[Tyler_JC]

We won't have to dig any out of the ground, since there's so much in the houses, wires, etc. there's a LOT of copper per capita and population's going to go way down, remember. I'd not stock up on any metals.

I dont see any evidence of a population implosion or a decline in copper demand.

Dezakin has a point. Copper prices have DOUBLED in the past few years. Above ground reserves are at record lows. The copper we can recycle will have to come out of our standard of living. All of our electrical wiring contains copper and if you want to run the world on an electrical grid, you will need copper.

True, we have mined quite a bit of the stuff, but the costs involved with taking apart a computer to get that little bit out will make copper rather expensive compared to today's prices. Copper mining ain't like it was back in the day. We used to have 50% copper mines (at the start of the copper age). Now we have .03% copper mines that are only profitable with cheap energy.

Aluminum smelting requires a great deal of energy. Many smelters are going broke as it is, think about what another doubling of energy prices might do. There are several other good conductors, but silver is far more expensive to use and gold...

Dezakin is also right about population growth. When, in the history of mankind, have we had a 90% population reduction worldwide? The only time I can think of was back in 30,000(?)BCE when a massive volcanic reaction nearly wiped out our species. Population growth is likely to continue for decades. Even a global pandemic will only encourage the survivors to create more little ones to fill the labor gap. The ONLY drop is population growth occurs because of modernization. More cars, more computers, more wealth=less kids. What happens when we step backward into the dark ages? More kids and the same level of medical understanding.

There is NO gurantee that human population growth will slow down any time soon. Food is our key resource and food production must grow every year or someone dies. Humanity will not allow 90%+ of its members to starve to death overnight. Governments will be forced to get food for The People or risk revolution.

I guess I'm feeling doomy this morning.

[RG73]

Dezakin is also right about population growth. When, in the history of mankind, have we had a 90% population reduction worldwide? The only time I can think of was back in 30,000(?)BCE when a massive volcanic reaction nearly wiped out our species. Population growth is likely to continue for decades. Even a global pandemic will only encourage the survivors to create more little ones to fill the labor gap. The ONLY drop is population growth occurs because of modernization.

Ummm, the Black Death? Ummm, European contact with the Americas and Australia? You're right, we haven't had 90% die-off on a every continent, but you did get something along those lines in North and South America when the dirty Europeans came with their bad hygiene and diseases. You will see something like this in Africa from HIV and other diseases that are ravaging the continent in the next few decades. The recovery time from the Black Death was, I believe, at least a century, if not more. People didn't rebound immediately. There will be no rebound in Africa, at least by Africans, given that they're dying of an STD. Making more kids just makes more deaths. It is pretty foolhardy to think we can escape disease. And it is hardly as if that is the only problem we face.

There is NO gurantee that human population growth will slow down any time soon.

Good luck. I'm betting we don't make it past 7 billion. That we're going to be immune to the mass extinction of large mammals that is currently going on is wishful thinking. And, in any case, we already passed peak mammal diveristy in the Miocene--its all downhill from there. We're a flash in the pan. No species goes on forever, especially silly primates that think they've got it all under control.

Food is our key resource and food production must grow every year or someone dies

Food production isn't growing and people are dying.

Humanity will not allow 90%+ of its members to starve to death overnight.

Haha! Starvation happens all the time and no one cares. We're letting people be systematically starved in Sudan, not to mention much of Africa. North Koreans are always starving. No one cared when Stalin starved 30 odd million people to death. China would not care one bit if 200 million or so people starved to death. There is no "humanity"--countries look out for themselves, and people look out for themselves. People will starve and the those lucky enough to get the food will not care.

Governments will be forced to get food for The People or risk revolution.

Nope. More like governments will hunker down in their underground bunkers that they built for WWIII and stocked with a few decades worth of food and water. The people will be left to fend for themselves. It is pretty rare that governments get overthrown for not providing food. Look at North Korea. Look at Stalinist Russia. Nope. The people just die.

[Dezakin]

Ummm, the Black Death? Ummm, European contact with the Americas and Australia? You're right, we haven't had 90% die-off on a every continent, but you did get something along those lines in North and South America when the dirty Europeans came with their bad hygiene and diseases.

The largest figures for the black death was a 30% drop in Europe. not this 90% nonsense.

The european invasion was far less a case of die off than genocide, but I suppose you can consider them the same. Even so it didn't represent a net decline in global population.

There will be no rebound in Africa, at least by Africans, given that they're dying of an STD. Making more kids just makes more deaths. It is pretty foolhardy to think we can escape disease. And it is hardly as if that is the only problem we face.

Even without modern medicine, HIV is not the threat to humanity that popular media imply. Any analysis of human immunology shows HIV to be only the latest asteroid targetting us, the species has seen it all before.

With modern medicine its only a matter of time before HIV is contained. Its allready starting.

Good luck. I'm betting we don't make it past 7 billion. That we're going to be immune to the mass extinction of large mammals that is currently going on is wishful thinking. And, in any case, we already passed peak mammal diveristy in the Miocene--its all downhill from there. We're a flash in the pan. No species goes on forever, especially silly primates that think they've got it all under control.

