed are limited by the conductors in them. The efficiency of high voltage AC power lines is limited by capacitive coupling to ground. Battery charging is limited by the cell chemistry. CPU heat output is limited by the resistance of the semiconductors. Turns out metals (in particular copper) are already incredibly good conductors.
> Battery charging is limited by the cell chemistry. Yes, but superconductors don't have that limitation, do they? You just dump current into them.
... you cannot just dump unlimited current through a superconductor. Once you exceed the critical current density, your superconductor becomes a regular conductor.
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It's not obvious to me how it could. Transistors require a semiconductor.
To my knowledge, computers can be designed without any transistors
It's hyper-specialized tech, so it'd probably take over a decade from now to be seen in useful, everyday technologies.
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Well, you still lose current over time... for example, we had to dump a bucket of electrons into our superconducting, supercooled magnet about every month ago to keep things swirling properly. (The EE I worked with later didn't believe me. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnet#Persist... and note that the loss was due to details of magnetic superconductors, not superconductors in general)
If you can extract work from the field generated by the supercurrent, it must come from somewhere. Small supercurrents make small fields, so things like adiabatic CPUs seem interesting.
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> Batteries that don't take any time to recharge Huh? Is this actually a thing that this enables? I don't initially see how
Nah, the GP is just completely out of reality. We won't see lossless transmission in a very long time, and no place where an aluminum cable is too expensive today will become viable because something a million times more expensive is 9% more efficient. Batteries won't see a revolution because of this, there's simply no reason for them to (but they are currently in a revolution, and there are more to come). AC storage…
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> Battery charging is limited by the cell chemistry. Yes, but superconductors don't have that limitation, do they? You just dump current into them.
Overlooking the cell chemistry issue... ... you cannot just dump unlimited current through a superconductor. Once you exceed the critical current density, your superconductor becomes a regular conductor.
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So what's happening is they are demonstrating diamagnetism. Basically when exposed to an external magnetic field, that field induces a response in the material that repels it. When people think of magnetism, they think of polar charges that either attract or repel other polar charges. Diamagnetism is neat in that regardless of the orientation and polarity of the external field, a diamagnetic material is always repell…
So why is everyone getting so excited about superconductors when all we actually know is this (probably) exhibits diamagnetism? Is diamagnetism super rare outside of superconductors?
Right now the original claim is on shakey ground because one of the authors rushed the publication, so there's problems with the original paper that needed addressing (I havent looked at the new paper yet). So there's a bit of parallel construction going on, the authors are fixing the publication while other researchers are working to replicate the material/claims.
So basically, people are super excited because so far, the material has been replicated to some degree of success a few times, and exhibiting properties that support the original claim.
The claim of room temperature super conductors is exciting by itself, but that the science is replicating to any degree in such a short window is awesome
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They have low losses when storing power, but power has to be stored in the magnetic field. They have a limit on acceptable magnetic field strength called the critical field though, above which it stops being a superconductor and bad things™ happen. Current SMES systems have an energy density of about ¹⁄₅₀th of current Li-ion batteries.
You are right about the energy density and limitations. I was more focused on the fast rate of storage and retrieval.
https://www.eaton.com/gb/en-gb/catalog/electronic-components...
I have 4 at home and blows people's minds when you melt a wire with it. Incredible rapid current delivery.