[Denny]

Its beyond stealing, its sacrilege.

I dunno. It's the same reason all the pyramids and greek ruins are in the shape they're in. In times of scarcity, the past gets recycled to meet the needs of the present.

But, those civilizations went into terminal decline. I'd like to think we're still civilized here in America.

But, I have my doubts at times. My last trip to Detroit looked pretty sad, its downtown streets are mostly as dark as Havana at night, like a third world city. That is a city that could use a real renovation program. If it can happen in Manhatten, it can happen everywhere.

[smallpoxgirl]

But, those civilizations went into terminal decline. I'd like to think we're still civilized here in America.

Ever seen the drawings of what the pyramids looked like before people stole all the trim stone off the outside? Now picture in your head what the statue of liberty is going to look like once people steal the skin for copper. Same deal.

[steam_cannon]

Also in the good old days when Telegraph lines were being strung
across the USA in the 1800's they used steel wire with a copper
jacket, tghe stuff conducts electricity like any other copper wire with
the same volume of copper in it, but it is very hard to scrap at a profit
because the two metals are attached to each other closely.

Interesting, companies could produce wire that is difficult to scrap.
I think there would be a market for that.

[Denny]

I am sure that at present copper prices we'll see more usage of copper clad aluminum. the plated copper layer works in such a way that the majority of the electron flow is on the periphery.

I recall in the auto business, battery cables were made of this in the last runup of copper prices in the late 70's.

See MWS wire

[BigTex]

How about this:

The nickels that are being minted TODAY are worth about 6.5 cents for their metal content.

Thus, for every nickel the government mints, the cost of materials ALONE generates a 1.5 cent loss. Put another way, if you want an easy way of hedging against inflation, buy nickels.

It's currently illegal to melt pennies or nickels, but that may not always be the case.

One thing seems certain, at some point the metal in nickels will be changed to something less expensive and all the old nickels will probably disappear overnight.

The metal content of pre-1983 pennies is worth about 3.5 cents. But you have to sort pennies to get this value. With nickels, they're ALL worth more than the face value based upon the underlying metal.

It's pretty crazy.

People talk about gold and silver as "real" money; think about that next time you have a nickel, because that's "real" money too.

[Tanada]

I am sure that at present copper prices we'll see more usage of copper clad aluminum. the plated copper layer works in such a way that the majority of the electron flow is on the periphery.

I recall in the auto business, battery cables were made of this in the last runup of copper prices in the late 70's.

See MWS wire

Except this time Aluminum has appreciated almost as fast as copper so there is no cost benefit.

Here is an interesting page on copper sheathed steel wire.

WIRES AND CABLES
254

Materials Used for Conductors

The metals which have been used most commonly for conductors are copper aluminum and iron German silver lead and various alloys are used in electrical apparatus such as heaters fuses etc but they are never used for transmitting electricity for lighting or power service because of their high resistance Of the three metals mentioned above copper is most commonly used for power transmission and interior wiring because of its low resistance and relatively small cost Iron is sometimes used outdoors for very long spans where copper would not be strong enough mechanically Iron wire has a resistance from 6 to 8.25 times that of annealed copper depending upon the quality of the material Ordinary steel rails have a resistance of 11 to 13 times that of copper Special steel rails which are used for third rails may have a resistance as low as 8 times that of copper Iron or steel wire is used extensively for telephone and telegraph circuits where high resistance is not a serious disadvantage It is never used for interior wiring although steel rails or structural shapes are sometimes used for conducting current to cranes Copper clad or bi metallic wire is composed of an iron or steel wire covered with a heavy coating of copper The resistance of the wire depends upon the relative amounts of copper and iron and is expressed by the manufacturers as the per cent conductivity compared with a copper wire of the same size Wires having respectively 30 per cent 40 per cent and 47 per cent of the conductivity of copper are standard This wire is chiefly used for long telephone and telegraph lines and to some extent for power transmission It is not used for interior wiring Aluminum is used rather extensively for long distance power transmission systems where bare conductors are employed An aluminum wire is however considerably larger in diameter than a copper wire having an equal resistance.

248



Interior Wiring and Systems for Electric Light and Power Sevice

A Manual of Practice for Electrical Workers, Contractors, Architects and Schools By Arthur Leroy Cook

[mos6507]

Now picture in your head what the statue of liberty is going to look like once people steal the skin for copper.

I have a picture in my head of what the statue of liberty will look like in the far future but the skin is still intact.

[Twilight]

Also in the good old days when Telegraph lines were being strung across the USA in the 1800's they used steel wire with a copper jacket, tghe stuff conducts electricity like any other copper wire with the same volume of copper in it, but it is very hard to scrap at a profit because the two metals are attached to each other closely.

Interesting, companies could produce wire that is difficult to scrap.
I think there would be a market for that.

The added complexity that makes anything difficult to scrap comes at an increase in manufacturing costs, which are passed on to the buyer and end user. This premium is difficult to justify in good times when prices are stable and theft for scrap is a minor background problem. But when times are hard and/or material prices shoot up, this apparent shortsightedness hands criminals most of the installed base to work with. The end user pays a price eventually, but whether it is higher or lower than preventative measures I can't say. If you introduce discounted cash flow into the analysis, it is almost certain that few people will have any incentive to pay extra unless responding to immediate problems.

[Cashmere]

I'm not a fan of government intervention, but it would be simple to require every scrap yard to get a name and photo ID for any scrap brought in.

That would stop a large chunk right there.

[smallpoxgirl]

I'm not a fan of government intervention, but it would be simple to require every scrap yard to get a name and photo ID for any scrap brought in.