No species actually controls the environment the way humanity does. To attempt to model humanity the way you model ants or rodents is folly. Might as well try to model a steel plants productivity by studying stork mating habits. Yes humanity is immune to the extinction of large mammals.

China would not care one bit if 200 million or so people starved to death.

Okay. Thats why those in power fret so much about unemployment.

We certainly aren't on the brink of starvation, we can clearly illustrate agrarian productive capacity, and its enough to support many billions more than currently tax this ball of mud.

[Tanada]

Bascially, copper is the building block of most thermal or electrical energy transfer equipment.

Many renewable energy concepts require a disproportionate amount of material relative to the production. For instance, either solar grids or wind technology require a collection system capable of moving a fair charge at a peak time, and this is stored and used over the lulls. But, by nature, this means a lot of material.

Are there any forecast for copper production out there? Will our future be constrained by this vital material? Aluminum can be a reasonable substitutre, but it has a huge energy input in its smelting.

For houshold use Iron works as a copper substitute, though more of the electriciy is wasted through higher resistence. Other than that there is also the mining of the sea floor which will be occuring as time goes on, the Manganese Noduales which occur in large ammounts in the Cook Islands for instance would supply a decent ammount of Cuprium as a byproduct. See http://www.sopac.org/data/virlib/MR/MR0295.pdf

[smiley]

Are there any forecast for copper production out there? Will our future be constrained by this vital material?

I think so. The prices of copper are already exploding

copper 5 year price chart

Worldwide stocks are at all time lows.

LME stocks

I doubt that we have enough copper to switch to an electricity/hydrogen based economy. If you are interested in the copper situation I think "the coming copper crunch" from Doug Casey is requiered reading material

The coming copper crunch

What about new mine supply?

The big issue with supply is that the majority of the world's copper deposits have already been discovered, mostly in the 1960s. They've been found because copper is usually located in near-surface porphyry deposits - structures with a large geological "footprint" that make them relatively easy to find and, once found, easy to understand and to exploit.

As a result, new discoveries are hard to come by and tend to be deeper and harder to mine. Recent examples are Ivanhoe's Turquoise Hill in Mongolia, a buried porphyry, and Rio Tinto's recent find in Arizona, a resource located at a depth of 2,000 meters. To state the obvious, the deeper the mine the more time and the more money is required to put the mine into production.

For example, Turquoise Hill - a large resource estimated at 19 million tons - won't be put into production until 2007 at the earliest, and, depending on the size and production plan, only after an expense of up to $2 billion.

Cutting to the chase, in order for the copper industry to off-set the fast approaching supply/demand shortfall, it will have to do much, much better - in fact, it will require a new mega-mine on the order of Turquoise Hill to come on line each and every year for the foreseeable future.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it.

[joewp]

It looks like only pennys from 1981 and before are worth keeping for copper.
Penny fun facts

Unless zinc gets expensive too!

[smiley]

It looks like only pennys from 1981 and before are worth keeping for copper.
Penny fun facts

Unless zinc gets expensive too! Smile

Pre 1981 pennies are 3.11 gram and composed of a 95% copper, 5% zinc alloy.

Copper is curently at 1.6674 $/lb
Zinc is currently at 0.5761 $/lb
(www.metalprices.com)

That makes the intrinsic value of this penny 1.0992586 cents

Pretty good investment indeed

[dauterman]

http://www.firstnews.com.ua/en/stock/st ... l?id=64932

The copper market is threatening to turn disorderly as stockpiles, which are at 30-year lows, drive prices into uncharted territory.

Anyone with Dollars 113.5m to spare could buy up all the stock on the books of the London Metal Exchange, even at Monday's record high of Dollars 3,435 a tonne. About 95 per cent of the world's copper is traded on the LME.

"Given the pace at which stock is coming off the LME, it is not inconceivable that within the next couple of months, there might be no inventory left," Nick Moore of ABN Amro warned. "Would we then have a disorderly market?"

The LME dismissed talk of a "stock out", saying that it has never happened before. "There have been times when stocks have been low and the LME has always maintained an effective and orderly market throughout," an LME spokesman said. The exchange is monitoring the situation and a special committee has the powers to intervene if necessary. He declined to elaborate.

The LME's warehouses held 33,050 tonnes of copper, as of yesterday, their lowest level since July 1974. With stocks in Shanghai of 30,172 tonnes and at the New York-based Comex of 14,542 tonnes, there are just 77,764 tonnes on the books of the three copper exchanges. Physical stocks held by producers, consumers and merchants are 10 times that at 787,000 tonnes. But these industrial operators are reluctant to release tonnage on to the exchanges before their own stockpiles are higher.

[Claudia]

Pre 1981 pennies are 3.11 gram and composed of a 95% copper, 5% zinc alloy.

Copper is curently at 1.6674 $/lb
Zinc is currently at 0.5761 $/lb
(www.metalprices.com)

That makes the intrinsic value of this penny 1.0992586 cents

Pretty good investment indeed.

