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I'm working on a science fiction story idea, and trying to make sure I get all of the physics right. One of the concepts I'm using is superconducting coils as "batteries," because they can store huge amounts of energy indefinitely. However, most of what I've read about superconductors (mostly Wikipedia) seems to indicate that this would give off an extremely powerful magnetic field, proportional to the amount of energy stored.

How significant is this magnetic field, and would there be any effective way to cancel it out (with the shape of the coil, etc)? I should probably know that last part, but it's been forever since I took a class on electromagnetism. Would it be practical to have a portable computer, robot, etc. with superconductive energy storage, or would the magnetic field cause too many problems?

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  • $\begingroup$ You might be interested in physics.stackexchange.com/questions/57871/… $\endgroup$
    – Brandon Enright
    Commented Oct 6, 2014 at 5:37
  • $\begingroup$ Compared to chemical energy storage superconducting magnets have a very poor energy density. Gasoline is about 1000 times better, even with conversion losses you are gaining a factor of >200 for fuel cells and suitable chemical fuels. And, no, there is no way to cancel the field of a superconducting magnet out to be safe (with exception of maybe a large, thin toroid, which would have a really poor energy density). Any ferromagnetic material within a few feet of even a small magnet could become a dangerous projectile. Stay away from scissors and knives! $\endgroup$
    – CuriousOne
    Commented Oct 6, 2014 at 6:21

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