Superconductivity and the [near] future

Superconductivity is one of those things, like fusion energy or quantum computing, that are always JUST ABOUT TO make a big splash in the world, change everything ... and ten years ago this was just on the verge of happening too, and in another ten it will still be right on the knife's edge of realization. And so on.

The notion that superconductivity will be the next big thing comes from experience of materials at very low temperature, Properly cooled materials (most often metals such as lead, tin or aluminum) conduct direct current (DC) electricity without energy loss: resistance vanishes.

If you've watched cheesy old sci-fi movies in which aliens tell humans "resistance is futile" you will probably be at work on your puns already. Still ... the absence of current resistance is enticing. It is a prospect with no end of possible practical applications.

But, of course, the process of cooling the proposed superconducting material below the threshold temperature and keeping it there is not costless. Indeed, the danger is that any serious attempt to implement this will involve the expenditure of more energy of the cooling than is then saved on the resistance-free transmission.

The latest company to claim that it has solved this problem and is about to unleash superconducting upon the world in a big way is VEIR, a firm based in Woburn, Massachusetts. It aspires to change the US power grid. Here is a link to the website.

Are they going to pull this off? You heard it from me first, psssst, probably not.

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