Researchers from the University of Houston (UH) and Germany have now shown how employing superconductors to convey people, goods, and energy along current highway infrastructure can reduce costs and upend the transit and energy transport industries.
Along with lowering operational costs for each system, the integrated system would offer a means of storing and transporting liquified hydrogen, an important source of clean energy in the future. Liquified hydrogen would replace the requirement for a separate, special pipeline system that might cool the fuel to 20 degrees Kelvin, or minus 424 Fahrenheit, by cooling the superconductor guideway as it is stored and transported.
The idea was presented in a paper published on April 24, 2023, in the journal APL Energy, which envisions a time when personal and commercial vehicles will be able to travel at speeds of up to 400 mph, possibly even twice that. This would render air travel and conventional forms of freight transportation obsolete.
The identification of a substance that functioned as a superconductor at a temperature above the boiling point of liquid nitrogen by a team led by University of Hawaii scientist Paul Chu in 1987 marked the start of the modern era of superconductivity research. Since then, demonstration attempts have shown that superconductors can be utilised to carry electrical power without energy loss, cutting waste, and power magnetically levitated trains.
The findings and discussion
To show the levitation of a magnetic vehicle, a technological requirement for our proposed super system, we constructed a superconducting guideway. Three of the experiment’s main parts are depicted in Figure A, B as the superconducting guideway (SCG), C the permanent magnet magnetizer (PMM, weighing roughly 3 kg), and D the levitating and moving magnetic vehicle.
Trains, transport trucks, and even personal cars with magnetised undercarriages may enter the superconductor guideway and move levitating and quickly to their destinations. Vehicles would continue travelling after leaving the guideway using conventional electric or internal combustion engines.
The Chair Professor of Physics M.D. Anderson, Zhifeng Ren predicts that people would be able to travel at their own convenience and still benefit from the time-saving features of high-speed trains and flights. Instead of 75 mph, one would be able to go 400 mph, from Houston to Los Angeles, or from Houston to New York in just a few hours.
While the car or truck was on the superconductor guideway, he claimed, fuel or electrical power usage would drastically decrease, lowering costs as well as the environmental impact.
Trains, transport trucks, and even personal cars with magnetised undercarriages may enter the superconductor guideway and move levitating and quickly to their destinations. Vehicles would continue travelling after leaving the guideway using conventional electric or internal combustion engines.
The current period of superconductivity research began in 1987, when a team led by UH physicist Paul Chu discovered a compound which acted as a superconductor at a temperature above the boiling point of liquid nitrogen.
Since then, demonstration projects have shown that superconductors can be used to power magnetically levitated trains and to transmit electrical power without energy loss, decreasing waste.
