Production of silver for use as a global-scale superconducting power cable material

High-temperature superconductivity materials are made out of a kind of ceramics. However, the core of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) power cables consists primarily of layers of copper and silver. One kilometre of second-generation HTS power cable may contain as much as 40 kg of silver. It is envisaged that a global superconducting power grid will be required to interconnect the globally distributed hyper-large-scale solar power generation systems to compensate for output fluctuation of each local system by other local systems throughout the grid. In this paper, the resources and production constraints of silver will be discussed in terms of their impact on the operability of the global electric power network based on second-generation HTS power cables.