The Energy and Environmental Benefits of Superconducting Power Products

Superconductivity has the potential to bring a more fundamental change to electric power technologies than has occurred since electricity use became widespread nearly a century ago. The potential is for an energy revolution as profound as the impact fiber optics has had on communications. The fiber optic ‘information superhighway’ was constructed by replacing copper wires with a higher capacity alternative. Superconductivity provides an ‘energy superhighway’ that greatly improves efficiency and capacity. The economic and energy impacts of superconductors are predicted to be huge. Many challenges are being addressed in order for superconductivity to play this important role in the electric power system. The difficult challenge is underway in many countries to manufacture electrical wire from the ceramic high-temperature superconducting (HTS) materials, while in parallel, super-efficient power devices that use these wires are being designed and demonstrated in field trials. The benefits can be substantial: HTS wires that are a resistance-free alternative to conventional wires while carrying 100 times the amount of electricity; oil-free electrical equipment that is environmentally benign, with half the energy losses and half the size of conventional alternatives; and addressable markets estimated to exceed US$10 billion per annum within the next two decades. The savings due to increased efficiency of HTS electric power products may exceed 36 million metric tons of CO₂ in Japan, and much higher numbers in the U.S. and Europe, if generation continues to rely upon fossil fuels.