Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and - Center for ...

Matteo Pasquali
Junichiro Kono
Pulickel Ajayan
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The Grid • Armchair Quantum Wire
Transport energy as electricity over wires rather than as mass (coal, oil, gas)
The Smalley Institute at Rice University has a major effort underway
toward developing a lightweight, highly conductive electric wire with
high tensile strength called the armchair quantum wire (AQW). Today’s
electric power grid connects gigawatt-scale power plants to population
centers over an average distance of 100 miles, and about 10 percent of
the power is lost in transmission. Future grid scenarios based on renewable
energy sources will have to transmit greater amounts of power
over distances of approximately 1,000 miles. Current grid technology
will lose most of that power to heat, so at least a ten-times better transmission
technology will be required. A solution is the AQW — a cable of
pure armchair carbon nanotubes. Several professors at Rice University
are contributing to different parts of the AQW development.