That would stop a large chunk right there.

And spawn the field of metals laundering.

I do have to wonder sometimes though. There were some guys in Western Washington that were stealing guard rails for scrap. How in god's name do you show up at a scrap yard with a truck load of guard rail and nobody thinks that's at all suspicious?

[Ferretlover]

HHHHmmm.... The scrapyard owner is a former scavenger?

[Twilight]

I'm not a fan of government intervention, but it would be simple to require every scrap yard to get a name and photo ID for any scrap brought in.

That would stop a large chunk right there.

And spawn the field of metals laundering.

I do have to wonder sometimes though. There were some guys in Western Washington that were stealing guard rails for scrap. How in god's name do you show up at a scrap yard with a truck load of guard rail and nobody thinks that's at all suspicious?

Material laundering happens already. Some materials require origin and transfer documents due to environmental regulations, and there are always a few unscrupulous individuals who will do whatever it takes to save money.

Nothing suspicious about selling guard rails for scrap though. There is a legitimate need every time someone does a demolition job that includes guard rails. But you also have to understand scrap yards are eye-opening places if you think pawn shops are seedy. I am a little bit cynical about their ability to pay taxes correctly.

[Fiddlerdave]

My understanding of current flow in a conductor is that much of the flow occurs on the surface, which is why foil traces on circuit boards can carry quite a bit more current in a very thin but wide trace than intuition would estimate. In heavy cables, the center of the cable's purpose is almost more to provide a heat sink for the surface heating than it is for conductivity.

Thus a copper clad steel wire could have low resistance where it needs it the most, on the surface. I expect its cost to manufacture would be higher, both from making the bond between the two metals AND copper's ductile nature is just so easy to work with, steel will be a more difficult process.

Look for a more expensive cable in this case, that will be less attractive to steal, if the thieves pay any attention, that is.

[Kingcoal]

Now picture in your head what the statue of liberty is going to look like once people steal the skin for copper.

I have a picture in my head of what the statue of liberty will look like in the far future but the skin is still intact.

Are you implying that our generation will be known as those "damn dirty apes?"

[smallpoxgirl]

My understanding of current flow in a conductor is that much of the flow occurs on the surface,

Depends on the frequency. DC current flows more or less homogenously through the conductor. With AC, the higher the frequency, the more the current flow is constrained to the exterior of the conductor. It's called "skin effect".

[Twilight]

Yes, that's why HV busbars are tubular.

I think take-up of copper-plated steel core wiring might be limited though, the additional expense might be acceptable in a time of crisis, but thieves will cause damage regardless because they will not know the difference until afterwards. Also, it does nothing about the huge installed base of pure copper and aluminium wiring.

This is all a real shame, a sign of the times.

[xrotaryguy]

I have been personally pushing the battery-electric vehicle (EV) as a solution to the US' dependence -and perhaps even the world's depoendence- on a rapidly diminishing liquid fuel supply. However, one of the arguments that I have heard against battery-electric cars is that the earth simply lacks enough raw materials to support this type of transportation fleet.

This argument has some validity as electric cars would probably use a fair amount of copper and the estimated crustal abundance of copper is only 60mg/kg. Copper is a very good conductor of both heat and electricity. As such, it is one of the most common materials found in electrical equipment today.

However, copper is not the only suitable element for this type of use. Aluminum is also quite good. In fact, much of the wiring that we find in over head power lines is an alloy of aluminum and steel. Granted, aluminum conducts neither heat nor electricity as readily as copper, but an aluminum wire's lesser electrical conductivity properties can be overcome in most cases by simply increasing the wire's diameter. Better yet, the estimated crustal abundance of aluminum is a whopping 8,230mg/kg.

As mentioned above, one of the more common materials to alloy with aluminum is steel, which is an alloy of iron and carbon. Again, iron is in great abundance compared to copper at 5,630mg/kg.

Some electronics do not work well with aluminum circuitry, but most can be made to work very well with aluminum in place of copper. Nearly all high tension lines are are an aluminum-steel alloy, House wiring cane be made from aluminum. Automobile circuitry can be made from aluminum. AC motors can use aluminum windings. (An AC motor has no rotor windings. A DC motor would probably not work so well with aluminum rotor windings). Transformers are often built with aluminum windings. The list goes on and on.

The argument that the earth does not contain enough copper to exclusively wire the entire world is probably correct. Fortunately, using copper exclusively is not necessary.

[americandream]

Assuming for a second that we have this planet wide reconfiguration as you contempate in your article, what do you run the foundries fabricating these base materials on?

Once the door to a new technology is flung open to rampant consumerism, without due thought, another set of problems arise. With the internet, we were all fed the usual blather about decentralising employment, online shopping, paperless commerce etc, etc. Very little of that has come to pass, instead the internet has opened the planet to a new level of even more rampant consumerism. I'm not knocking this ourtcome...after all, it would have been naive not to have expected business to seize this new tool.....but we do seem to invariably land ourselves deeper in the shit I notice.

[BigTex]

Isn't aluminum manufacturing an especially resource intensive process?

[Ainan]

You are quite right, aluminum is in fact the most abundant metal in the earths crust, but it rarely exists in pure form. I believe it consumes 2% of all the worlds electric supply to produce our current levels. We would be much better off recycling all the copper, aluminum and other metals just piled up in dumps than mining more though.

More to the point, when we have consumed the reserves of copper and such to make these EVs, how do we power them into the future? If you develop a working He-3 fusion reactor then we can talk, probably about population reduction.