New developments in superconducting materials: Implications for the electricity supply industry

Abstract

After outlining the basic principles of superconductivity and the history of its development, this paper describes some of the potential applications of the technology, particularly for the electricity supply industry. It charts the development of the use of superconductors in energy research from the mid-1960s on, reviewing the projects developed over that period, and considers why the impetus behind such projects dissipated in the 1980s. The events of the last 18 months — since the discovery of high temperature superconducting materials — and the subsequent explosion of interest in the new materials are then examined. Of particular interest here is the contrast between the emergence of a powerful coalition of government, industry and science in a number of countries anxious to obtain maximum advantage from the technology and the reaction of the energy research community. The paper concludes by identifying the problems of the new materials and of superconductivity itself for the ESI, suggesting how they might interact in the future, and considers how these developments illustrate the relationship between the innovation process and technology choice in the energy sector.