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High tech electrical storage in the DC metro?
QUESTION:Um, yes, I realize that the supercollider was not intended to be an
energy-storage device, but large superconducting rings are presently used in
Washington DC by the Metro Transit Authority for electrical storage. This allows
the MTA to buy electricity at off-peak hours, and then to use the electricity
stored in the superconducting facility to power the rush-hour trains, passing
cost-savings on to commuters.
ANSWER: (this is only one manufacturer. Please note that this manufacturer, American
Superconductor (in which I have not invested, although I probably should; I'm
certainly plugging them here!) deals with HST, High-Temperature Superconductors,
which were discovered in the late 80s, 1988, I think. The HST-class superconductors
are capable of being coole dwith relatively chea liquid nitrogen, instead of the
prohibitively expensive liquid-helium cooling required for all previous
superconductors, which made that class of materials basically a scientific
curiousity, or suitable only for massive industrial or utility emplacements. This
is commercially applicable technology; if you don't mind storing liquid nitrogen,
you could easily use this at home.
Note also that the technology of the SMES is not at all new; it's been around since
about a week after helium-cooled superconductivity was discovered. All that's
really new in the basics of ther product are the superconductive materials
themselves; utilities have, as I have repeatedly stated to continuing disbelief,
been using this technology since brownouts became common.
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