Centerfield: ConEd and Homeland Security Sold a Superconductor Bridge to Brooklyn

May 25, 2007

ConEd and Homeland Security Sold a Superconductor Bridge to Brooklyn

ConEd and DHS have decided to pay American Superconductor Corporation $50M to install a trial superconducting cable as a proof of concept for a superconducting power grib

You'd think that officials in a city with no shortage of sellers playing fast and loose would be more skeptical. It's billed as being able to hold more power/wire, giving security from surges, and being more secure from attack.

So, what's the problem here? Well, that superconductors must be chilled pretty far - in this case, to -230C, we're told, to work as superconductors. With that in mind, let's take a look at the claims of improvement.

Higher capacity: Power systems just add cables to a cable bundle, or activate unused cables when they need more capacity. We're told this is a problem here because:

Typically these cables are contained within conduits or tunnels but need to be spread out due to the heat created by electrical resistance, ...

True, NYC is low on space. But I strongly suspect that it'd be alot easier and cheaper to build a smaller system to chill the conventional wires rather than cool a superconductor.

Surge Protection: Standard, far cheaper circuitry for line condtitioning is widely available. It'd take about 1/1000th the budget to install widely.

Security: It's deeply unclear to me why a grid requiring MANY WORKING ULTRACOOLING CHILLERS would be considered to be a security improvement. I mean, now all you have to do is break the superchiller line, or bring up a hair dryer. And the superconductor chillers will tend to break down alot. A LOT. This is very complicated and inherently failure-prone equipment, Even in computer rooms and labs. On Manhattan streets, a given line is likely to fail ALOT. They'll have to either accept a very high failure rate or spend a fortune or maintenance crews. How is having more lines down a security improvement? Well, I guess that it's true that a power surge can't cross a line that's down.

I notice we aren't seeing any analysis of what a widespread chilled superconducting grid would do to NYC's power requirements.

Posted by Jon Kay at May 25, 2007 01:19 AM

Comments

What a cool (no pun intended, honest) new toy to play with! But that's exactly what it is: a new toy.

Now if it was DARPA playing around, trying to get room-temperature super-conductors, that would make some sense. But this? I'm guessing that ConEd isn't the one spending big bucks for this. And having tried to sell stuff to the City of New York, I can't believe that they put up any money for it. Which pretty much means that it's all Homeland Security putting your Federal tax dollars to work here.

As far as I can see, the best that can be said is that this is wasting less money than a lot of other Federal programs. And that is fully inteneded to be damning with faint praise.

Posted by: wj at May 25, 2007 09:43 AM

The inherent pun is good enough!

Posted by: Tully at May 28, 2007 12:54 AM

Centerfield

A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics

May 25, 2007

ConEd and Homeland Security Sold a Superconductor Bridge to Brooklyn