Fast, cheaper, medium-voltage DC circuit breaker handles increased levels of direct current

https://www.ornl.gov/news/medium-voltage-circuit-breaker-unlocks-electricity-abundance-savings

"for DC, mechanical switch isn’t fast enough to stop fault before heat builds up/ fire, overcome using safer thyristor semiconductor-based circuit breaker operating 100X faster... no physical gap capable of sparking arc, current instead routed away through semiconductor-based device... cannot be directly switched off, so uses external circuit forcibly reducing current... prototype interrupts 1.4K V current in <50 μs – 4 to 6X faster than with thyristors previously... future: scaling from current 1.8K to 10K volts"