• There1snospoon7491@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Iirc (and as an extreme novice) superconductors allow for transfer of incredible amounts of energy with little to no loss, but require extreme supercooling to do so. A superconductor that doesn’t need that cooling would allow super-efficient energy transfer with very little to no cooling needed, meaning the overhead costs are reduced dramatically.

        This would be a wonder technology if proven to be true, but my understanding is most of the rest of the world is highly skeptical at the moment. It’s like having your cake and eating it too.

        • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 year ago

          This would be a wonder technology if proven to be true, but my understanding is most of the rest of the world is highly skeptical at the moment. It’s like having your cake and eating it too.

          I’d say it’s more like simulating the best tasting cake ever in a computer, then telling everyone else to go bake it.

          Hopefully someone can figure out a process to create the material in real life (then hopefully it’s durable and eventually economical to produce).

          • aebrer@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Afaik they did build it in real life, and the paper in fact is about the process for manufacturing it, not just about the properties or simulations.

            People have replicated the simulations so far, but are still working on replicating the manufacturing process, as it has low yeild and some variability apparently

            • Maximilious@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              The problem with that paper as I understand it is that the writer was recently outed for making many false claims in his research.

              • aebrer@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                Interesting I hadn’t seen that. Do you have a source I could check out? There’s six authors so it’d help figure out what you’re referring to

      • tsz@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Most scifi movie things you can think of would be on the table.

          • aebrer@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Maybe (or at least an albecuire drive)

            Maybe

            Probably not

            Also some more “basic” things like cheap MRI without requiring helium (which we are running out of), cheap and easy magnetic levitation (more available high-speed trains)

          • skillissuer@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            no

            no

            no

            this thing would enable very strong superconducting magnets to work without cryogenic cooling. so, portable MRIs, better maglev, maybe perhaps easier fusion.

            another interesting property is that resistance is zero. that means that you can transfer energy losslessly, saving some 10% of it this way. or you can make coils of this thing and charge/discharge them as needed, but this time without cooling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnetic_energy_storage

      • orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts
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        1 year ago
        • Much less heat output
        • Much less power usage because the components traditionally used to cool are not required (which makes it much cheaper to run)
        • Lossless power transfer which is much more efficient
      • cassetti@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Yep. You know how hot your phone gets when charging? Or how hot a playstation gets when gaming for hours at a time?

        That’s due to heat-loss generated by the circuits. Superconductors would allow them to run much cooler generating essentially zero heat. Which means they can run more efficiently or faster without the need for larger heatsinks or complicated expensive cooling systems.

        • Djeikup@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yes, because less heat. So we can crank it higher with no drawbacks. (Simplified reasoning I dont know a lot about circuit boards)

        • skillissuer@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          nah, you get there by using better materials in semiconductors manufacturing and more importantly better designs overall

    • bluGill@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      No iy wouldn’t. You still have limits to how much current can it can transfer. I don’t know what happens when you reach the limits, but I know they exist. I also know the papers are claiming the limit is low, but I.have no idea what low means (I saw a.number but I can’t read it)