Power/energy: Supercool generation: More compact and efficient machines are in the offing as superconducting generators are about to reach the field

More than 70 years after its discovery by the Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, superconductivity is about to be applied to the generation of electric power in central power plants. What began 18 years ago as a few small experimental machines in the United States and France is culminating in the development of superconducting generators in several countries.