[HN Gopher] A looming copper crunch and why recycling can't fix it ___________________________________________________________________ A looming copper crunch and why recycling can't fix it Author : simonebrunozzi Score : 75 points Date : 2022-07-31 19:35 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.mining.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.mining.com) | amluto wrote: | Some cursory searching suggests that between 40 and 50% of copper | is used in building construction. I don't know the further | breakdown, but: | | Copper is widely used for flashing. For this application, | galvanized steel, aluminum, and stainless steel can substitute. | All are less expensive. | | Copper is used for pipes. They are _much_ more expensive than | plastics. Arguably, depending on the particular application, one | or more plastic options are as good or better. (Copper is | unharmed by moderate chlorine concentrations and sunlight. It's | mechanically strong. It's inert to water at appropriate pH. It is | quite reactive to water at the wrong pH. Boiler condensate will | quickly destroy it.) | | Copper is used for heavy-gauge electrical wire. For many of these | applications, aluminum is much less expensive and arguable | superior (it's lighter and more flexible). | | Copper is used for 12 and 14 gauge branch circuits. Aluminum | branch circuits are currently strongly discouraged. | | In any event, a lot of copper is consumed for applications that | don't need it. If prices go up, the industry can adapt. | version_five wrote: | > Copper is used for 12 and 14 gauge branch circuits. Aluminum | branch circuits are currently strongly discouraged. | | Maybe you're already saying this: there was a period (maybe | ~70s) where aluminum was used for household wiring because of | the advantages you mention. Unfortunately it oxidizes resulting | in higher resistance leading to heat and potentially fire at | connections. Where I am, insurers ask you if you have aluminum | wiring when you buy a house (and penalize you for it), and it | is generally regarded as a failed experiment. | SoftTalker wrote: | Yep. Aluminum wiring can be safe, but you need to coat all | the connections with anti-oxidizing grease. And even at at | that, I don't know how long it lasts. | | Copper pipe for water is often specified by code in | commercial construction. I've heard this is due to lobbying | by plumber's unions but not sure about that. Most residential | construction will use CPVC or PEX these days. | toomuchtodo wrote: | I am a huge fan of PEX from a cost and longevity | perspective (it can withstand some freezing of water | without bursting), but copper is cool for its anti | microbial and similar chemical resistance properties. If | money was no object, I'd spec copper over plastics for | water supply if I expected the structure to exist for | 50-100 years. Disposable structures? Plastics all the way, | dump the whole thing in a plasma gasifier upon retirement. | NegativeLatency wrote: | Not just pipes but also fittings and valve assemblies mostly in | brass | labrador wrote: | I hope people realize this is the solution and not the Pebble | Mine in Alaska | | https://www.kuow.org/stories/copper-versus-salmon-why-an-ala... | ThunderSizzle wrote: | Probably completely anecdote evidence, but plastic piping needs | to be replaced every 20-ish years, while copper has easily last | multiple decades. | | 20 years is fine assuming all the piping is easy to get to | (e.g. around a hot water heater). A lot of piping is not and | would require refinishing quite of a bit of piping. | | My research seems to indicate most residential plastic tubing | still has a lifetime of 20 years, from what I can tell. | aardvarkr wrote: | A quick google search shows that pvc piping has a lifespan of | 100 years.[0] Please edit your post to acknowledge this. | | [0] https://www.ipexna.com/media/3074/pvc-pipe-longevity- | report.... | jefftk wrote: | 20 years sounds really short to me? I've seen numbers quoted | anywhere from 30 to 50 for PEX. | SoftTalker wrote: | Yeah I know of CPVC piping that is at well over 20 years | and still OK. It does get brittle with age though. | just_boost_it wrote: | I'm in a 25 year old building and we had to replace all the | plastic piping last year. The pipes became fragile and | started randomly bursting. In about 50 apartments, we were | having about 2 leaks a year, and were finding it hard to | find plumbing companies to actually repair them. | jti107 wrote: | i might have missed it in the article but it seems the issue is | that there arent enough mines coming online to meet the new | demand NOT that we dont have enough copper. it is about the same | abundance as zinc and nickel. this is where the free market | should help, if the price goes up enough it should incentivize | companies to open more mines and possibly innovate new mining | methods. | nick__m wrote: | the article address that : While there is | enough copper in the world, geologically