Problem: Is there really such a thing as perfect? Inefficiency has long been regarded as a staple of just about anything, whether that’s in a 20 percent loss of energy when using energy storage systems, or the millions of tons of carbon emissions generated by the energy loss over the power grid. But superconductors could technically eliminate all of these things with their ability to transmit electricity with absolutely 0 resistance. While thousands of superconductors have existed for a while now, only a few are actually financially viable due to their extreme temperature and pressure demands, severely limiting what can be done with them.
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Solution: This business would focus on the research, manufacturing, and implementation of room-temperature superconductors. Without getting too technical, they infused copper with lead, phosphorus, and oxygen in a process they claim is relatively simple to replicate. Room temperature superconductors have long been seen as the holy grail of the materials industry, as written by Chris Grovenor, professor of materials at the University of Oxford and director of the Centre for Applied Superconductivity:
“A technologically viable room-temperature superconductor isn’t just Nobel Prize territory. If you’ve patented it, it’s incalculable value essentially. It’s transformational on so many things.”
Think anything and everything that uses electricity. Then add some more things on top like making quantum computing feasibly widespread, and completely changing the nuclear reactor designs of the future. That’s your market. Andrew Cote wrote a great Twitter post about this that I’ll partially quote that I think puts into scale how revolutionary this discovery could be if true:
LK-99 Endgame: What Happens Next & Market Size
If LK-99 is a room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor, there are three distinct possibilities depending on its eventual engineering properties.
Here is a straightforward explanation of each scenario and estimated total market sizes in ARR:
The two limits on superconductor performance are:
- How much current it can carry
- How much magnetic field it can withstand
If either of these limits are exceeded, superconductors stop working. The scenarios are high/low field and high/low current, but you can't really get high-field without high-current, so only three scenarios
Scenario 1: Low-field, low-current ~$1.5 trn:
LK-99 saturates at relatively low fields, like 0.3T, and relatively low current densities, of ~1 amp / mm^2. It works in delicate electronics, small packages, at high efficiencies, with extremely high sensitivity.
It revolutionizes the following industries:
- Telecom hardware $650 bn; Cellphones $450 bn; Electronic Sensors $200bn; Satellites $70bn; GPUs $40bn; CPUs $20bn; Antennas $20bn.
Scenario 2: Low-field, high-current ~ $2 trn:
LK-99 can carry large current densities, on the order of >1000 amps / mm^2, but can't stand strong magnetic fields. It gains relevance in power transmission, switches, relays, and larger electrical equipment.
It revolutionizes the following industries:
Power transmission $320 bn; Wires + cables $200bn; Switches & Relays ~$ 25 bn and many others.
Scenario 3: High-field, high-current ~ $4.5 trn:
LK-99 can operate in high fields of several Tesla and high currents of >1000 amps / mm^2. It revolutionizes fundamental industries by replacing motors, generators, transportation equipment, and unlocks new energy sources like fusion.
It revolutionizes the following industries:
Power generation $1.8 trn; Electric Motors $300 bn; Rail freight $250 bn; Energy Storage $200 bn
Although the recent craze about the now debunked LK99 superconductors shows that we have to be cautious when it comes to research in this field, the fact that it wasn’t the real thing is all the more reason to start a company and start doing it yourself.
Contributed by: David Salinas (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas)