[N1H1L]

They are also very good energy storage media. Combine that with zero transmission losses - you can now highly efficient EV powertrains that are significantly more compact. 1000 mile EVs become actually viable.

Secondly, superconductors are one of the most promising platforms for qubits. Big boost for quantum computing - and these are just two applications off the top off my head.

[Geee]

Can you point to a source of these superconducting energy storage mechanisms? How do they work? I briefly looked into it and found out that at least the current ones have very high power density, but low energy density.

[makeworld]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnetic_energ...

[Geee]

That's what I meant. It states energy density as 40 kJ/L. Lithium batteries have energy density up to 2.5 MJ/L. Fossil fuels and hydrogen way more.

[agnokapathetic]

That 40kJ/L is for the entire system including the cyronics. Get rid of the cyronics and the system gets far far more energy dense.

[u320]

Do you have a source for this?

[Geee]

Yes, that's quite likely how they come up with this number. But is it enough? What's the most energy dense configuration that can be made with room temp SC and does it compete with lithium batteries?

[Scene_Cast2]

I just took a look at the source paper [0]

""" Although the attainable magnetic flux density limits the energy per unit volume given by Equation (1) ( B2 /2μ o), the real limit of the energy stored in a SMES is mechanical. [...] The relation defines the minimum mass of the mechanical structure in pure tension to support the radial electromagnetic forces. Force-balanced coils [5] minimize the working stress and thus the mass of the structure. """

So it looks like they 1) don't look at cryo and 2) the limiting factor is the stress due to EM fields.

[0] https://snf.ieeecsc.org/sites/ieeecsc.org/files/CR5_Final3_0...

[Sharlin]

Except the energy is stored in the magnetic field. Superconductivity or not, you don't carry tesla-scale electromagnets around without becoming a target for high-velocity metallic projectiles and wreaking havoc with every electronic device in the neighborhood. Storage facilities for regulating grid power fluctuations are probably a much more realistic use case.