On 17/10/2020 14:48, Robin wrote:
On 17/10/2020 12:18, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 17/10/2020 11:23, GB wrote:
On 17/10/2020 10:35, harry wrote:
New superconductor found, works at room temperature.
Most important discovery of the decade?
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02895-0
Not there yet, but €śIf I have seen further, it is by standing on the
shoulders of giants.€ť This is definitely a shoulder.
No it isn't. It's a toenail at best.
The ONLY place we have found superconductors are dealÂ* makers is in
generating massive magnetic fields were we simply cannot cram enough
current into a room temperature copper coil without melting it. And a
bigger coil leads to a larger magnetic field.
It is supremely irrelevant to HVDC links where losses can be kept down
at sane cost by using a larger conductor or a pair of them.
That's the difference between being an armchair wannabe scientist, and
a retired engineer.
The instant question an engineer asks is 'whether it will do more at
lower cost and higher reliability?'
superconductors would make no difference to performance really and
costs would probably rise.
Do you dismiss similarly superconducting magnetic energy storage?
No, but that to be meaningful requires a lot of other constraints to be
satisfied. Like fuel cells, in theory its great until you actually try
and build one, and then you quickly run into severe performance limitations,
--
Karl Marx said religion is the opium of the people.
But Marxism is the crack cocaine.