I only had to ask Dean Peterson one question about superconducting and he was off. As he said, it’s like turning on a firehose.
Peterson will be speaking June 25 about superconductors at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Frontiers in Science gathering. The Frontiers program is an outreach by the lab to educate and illuminate the populace about what the lab does.
“I’ll really be talking about a window into the future,” Peterson said. “We’re facing a shortage of energy along with global warming. There’s no single answer and some will take longer than others but right now we need to be more efficient in the way we use energy.”
Enter superconductors.
They are made of ceramic and look like black chalk. The selling point is that there is no resistance so no energy is lost in transmission. Typically in a copper line there’s a 10 percent attenuation.
Most of our energy is used moving people and goods. Right now oil is the means to the end and the best minds in the country are asking what can improve its use.
Peterson will describe how superconductors can provide the answer. He’s been working on superconducting for 20 years.
The Lab’s expertise and years of research have paid off with what Peterson will describe next Thursday. Superconductors can carry 100 times the energy that a standard copper cable carries and there is no loss. It’s cooled with liquid nitrogen, which can be produced for pennies a gallon.
While levitating trains and super magnets capable of storing electricity indefinitely with no loss sounds a little like science fiction, Peterson said their already implementing superconductors in big cities. In downtown Manhattan, where there are millions of users packed in tightly, it’s much more economical with a quicker payoff.
“Instead of tearing up the streets, they pull out the copper and you’re left with an empty conduit,” Peterson said. “That can be used for fiber optic or other communications cable.”
The paper thin superconductors are coated in liquid nitrogen. That makes them very flexible. And since our atmosphere is composed of 78 percent nitrogen, it’s plentiful and when expended just goes back into its natural form, a benign gas, Peterson said.
Science geeks, wannabe scientists or people wanting to learn about what their Laboratory is doing should get to the auditorium on the Northern New Mexico College campus. Peterson is sure to entertain and inform. And we may need some help tackling him and carrying him off the stage.