Fire and Ice

The story of how we power our magnets is a story of energy constantly changing form – fire to ice, electricity to magnetism, liquid to gas. As we follow the flow of energy through the Magnet Lab, keep in mind that handy first law of thermodynamics: Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. All the energy that comes into the Magnet Lab also has to get back out.

Scientists gather data from the world-record 36.2 tesla magnet, located at the rear of this "cell."
Click on image to enlarge

Many of our magnets run on conventional electricity. These are called resistive magnets, which are largely housed in our DC Field Facility. (A number of powerful superconducting magnets are also found at the MagLab, but that’s another story.) This 72,000-square-foot wing of the lab contains eight resistive magnets (also called electromagnets or Bitter magnets), ranging in magnetic field from 20 tesla to 45 tesla, each in its own little “cell.” These magnets get so hungry they consume 7 percent of all the electricity used in the city of Tallahassee. The average monthly residential electricity consumption is about 920 kilowatt-hours (kWh). In 2010, the average monthly electricity consumption of magnets at the MagLab was the 3.8 million kwH.

That’s a lot of PowerBars. It all starts in an unassuming little building known as City of Tallahassee substation #31.

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