Huston: An Indian-American scientist is
developing a technology with high temperature superconducting
wires that would revolutionise the way power is generated,
transported and used in the US.
Venkat Selvamanickam, director of the Applied Research
Hub and the MD Anderson chair professor of the Department of
Mechanical Engineering, University of Houston, said, "The goal
of my research is to modernise the power grid with high
temperature superconducting wires to improve efficiency and
reliability. Almost anything in the power grid cables,
transformers, motors, generators can be more efficient if
you use high temperature superconducting wires.
"Superconducting power cables can transmit up to 10
times more power than traditional copper cables without the
significant losses of traditional cables and are considered
environmentally friendly. Superconducting fault current
limiters can enable uninterrupted power transmission when
conventional circuits will otherwise succumb to outages in
events such as lightning storms."
The country's electric transmission grid currently
consists of about 160,000 miles of high-voltage transmission
lines, with forecasters predicting an additional 12,900 miles
needed over the next five years to meet increasing demand, he
said.
High temperature superconductivity defines certain
materials like metals and ceramics that lose electrical
resistance when cooled by liquid nitrogen, an inexpensive
industrial refrigerant that costs less than a bottle of water,
a major development in the price point for superconductivity
for wide commercial use.
Without this resistance, electrons can travel through
these materials freely, leading to wires fabricated into power
cables that carry large amounts of electric current for long
periods without losing energy as heat. Cooled by liquid
nitrogen, high temperature superconducting wires reduce risk
of explosion in that it's not flammable.
The applications for high temperature superconducting
wire range from advanced medical imaging techniques like
magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs) to large-scale applications
replacing existing copper wires with superconducting wires to
raise reliability and cut costs in electric power transmission
and distribution, storage devices, motors, generators,
cellular communication systems, to magnetically-levitated
trains.
"High temperature superconductivity has the potential
to revolutionise the way we use electricity, just like the way
fiber-optics revolutionised the way we communicate," said
Selvamanickam. "Our research pays immediate returns to the
industry. It's not like something that may be 10 years down
the line could be useful."
PTI
First Published: Sunday, April 11, 2010, 17:43