DoubleDongle@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
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.
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 ?
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.
WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 2 weeks ago
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.xyz 2 weeks ago
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.
org@lemmy.org 1 week ago
Norway?
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
Not even. It’s even worse there, I’m in Estonia.
Summer sunshine is ridiculous though. More so in Norway of course.