speaking, to supply | the increased demand, there isn't enough time. It | takes 10 to 15 years to get a new copper mine through | permitting and construction. Twenty years is not unusual for | very large projects. | stevenjgarner wrote: | It will be interesting to see to what extent either other | conductors (such as graphene, one of the best conductors [0]) or | asteroid mining for iron, copper, nickel, and cobalt [1] become | feasible in time (mid-century?) to offset the shortage of copper. | | [0] https://www.nanowerk.com/what_is_graphene.php | | [1] https://pwr.edu.pl/en/university/news/raw-materials-from- | ast... | stevenjgarner wrote: | Not much discussion on HN yet about "the looming copper crunch" | - these postings all had no comments: | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32111282 | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32101391 | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28710646 | onion2k wrote: | _If the number of EVs on the road today remained static for the | next 20 years, recycling the metals in them might be able to make | up the bulk of the demand. But EV sales are growing | exponentially._ | | Why would car manufacturers be limited to copper from cars? For | example, there's huge amounts of copper in telecoms | infrastructure that's being replaced with fibre at the moment. | The originating source of the metal is irrelevant. The only | things that matter at purity, contaminants, and cost. If the | copper is sufficiently high quality, doesn't contain anything | that would stop it being used in a battery or a motor, and it's | cheap enough, then it's all good. | jmclnx wrote: | Well, in the US maybe time to eliminate the 1, 5 and maybe 10 | cent coins ? | | Yes, the 1 cent coins have little copper, but multiple millions | are produced per year. The others have a copper core. With | current inflation, 1/5/10 cent coins cannot buy anything. | | The only reason for the 25 cent coin are vending machines. | ravenstine wrote: | Not much copper in those unless you collect pre-1982 pennies. | New pennies have such a thin layer of copper plating that | separating that would be more trouble than it's worth. | | EDIT: Darn, can't delete now. Yes I agree, the penny should be | eliminated to save on copper. | jmclnx wrote: | true, but with the number of these made each years, they add | up. Plus all these do is cost everyone money to handle | (banks, shops and even the Gov). | brtkdotse wrote: | Is physical currency still common in the US? I haven't used | physical currency in probably 5-6 years, outside the 10 SEK the | tooth fairy leaves. | kube-system wrote: | It depends on what side of town you're on. There is a big | class and culture gap in the US financial system. Everyone on | this forum from the US likely is well banked. But a large | chunk of the US is not. A large number of people either do | not meet the requirements (undocumented immigrants), distrust | the system, or don't meet minimum balance requirements (or | don't want to deal with those requirements). | | https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/08/25percent-of-us- | households-a... | | https://www.npr.org/2021/04/05/984475870/unbanked-what-it- | me... | jeltz wrote: | Minimum balance requirements? Why is that a thing? | kube-system wrote: | Banks make money by lending on deposits. If you have no | deposits, they can't make any money. Although, almost | universally, banks will allow you to pay a few dollars | per month for your account instead. But, people who don't | have very much money usually don't have much of a need to | spend spend money for a service to hold on to their | money, because they don't have any. | kwhitefoot wrote: | But it still needs an explanation because European banks | don't charge for a current account. | nradov wrote: | Prepaid debit cards are now widely used by unbanked people | in the US. Some employers will even do direct deposit to | those cards. | kube-system wrote: | This is true, but cash is still widely used by the | unbanked as well. Go to a grocery store in a poor part of | town and you will see plenty of cash being handled at the | checkouts. | mikewarot wrote: | Internet isn't quite reliable in the US, it's good to have | some cash on hand in the event things go down. | | I tip in cash, so that taxes aren't taken out of an already | underpaid person's "wages". | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | Come to Austria. The entire country revolves around cash. | | I rarely see someone pay with card at the supermarket and | it's most likely a foreigner. Small shops and cafes don't | even take cards, only cash and the rare time they do it's | only for larger sums. | | Also tips are common almost everywhere. | brnt wrote: | I learned to avoid lines with old people in France, because | they will be paying with cash or even worse, cheques. | | Yes, I've heard all about the benefits of cash on HN, but | the millions of man years saved by not standing in line has | to be