[scarmig]

Yeah. BCS was proposed a half century after the first conventional superconductor was discovered, and even today we don't have a convincing mechanism for "regular" high-Tc superconductors. But if it superconducts, it superconducts, and research into the how is useful but not a blocker to using it.

[bluGill]

That depends. If it super conducts, but it isn't useful in the real world, then we will be waiting for theory to - hopefully - give us some insight into how to improve things to useful.

This only can carry a small amount of current. I'm not sure how to figure out what small means (numbers are given in the article if you know how to use them!), but if the losses using regular wire are less than the energy needed to make this stuff then it isn't useful.

This is made out of lead. Even if it is useful for transmission, the difficulty of working safely with lead in a factory may mean it is impractical. Or it make leach lead into the real world making it not safe to deploy.

There are probably other ways this can turn into a "it works but isn't practical" thing that would force us to wait for theory (or luck!) to point to something better. What I wrote above is what I can think of in a couple minutes. Only time will tell though, I hope it works out.

[reaperman]

> If it super conducts, but it isn't useful in the real world, then we will be waiting for theory to - hopefully - give us some insight into how to improve things to useful. This only can carry a small amount of current.

Thank you for this.

> This is made out of lead. Even if it is useful for transmission, the difficulty of working safely with lead in a factory may mean it is impractical.

Have you been to a hardware store lately? A huge amount of pipe fittings for gas and non-potable water are made from lead. Factories don’t find it hard to work with lead. It might be inadvisable but it’s not hard.

We can argue about the "working safely" part, but in terms of "does this make it impractical?" the answer seems to be no under the current global regulatory environment.

[littlestymaar]

> This is made out of lead. Even if it is useful for transmission, the difficulty of working safely with lead in a factory may mean it is impractical. Or it make leach lead into the real world making it not safe to deploy.

Lead is still routinely used in many applications today, either in metallic form, from ICE car batteries, to fishing or hunting gear, or as chemical compound in different kinds of glass. And the same can be said about other heavy metals like Cadmium or Mercury. Industries also routinely work with much more nasty things than lead, so it really doesn't sound like a show-stopper.

[scythe]

In particular, lead is still extremely common in radiation shielding, possibly because the drop in demand for other applications made it so cheap. Lead-lined drywall is the default approach for setting up a radiography, fluoroscopy or CT suite.

[EdwardDiego]

As a young fella, I carried a lot of that lead-lined drywall, it's (obviously) really heavy, and expensive so you got yelled at a lot if you damaged the edges, couldn't just trim it off like normal drywall.

[thayne]

> possibly because the drop in demand for other applications made it so cheap

Maybe a little bit. But I think it is more that it is a material with heavy atomic nuclei and high density, and thus effective at blocking radiation. And it is also relatively cheap.

[scythe]

Lead is absurdly cheap. One dollar a pound! Cheaper than much more common metals like aluminum or magnesium. So I diagnose a low demand.

They used to talk about using barium cement but it just can't compete, price-wise.

[et2o]

I believe that most of the lead used today is a by-product or co-product of mining other more valuable metals like Zinc and silver. Lead is quite abundant in the Earth's crust and found in easy to access deposits.

I think >80% of the current industrial use of lead is for batteries. It's probably still in the top ten most mined metals by dollar value and definitely by mass.

[shirleyquirk]

It may not come as a complete surprise that the economics of metals are more complex.

Aluminium, was so expensive until the Hall/(that other guy) process was developed, that it was used for jewellery [1].

Even today it's expensive and difficult to reduce Al ore to metal, which is a supply side problem.

[1]https://www.bellandbird.com/products/aluminum-bangle

[phyzome]

Unfortunately, most companies seem to have little compunction about exposing workers, consumers, or the environment to toxic materials. The use of lead is not in any way a blocker, for better or worse.

[OfferFun6595]

It seems a 50/50 situation so long as the lead is able to get the products most companies don't seem to bother a lot about the risks of this exposure

[pzber]

250 milliamps still sounds great for use in antennas.