Second Elpipe Patent Application Covers Wheeled Cables in Conduit

My first patent application on elpipes as originally filed had 73 drawings and 84 claims, and was filed as a PCT application. When this was finally granted and then published, on August 5, 2014, US Patent 8,796,552 is 69 pages, and 20 claims. I also filed a continuation patent in the US, which was published on July 24 (2014/0202765). The continuation must rely on my original specification, which was very detailed. I added claims on these concepts:

• The continuation generalizes the concept of elpipes to also encompass cables on wheeled conveyance inside a pipe, and

• cryostat containing superconducting line inside on wheeled conveyance inside a pipe

 From a practical point of view, this extends the range of elpipes to also include very thick cables (similar in diameter to subsea cables, but potentially much less expensive because of lacking armoring and tow-strength layers). The recently announced breakthrough by ABB on 525kV undersea cable makes this all the more important. I blogged about the "wheeled cable concept" previously. This method could also be used to string a spliceless superconducting line across a continent, in principle.