From: Eugene Leitl (eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)
Date: Wed Sep 01 1999 - 20:56:58 MDT
ronkean@juno.com writes:
> No, not at all, at least not without making the storage coil
> correspondingly larger and more expensive. Superconductive coils can
> store energy for long periods of time without loss, but you cannot exceed
> a certain energy density in any known superconductive storage system.
> The details vary depending on which particular medium you are
> considering.
That's the bad part about them: they quench too easily. Catastrophic
failure is not a particularly enticing aspect of what is supposed to
be a storage medium.
> But suppose you found a superconductive material that could carry a
> billion amps in a wire 1/4 inch thick. Then the magnetic forces would
> tear the coil apart.
It helps to make the coil large, very large. Like some ten miles in
diameter.
> Suppose you could overcome the problem of containing the magnetic forces.
> Then how would you pump a billion amps into the coil? If you use
> magnetic fields to pump energy into the storage coil, the pumping field
> would have to exceed the field in the coil. How would you generate the
> field?
My physics recollection is notoriously hazy, but I don't think you
have to bring it up to full field in a single stride.
> This is not to say that it won't be possible someday to store energy at
> high density in superconductors. But not with today's technology.
I think it might be useful in the outskirts of the solar system. It's
already damn cold out there.
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