[londons_explore]

A superconducting power network could be built today - it would consist of a pair of ceramic superconductors suspended in a liquid helium pipe, wrapped with 3 feet of insulation.

Every few kilometers, one would need liquid helium pumping and chilling plants.

Total helium losses to leakage wouldn't be too big. Electricity transmission efficiency would be reduced by all the chilling gear running, but still better than regular conductors.

The only real barrier is cost. Not even the cost of the superconducting material. You can't hang a 6 feet diameter pipe on pylons across the nation - you're going to have to bury it, and that's going to get exxxxxpensive fast!

[stupidcar]

> The only real barrier is cost.

I feel like this could almost be a slogan for the human race at this point. Our grasp of science and engineering has reached a level where's there's very few things we might want to build where we couldn't conceivably do it. We could build the most outlandish megastructures, infrastructure and space bases if we really had to, but it all just costs too much.

[londons_explore]

"It's expensive and we couldn't find investors" really means "It's a lot of work, and nobody thinks it'll be worth it".

We might be able to anything, but the capitalist system stops us doing things that don't look profitable.

[naasking]

Profitability at time X is a pretty decent heuristic for whether something is worth doing at time X.

[danharaj]

How do you know that? Unknown unknowns.

[naasking]

Unknown unknowns are more likely to cause problems and delay completion, not accelerate development.

[ThrowawayR2]

> ...suspended in a liquid helium pipe...

Where would we get enough helium to cover more than a small city's worth of power transmission lines?

[Retra]

Is the amount of energy you spend building and maintaining that network more than what you're already losing to inefficiency?