POWER January 2012 - 72

Commentary
Upbraiding the Utilities
By Dr. Paul Michael Grant
Y
es, you've read it right. Upbraiding, not upgrading.
Twenty-six years ago, in early 1986, Georg Bednorz and
Alex Mueller discovered high-temperature superconductivity
in the family of copper oxide perovskites. The field exploded
later that year and in early 1987 when Paul Chu and his collaborators
at the Universities of Houston and Alabama sighted
telltale signs of superconductivity onsets above the boiling point
of liquid nitrogen, 77K. These developments unleashed a flurry
of studies, especially in the U.S. and Japan, predicting markets
eventually exceeding several hundreds of billions of dollars,
mostly centered around electric power applications.
25 Years of Investment
The summit of this euphoria occurred in July 1987, when President
Ronald Reagan convened the White House Conference on
Superconductivity in the ballroom of the Hilton Hotel in central
Washington, D.C. The president announced a series of initiatives
that were embodied in the Superconductivity Competitiveness
Act of 1988. This legislation created the Department of Energy
Initiative for Power Applications of Superconductivity, a $30 million
(average) annual program designed to " upgrade " American
electric utilities and power equipment manufacturers to face the
looming energy demand challenges of the coming 21st century.
After retiring from IBM in 1993 to join the Electric Power Research
Institute (EPRI), I became actively involved in the DOE
efforts as a co-funder, peer reviewer, and, yes, an occasional
congressional lobbyist.
So, here we are today, almost 25 years since that first conference
and $700 million to $800 million dollars later, plus perhaps
half that amount additionally invested by the private sector.
Numerous successful demonstrations, employing both low- and
high-temperature superconductors, in almost every type of power
equipment-cables, transformers, rotating machinery, fault
current limiters, storage and power conditioning devices-have
been undertaken in America and elsewhere. The U.S. National
Laboratories-particularly Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, Argonne, and
Brookhaven-in conjunction with private companies such as
American Superconductor and SuperPower, have developed highperformance,
" second generation, " long-length (hundreds of meters),
and reliable superconducting tape suitable for deployment
in all the above applications.
Several U.S. utilities have very generously donated talent and
facilities, and redirected a portion of their EPRI dues for financial
assistance in support of such efforts. The fruits of their labors
now " sit on the shelf " awaiting insertion into the American
electric power infrastructure. Beginning in 2010, funding for the
Power Applications of Superconductivity program was removed as
a " line item " in the DOE's congressional appropriation, and I believe
justifiably so. If Ronald Reagan were still with us, he might
say, albeit perhaps tongue-in-cheek, " Mission accomplished. "
72
No Technology Takers
Why has not a single U.S. investor-owned utility yet, on its own
nickel, picked the fruits of our national effort? One often hears, " the
high cost of the wire " or the " hassle factor. " The " hassle factor "
involves such locutions as, " electricity is cheap and our in-plant
and in-field efficiencies are pretty good right now, so there's no
compelling reason to implement incremental increases of only a few
percent, " or " any new technology that involves a new skill set can
lead to tedious negotiations with our labor unions, " or " anyway, our
grid infrastructure works pretty well right now and when there are
outages it's responding just as it was designed to do. "
At IBM, when we would review the commercial potential of
a particular new technology, part of the process would involve
asking, " What if the product were free? Would our customers still
buy it? " " If the wire were free, would American utilities then buy
it? " And how could we bring that about? " Zero cost " would be
obtained in the form of a federal-state " tax credit (not a subsidy!) "
to the equipment manufacturer or utility for the wire cost
alone associated with a given application, not to " packaging "
such as insulation and cryogenics, or actual installation.
Many New Barriers to Development
One also often hears that the " day of superconductivity in power "
will dawn with the large-scale build-out of renewable electricity
generation, which I take to comprise principally wind, solar, and
biomass. The argument goes that new connection cabling to grid
and storage substations will be necessary, so why not use superconductivity?
Also, the advantageous power-to-weight ratio of a
superconducting generator makes its deployment on high wind
towers quite attractive.
However, from my point of view, such an occurrence in the U.S.
is extremely problematic given present basic and, likely future as
well, American political and social views about " living space. "
Anyone who has ever visited a wind farm certainly doesn't want
one in his or her backyard, and not even on the horizon. Wind,
solar, and biomass are massively ecoinvasive.
The North American continent is awash in fossil fuel reserves,
arguably the largest reserves in the world. Under such circumstances,
it is likely its inhabitants will continue to oxidize as
many carbon atoms as possible.
So, when will the sun finally rise on large-scale power applications
of superconductivity? ■
-Dr. Paul M. Grant (w2agz@w2agz.com), an IBM research
staff member emeritus and an EPRI science fellow (retired),
held an visiting scholar appointment at Stanford University
and is currently an adjunct staff associate at the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Cal Tech. Portions of this editorial appeared in the
Summer 2011 issue of Cold Facts, the magazine of the Cryogenic
Society of America (www.cryogenicsociety.org) and are
reproduced by permission.
www.powermag.com
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POWER January 2012

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