Could someone explain why this is important? What is the consequence of the existence of Superconductors like that?
One huge area of exploration for fusion power is tokamok reactor design, which requires a very strong magnetic field to confine plasma within a round shape - typically a torus, though I think I read of one spherical shell.
I suppose these don't necessarily need room temperature super conductors, but cheaper and easier to manufacture superconducting materials to use as the magnets could make a huge difference. And I do wonder if allowing higher temperatures could aid in the operability of these future devices.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/fusion-2662267312 is one I read about recently, using YBaCuO as the superconducting electromagnet. Definitely sounds bottlenecked on production of it.
Fusion power, as any energy source that massively increases the amount of energy humans can harness, could be planet changing.
I am sure defense folks would have a field day with new sensors with virtually no thermal noise.
I think the thing solves our environmental issues is actually industrial electrolysis, because then it doesn't really matter what your power source is, you have a means of decarbonizing chemical processes, and an incentive to commoditize carbon. Essentially, waste would have value, because it's a cheap source of carbon that can be used with hydrogen to create methanol, dme, etc. Not to mention, hydrogen salt cavern storage is proven at scale for 4 decades now to the tune of 350GWhs or so, and it lets us decarbonize agriculture and cement production.
I guess fusion might help make energy cheaper for these processes, but I don't really see that it matters if they're powered by fission or wind and solar. But if we can't get electrolysis cheap enough, then I don't see these processes being decarbonized until we're almost out of fossil fuels.
My 2c, anyway.
MRIs and powerlines are more obvious applications, but theoretically you can do a lot of cool stuff (batteries with zero energy loss, heat-efficient computers, etc [1]). If true, LK-99 would allow these things to happen at room temperature instead of negative whatever degrees, making them much more useful.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_applications_o...