Can I step up a very low voltage to a very high one using superconductors at 3 degrees Kelvin?

Question

Could I use a series of transformers to step up an extremely low voltage - like a 9V battery - to a very high one (like that of a power station) by using superconductor matrial for the wires and cooling it to about 4 degrees Kelvin in order to overcome any resistance? I imagine it would be expensive, but would such a device have any benefit for power generation? Could it be done or would the low temperature slow the flow of electrons?

Answer 1

9 volt battery could not dissipate enough currebt for your applications

try 10 -12 volts batteries in series for 10 msecs
might work
lol

Answer 2

I think you missed a vital point - power is not voltage. Power is voltage * current. When you step up voltage (even using a lossless transformer) you step down current so the power remains the same.

Apart from that - your 4 questions:
1) Yes you can step it up
2) You can only use a transformer for AC and a battery produces DC. You'd need a circuit to generate AC from DC.
3) It would be expensive and not benefit power generation (or they would do it - they'd do anything to make a buck :)
4) There's a limit to how much current you can push through a superconducting wire. The speed of the electrons is not really an issue.

Answer 3

Don't forget the First Law of Thermodynamics. Energy is never created nor destroyed: it merely changes from one state to another. (If you ever think you have found a "free" energy source, I guarantee it'll only work once and you'll have to do work to reset the experiment -- thereby storing up some potential energy.)

The reason why power distribution lines are run at high voltage is to minimise the effects of resistance (losing a few volts out of 132000 isn't such a big deal as losing a few volts out of 230). The losses in the transformers are still less than would be lost running the line at a lower voltage.

Using superconducting materials would indeed reduce the resistance of the transformer windings to nil, creating perfect inductors. (The coupling still probably wouldn't be perfect, though.) But you'd still only ever get as much power out as you were putting in. If you step up, say, 9V at 10mA to 90 000V, you will only be able to draw 0.1uA from the secondary. If you stepped it back down to 9V at the other end, you'd still get 10mA (assuming no loss in the distribution lines, which may be unrealistic). Of course, you could do away with the transformers altogether and have superconducting distribution lines.

Resistive losses in transformer windings are a well-understood phenomenon. If you look at any transformer you will notice that the higher-voltage winding is in a thinner gauge of wire than the lower-voltage winding. It's a balancing act: at some point you will end up spending more on extra copper trying to reduce the resistance than the value of the energy you would actually lose to resistance. If you add in extreme refrigeration plant to keep the temperature down, then you can easily spend more energy running that plant than you would have lost to resistance.

Answer 4

Superconductors have ZERO resistance and some now operate at liquid nitrogen temperatures, about 77 K or higher to about 100 K or so. The Holy Grail of superconductors is to figure out how to make them work at room temperature. But liquid nitrogen is pretty cheap.

It makes no sense to “step up” a 9V battery (of whatever size) with “a series of transformers” for power generation. One transformer is enough. And, yes, superconducting wire would make it more efficient. Perhaps you are thinking of ways to make photovoltaic solar arrays that can connect to the “grid” for power transmission? It’s already been done.

Long distance transmission of very high power is limited to 500,000 volts or so because of AC line losses and corona discharge. This type of loss is overcome by rectifying the AC to DC and transmitting the power in special high-voltage cables. Inverters and transformers at the receiving end convert the high-voltage DC back to 60 Hz AC for local distribution. Short (100 miles or so) demonstration lines are already in operation.

Again, superconducting cables would improve the efficiency considerably, but American Superconductor and others are already working on this. The technology should be ready by the time the first nuclear fusion reactor goes on line, probably somewhere in Nevada or southern California in the mid to late 21st century. We will need this technology to transmit the power to the East Coast. You wouldn’t want to place a 100-gigawatt fusion reactor on Long Island, would you?

Answer 5

That's basically absurd.

The amount of power required to keep your transformer at cryogenic temperature is orders of magnitude larger than the amount of power you can get from a 9 V battery.

Answer 6

you're precise with reference to the voltage modern relationship, yet you need to have the capacity to think with reference to the line losses. If the generator basically generated power on the comparable voltage simply by fact the availability on the tip it would wish hugely thick cables to have the capacity to hold the intense modern over long distances.

Answer 7

No benefit for power generation. Not even feasible to get it to work as well as a simple stun gun, which does 9V to 50000V with remarkable efficiency.

Answer 8

to Mis42n...note that using superconductors allows dc flux transformation!...as used in SQUIDs .