Yes -- but if using the price of the pure metals when estimating its value as an investment, wouldn't you have to add in the cost of recovering the pure metals from the alloy penny? Otherwise it's the value if the alloy that matters (which might be more or less than the sum of its parts, I don't know which).

[Tyler_JC]

If you had held on to $100 worth of pennies from 1980 for 25 years...the value of the pennies would decrease at the rate of inflation. Yes, the copper is worth 9% more. But you were better off buying a government 30 year bond at 10% in 1980 .

[Dezakin]

I doubt that we have enough copper to switch to an electricity/hydrogen based economy. If you are interested in the copper situation I think "the coming copper crunch" from Doug Casey is requiered reading material

Thats pretty silly when you model coppers depletion rate. You double the price of copper and you have ten times the resources. Its not like oil at all, and nearly all copper is recycled... unlike oil. The two aren't nearly as similar as you imply.

Most of the run up in price can easily be attributed to the rise of China's incredibly voracious industrial base without time for similar mine infrastructure to be built. Go ahead. invest in copper. I'll sell you the contracts short.

[smiley]

If you had held on to $100 worth of pennies from 1980 for 25 years...the value of the pennies would decrease at the rate of inflation. Yes, the copper is worth 9% more. But you were better off buying a government 30 year bond at 10% in 1980

True, Maybe not such a good investment. But it is funny though that you cannot use a penny to buy the corresponding amount of metal. Makes you wonder about the sanity of the fiat system.

Thats pretty silly when you model coppers depletion rate. You double the price of copper and you have ten times the resources. Its not like oil at all, and nearly all copper is recycled... unlike oil. The two aren't nearly as similar as you imply.

Most of the run up in price can easily be attributed to the rise of China's incredibly voracious industrial base without time for similar mine infrastructure to be built. Go ahead. invest in copper. I'll sell you the contracts short.

That's not entirely correct. You need to free up the material before you can recycle it. Most copper is locked up in applications and therefore cannot be recycled. A price rise will not suddenly raise the amount of copper available for recycling. Even if the copper price doubles or triples you're not going to rip the plumbing from your wall, right.

And about finding new deposits. If I read the article correctly, this is the root of the problem. It is hard to find new accessible copper deposits.

The copper situation is indeed very different from oil, I grant you that. But I do believe that the copper situation has the potential to cause major problems in the short to medium term. And that is exactly what we don't need.

[Dezakin]

Even if the copper price doubles or triples you're not going to rip the plumbing from your wall, right.

One would suspect that you enter resource substitution scenarios. In the meanwhile, new mining projects do open up.

And about finding new deposits. If I read the article correctly, this is the root of the problem. It is hard to find new accessible copper deposits.

Its all finding economically accessible resources, which changes with the spot price.

[The_Virginian]

I could see pre 1981 pennies trading for a shot of wiskey or a jug of potable water...post SHTF.

I could find more expesive ways to prepare for SHTF. Hording a tad of CU sounds like a fun way to fantasize about the future.

[AmericanEmpire]

http://money.excite.com/ht/nw/bus/20051 ... 81061.html

Supply concerns intensified a day after Chile, the world's leading copper producer, lowered its 2005 and 2006 production forecasts and raised forecasts for prices.

Chile's announcement came with global copper inventories already near historic lows. The market had brushed aside news earlier in the week that more supply would hit the market.

I guess oils not the only resource that we got to worry about, huh?

[Chuckmak]

I guess oils not the only resource that we got to worry about, huh?

pretty much.

[katkinkate]

Time to mine landfills for discarded copper wire yet? At least it doesn't need refining.

[lowem]

321energy.com and peakoil.com :

If oil is the most important commodity, then copper cannot be far behind. Being used extensively in electrical power cables, electrical equipment, automobile radiators, cooling/refrigeration tubing, heat exchangers, artillery shell casings, optical fibre, water pipes, drain pipes, plumbing and even jewellery, this reddish-brown metal is a commodity that the world can ill afford to be in short supply of.

But the fact of the matter is that copper is yet another metal that is in a mining deficit that was predicted to be 700,000 tons in 2004 by the USGS 2005 summary. That would be about 5% of the estimated 14.5 million tons produced worldwide. As a result, stockpiles have reduced and prices have increased to over the $2 a pound mark recently.

Against this backdrop, I was nevertheless surprised to read recent comments by Ross Beaty, the chairman of Pan American Silver and Lumina Copper, that global copper production was approaching its own version of "Peak Oil" or shall we say "Peak Copper"?

[AmericanEmpire]

I posted on this back in november: http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic14786.html
Looks like we are so screwed on all kinds of resource limits. But the market will find a substitute right?

[lowem]

Shucks, I've probably missed your post, heh. Yup, as peakoilers naturally we're interested in all things peak, and so far we've got not only oil and gas but also precious metals like gold & silver and now even base metals like copper.

From the consumption angle, there's also peak food, water & fish, and recently there's been some mention of peak arable land too. For energy alternatives, we've also heard talk of peak uranium, peak coal, and there's also been talk of peaks in the more exotic stuff like platinum, palladium & molybdenum as well.