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Comment by wiz21c | Hacker News Reader

Dumb question: why all the fuss ? I have checked a bit on the web but I fail to grasp the practical consequences of it (I mean if LK99 is the thing)). Could someone explain what could be done with that material ?

For example, if we can transport electricity with a super conductor over long dsitances (1000 of kms), then what happens ? Is it just an incremental progress or is it a huge breakthrough ?

(I am not much trained in physics)

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Huge breakthrough.

Energy efficiency is just one gain. This also potentially unlocks major gains in quantum computing, fusion energy, tradition computer chip design allowing another 30 years of moore’s law, batteries with zero energy loss leading to ultra dense batteries and electric aviation

Unfortunately the problem with electric aviation isn't the storage tech. Although having superconductors around would make the ground infrastructure nicer, if the current density limit works out.

Whats the problem with electric aviation?

Batteries are much heavier than fuel

That's part of the problem, as is the fact that batteries don't get lighter through the flight. The energy infrastructure on the ground is the thorny bit, though.

Getting enough energy into enough planes fast enough at enough airports to make a dent. As a guide to the order of magnitude of the problem, consider that a 747 needs roughly 100MW to stay airborne.

We'll have only part of that because this is lead based. Lead free regulation is the law of the land in many places and it's getting tighter. We spent decades finding out how absolutely harmful lead is to humans.

Only the industrial sector could claim exceptions but would still need to comply with safe cleanup and disposal.

This has been covered in every thread about this stuff so far, maybe read those other threads first and then be more specific?

I admit I didn't read all the threads in detail. I'll give it another try :-)

Especially the first two threads (I think those have the highest scores for "superconductor" on HN).

HN has a search function (bottom of the page, not ideal but the search itself works quite well), type in superconductor, then select order by date. That will give you the stories as posted in reverse order.

Or click here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

One high-level, back of napkin example that gets thrown around is that the world would magically get 40% more power due to reduction in transmission losses. The world spends $6,000b a year on energy purposes.

So a $2,400b/year opportunity. And that's just from transmission let alone the many other things it can do.

> the world would magically get 40% more power due to reduction in transmission losses

But what effort is needed? Wouldn’t it require replacing all batteries and transmission lines to realize this efficiency gain?

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