American Superconductor's 1st gereration superconductor wire operates at around 77K (depending on the local magnetic field, current demsity etc.) and build magnets from this which operate at 20-40K meaning liquid helium cooling is not required. Improvements will no doubt be made on this. I believe HTS magnets will eventually replace rare-earth magnets (such as sintered NdFeB magnets) in wind and wave energy devices, but this is in the distant future.

Richard C

I'm not so sure that you need to wait all that long. There are a number of groups working on this.

Chris