
TOKYO -- Superconducting power transmission technology, which promises to deliver electricity while leaking almost none along the way, has entered the practical stage in Japan, offering a potentially less costly way to operate trains and a possible countermeasure to global warming.
A Japan Railway-affiliated research institute has laid a 1.5-km superconducting transmission line -- the world's longest practical-use cable -- at a facility in Miyazaki Prefecture, where it is holding demonstration tests.