On 15/10/2020 13:46, Jeff Layman wrote:
On 15/10/2020 10:41, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 15/10/2020 09:53, Jeff Layman wrote:
We may be nearer to solving that problem than any of us perhaps thought:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2256953-first-room-temperature-superconductor-could-spark-energy-revolution/.

We aren't there yet, but it's a good start. A practical room-temperature
superconductor would make a world-wide supergrid not only possible, but
inevitable.


Here is a man to whom money and politics are simply meaningless.
Who on earth sold you that load of utter guff? What about the cost and
the materials needed? What about the politically unstable regions it
would cross?

Much as you might like to deny it, that room-temperature superconductor
exists.

That is utterly pernicious of you.I never ever claimed it didn't exist.
I claimed that it was not cost free, either in terms of cash, or carbon.
And there was no justification in extrapolating its mere existence to a
rendering a super grid 'inevitable'.

Resistive loss is just one small parameter in moving electricity around
and it isn't even the main one.
I am afraid that you are showing all the signs of a politically useful
idiot who has swallowed a lot of stuff without understanding it more
than superficially, and is prepared to defend his position with
emotional, hand-wavey qualitative overstatements, straw men, and appeals
to false authority, rather than reasoned technical arguments.

In short you are a typical lefty****.



It's obviously not a practical material, but 50 years ago there
was no superconductor which operated above liquid hydrogen temperatures,
and barely 35 years ago we got liquid nitrogen temperature
superconductors. Progress has been surprisingly rapid:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-temperature_superconductivity#/media/File:Timeline_of_Superconductivity_from_1900_to_20 15.svg

and that doesn't include the new material.

And what money and politics are you talking about? Carbon, hydrogen, and
sulphur (as in the new material) are not rare or difficult to obtain.
Not all the superconductors we now have use rare-earth elements. It
seems to me that we are far nearer to having a practical superconductor
than a practical fusion machine, yet how much money has been expended on
that, and continues to be spent?

The money is the actual physical cost of constructing and laying cables.
Yiu cant just slap a few atoms on the sea bed. You need a pretty strong
and massive bunch of protective structure of which the actual conductive
core is perhaps the smallest and cheapest part. Undersea cables are very
low loss already. making them superconduct wont reduce the cost
significantly enough to make any great difference to deployment


The economics of nuclear power show that instead of transporting
electricity round the world, you transport the uranium - its far
cheaper. And less polluting.

Transporting electricity isn't expensive

You are simply wrong.

tell me why my electricity bill averages at 20p a unit when the
wholesale rice of electricity is around 4p a unit, if getting it to me
is not expensive?

- it's been done since we have
been generating it. Nuclear power is no longer that cheap (see my other
reply), and there are waste disposal issues which cause problems.


Nuclear power is capable of matching 4p a unit, but wind and solar *with
batteries, extra grid, and backup* are nearer 25p.
THAT is why I am paying 20p a unit. because there is so much renewable
on the grid. And its generated in Scotland, but consumed darn sarf.



--
"I am inclined to tell the truth and dislike people who lie consistently.
This makes me unfit for the company of people of a Left persuasion, and
all women"