Banishing blackouts

This paper presents the use of superconductive cables as a cost-effective way to upgrade urban power networks while protecting the environment. High-temperature superconductor (HTS) cable, which is capable of serving very large power requirements, is one of the technologies with the greatest promise to address these concerns. Because they are actively cooled and thermally independent of the surrounding environment, they can be fit into more compact installations than conventional copper. This advantage reduces environmental impacts. In addition, HTS cables exhibit much lower resistive losses