- Email: [email protected]
Supercool wind power
For more technology stories, visit newscientist.com/technology
Henrik Trygg/Johnér Images/Corbis
TECHNOLOGY
outside. Neumann thinks they have cracked the problem with a novel arrangement of an outer vacuum vessel and insulating inner layers of plastic and titanium. But however good their technology, they have to contend with an unusual property of superconductors – when the wires sweep through a magnetic field,
“Making a coil that can be cooled while rotating with the turbine blades is a big engineering challenge” their ability to generate current is reduced. That means more coil –Even colder inside the turbines– turns would be needed to make up for the current loss, which would negate some of the weight savings and make the turbines more expensive to construct. “Magnetic flux lines interfere with the wires’ ability to transport Wind turbines built with superconducting innards promise electricity, lowering its to generate far more power – and be lighter to boot performance,” says Venkat Selvamanickam at the University of Houston, Texas, where the US a big challenge. A research project superconductors, which needed Paul Marks government is funding work via dubbed Suprapower, funded by cooling way down to 4 kelvin,” WIND turbines may soon get a the European Union, kicked off in Neumann says. That temperature its Advanced Research Projects supercharge. Turbines wound December to address this problem. difference might not sound much Agency – Energy. Selvamanickam’s with superconducting wire team thinks they have found a way Holger Neumann at the but it means, crucially, that instead of regular copper could to solve this problem – adding Karlsruhe Institute of Technology cooling the magnesium diboride turn today’s 2 to 3-megawatt in Germany and other members superconductor requires just one- 5-nanometre-wide particles of generators into 10-megawatt barium zirconate to the wire. The of the Suprapower consortium seventh of the power. powerhouses, say teams in are betting on a new “high The team will also have to build team found that this “pins” the Europe and the US that are temperature” superconductor, a casing, called a cryostat, in which magnetic flux lines in place as racing to produce the machines. the wires sweep through the field, magnesium diboride, which the superconducting coil will be At heart, a wind turbine is preventing the formation of works at 20 kelvin. “It’s light, kept chilled by gaseous helium. simple – a series of wire coils swirling magnetic vortices that easily made into wires and is This is tricky as its supporting attached to the rotor blade spin in really cheap compared with reduce current flow. So far they structure will act as a “heat the presence of strong magnetic have eliminated 65 per cent of the old niobium-titanium bridge” to the warmer world fields, provided by stationary this current-limiting problem. magnets. This generates a The US team claims to be within current, but the resistance in a few years of building their own copper wire limits the amount 10-megawatt wind turbine, and Lasers could slash wind-turbine as it involves peppering each blade of current that can flow through says that their techniques could power outages, say engineers at with strain sensors. the coils. Making the coils from a make superconducting wires Chonbuk National University in A cheaper answer is to place resistance-free superconductor attractive for distributing South Korea. If the bolts securing a laser on the tower and instead would cut down on weight and electricity as well as generation. turbine blades to a rotor begin to measure the reflection time from boost power generation. “If we can demonstrate this loosen, or blade mass is lost due to every blade as it passes by. This Using superconductors will superconducting-wire technology a lightning strike, a blade can strike way, deviation of all the blades is not be easy, though, partly due to in a wind turbine, we think it’s the turbine tower and fall off. But measured using just one low-cost the ultra-low temperatures they more likely that it will make its monitoring for when a blade starts sensor (Smart Materials and require. Developing a coil that can way into the power cables of to go out of alignment is expensive Structures, doi.org/j62). be cooled while simultaneously the electricity grid,” says rotating with the turbine blades is Selvamanickam. n
Supercool wind power
Merrily spins as laser looks on
19 January 2013 | NewScientist | 19
Henrik Trygg/Johnér Images/Corbis
TECHNOLOGY
outside. Neumann thinks they have cracked the problem with a novel arrangement of an outer vacuum vessel and insulating inner layers of plastic and titanium. But however good their technology, they have to contend with an unusual property of superconductors – when the wires sweep through a magnetic field,
“Making a coil that can be cooled while rotating with the turbine blades is a big engineering challenge” their ability to generate current is reduced. That means more coil –Even colder inside the turbines– turns would be needed to make up for the current loss, which would negate some of the weight savings and make the turbines more expensive to construct. “Magnetic flux lines interfere with the wires’ ability to transport Wind turbines built with superconducting innards promise electricity, lowering its to generate far more power – and be lighter to boot performance,” says Venkat Selvamanickam at the University of Houston, Texas, where the US a big challenge. A research project superconductors, which needed Paul Marks government is funding work via dubbed Suprapower, funded by cooling way down to 4 kelvin,” WIND turbines may soon get a the European Union, kicked off in Neumann says. That temperature its Advanced Research Projects supercharge. Turbines wound December to address this problem. difference might not sound much Agency – Energy. Selvamanickam’s with superconducting wire team thinks they have found a way Holger Neumann at the but it means, crucially, that instead of regular copper could to solve this problem – adding Karlsruhe Institute of Technology cooling the magnesium diboride turn today’s 2 to 3-megawatt in Germany and other members superconductor requires just one- 5-nanometre-wide particles of generators into 10-megawatt barium zirconate to the wire. The of the Suprapower consortium seventh of the power. powerhouses, say teams in are betting on a new “high The team will also have to build team found that this “pins” the Europe and the US that are temperature” superconductor, a casing, called a cryostat, in which magnetic flux lines in place as racing to produce the machines. the wires sweep through the field, magnesium diboride, which the superconducting coil will be At heart, a wind turbine is preventing the formation of works at 20 kelvin. “It’s light, kept chilled by gaseous helium. simple – a series of wire coils swirling magnetic vortices that easily made into wires and is This is tricky as its supporting attached to the rotor blade spin in really cheap compared with reduce current flow. So far they structure will act as a “heat the presence of strong magnetic have eliminated 65 per cent of the old niobium-titanium bridge” to the warmer world fields, provided by stationary this current-limiting problem. magnets. This generates a The US team claims to be within current, but the resistance in a few years of building their own copper wire limits the amount 10-megawatt wind turbine, and Lasers could slash wind-turbine as it involves peppering each blade of current that can flow through says that their techniques could power outages, say engineers at with strain sensors. the coils. Making the coils from a make superconducting wires Chonbuk National University in A cheaper answer is to place resistance-free superconductor attractive for distributing South Korea. If the bolts securing a laser on the tower and instead would cut down on weight and electricity as well as generation. turbine blades to a rotor begin to measure the reflection time from boost power generation. “If we can demonstrate this loosen, or blade mass is lost due to every blade as it passes by. This Using superconductors will superconducting-wire technology a lightning strike, a blade can strike way, deviation of all the blades is not be easy, though, partly due to in a wind turbine, we think it’s the turbine tower and fall off. But measured using just one low-cost the ultra-low temperatures they more likely that it will make its monitoring for when a blade starts sensor (Smart Materials and require. Developing a coil that can way into the power cables of to go out of alignment is expensive Structures, doi.org/j62). be cooled while simultaneously the electricity grid,” says rotating with the turbine blades is Selvamanickam. n
Supercool wind power
Merrily spins as laser looks on
19 January 2013 | NewScientist | 19