alt Hacker NewsImpressive piece of work, first time I’ve heard of this.
I had heard that tunnels were a good first step for rolling out super conducting cables, but that doesn’t seem to be a thing.
Superconducting cables have progressed a lot. I’m assuming that setting up a cryogenic system to keep cables cool enough, in a confined space wasn’t thought to be worth it.
The tunnels look tight enough, and boiling liquid nitrogen from a leak could cause asphyxiation I imagine.
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From Gridlock to Grid Power: The Promise of Superconducting Cables
https://ee.eng.cam.ac.uk/index.php/2025/09/22/from-gridlock-...
An interesting article, I’ll download the IoP report and maybe read it.
But it talks about doing the hard work to improve the Technological Readiness Level from 7 to 9. Although these cables need rare earths so might be problematic.
I think tunnels like this are more about future-proofing access than betting on a specific technology
> Superconducting cables have progressed a lot. I’m assuming that setting up a cryogenic system to keep cables cool enough, in a confined space wasn’t thought to be worth it.
Yeah, the cost isn’t worth it.
Buying two transformers to step up the voltage on one end and step down the voltage at the other end is going to be several orders of magnitude cheaper than actively cooling cables to 20K for their entire length.
"I had heard that tunnels were a good first step for rolling out super conducting cables, but that doesn’t seem to be a thing."
Yeah tunnels underground would be better for superconducting cables, but it is indeed not really a thing as the cooling and installing and maintainance would be waaaay more expensive, than just using higher voltage. Or if one really cares about the loss, use direct current - but we are talking aber very small distances here.
If superconducting would be easy, we likely just would have fusion plants everywhere with no need for transporting electricity long distances.