“Oscar” for superconductivity research
The world has been given something that the lossless current conductors can actually be used for.
The discovery of high-temperature superconductors led to a Nobel Prize in 1987. Now, the world has also been given something that the lossless current conductors can actually be used for – thanks to Magne Runde and Niklas Magnussen, two Norwegian scientists at SINTEF Energy Research, who recently received a European “Innovation Oscar” for their pioneering work. Although superconducting materials conduct electricity completely without resistance, they need to be cooled to very low temperatures to do so. “High-temperature superconductors” do not need to be brought to quite such low temperatures. The Norwegian scientists have used materials of this type to develop industrial processes capable of saving energy in the copper and aluminium smelting industries.