worth something too. One Auchan was boasting that | they got line time down to 4 minutes. In NL, anythng longer | than 30 seconds is unusual. | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | NL is a more modern country with a forward thinking | population. Germany and Austria are more backwards and | conservative. | | If you come to Austrian supermarkets at rush hour, the | lines will last several minutes. It not uncommon to hear | disgruntled customers (usually old people ironically) | yell at supermarket employees to open another till after | waiting for ages. | givemeethekeys wrote: | I've heard similar about Germany (someone from Germany, | please chime in). | | There's a lovely under-appreciated privacy about using | cash. | cannam wrote: | I'm not from Germany, but I just came back (to the UK) | from a holiday spent partly in Germany and partly in | Denmark. | | In Germany I paid cash for every casual snack-grade | transaction, and some bigger ones like restaurant meals. | It seemed totally normal and I was happy with that. | | In Denmark I never saw the currency at all and I have no | idea what it looks like. I never used it and I never saw | anyone else use it. Contactless everywhere. | | I much prefer cash and regret its disappearance from use | in my own country - we are about half-way between the | German and Danish experiences above, perhaps closer to | the Danish end. A holiday in Germany felt more like a | holiday because of this detail. What it feels like when | you actually live there is another question. | | But this stuff about cash is something of a distraction | from the question of metal use - it's increasingly | apparent that although electric cars may be an | improvement on oil-driven ones, they are not in any | useful way the solution. Being rid of cars and basically | all powered individual transport may be both dreary and | extreme, but what alternative is there? | enlyth wrote: | I live in the UK and don't think I've used cash for at | least three years if not longer, at least I can't | remember the last time I did and I love it. | | I understand the concerns about everything being logged | digitally, but it is just so much more convenient than | carrying a bulky wallet with a coin pouch, and messing | around with coins at the till holding everyone up for | ages. For some reason people think it's a binary choice | between privacy or convenience, but it doesn't have to be | that way. | | I have started going out without my wallet recently, one | less thing to lose, and just paying with my phone | everywhere. | djbusby wrote: | Phone and wallet together. Now I can lose two very | important things in one easy step. | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | Meh, since everything on your phone is digital, loosing | it and restoring everything including your digital wallet | is a few taps away after buying a new phone. | | Meanwhile when you loose your physical wallet, it takes | day or weeks, plus trips and legal paperwork to issue new | cards, IDs, driver's license, etc. It's a complete | nightmare. | nradov wrote: | There is really no need to get rid of all powered | individual transport. That is basically an ideological | position, not a scientific one. It has basically become a | modern secular religion, where people feel the need to | atone for the "sin" of harming the environment, and want | to forcibly convert the rest of us heathens. | | Anthropomorphic global climate change is absolutely a | real problem and we should do more to reduce carbon | emissions. But reliable, high-speed personal mobility has | brought about a tremendous improvement in quality of | life. There's no way I'll agree to give up owning | personal cars. | cannam wrote: | > There is really no need to get rid of all powered | individual transport. That is basically an ideological | position, not a scientific one. | | Nah. I used to hope that moving propulsion to the | electric grid would allow us to use renewables to drive | transport and so do it all for almost nothing. And I also | thought that it was vital to sell a solution, to come up | with replacements that people would not just accept but | actively choose. And that these could lead to a | sustainable world. | | But it's not true. It's wishful thinking, the dreamer's | position, it's the ideological one. The scientific | position is that none of this is remotely enough, for | reasons like those discussed in the article above. Cars | will be got rid of, one way or another - we don't have | the resources to sustain them except at the cost of, | well, us. The question is just whether we can find a way | to sell that idea to ourselves and reorganise ourselves | before it happens for us. | | As I said, it's dreary and it feels extreme and I don't | like it, but I don't see what alternative there is. The | brilliant and engaging ideas just don't add up. | helloguillecl wrote: | Quasi-german here. Cash is still king in Germany as of | 2022. | | It has gotten better after the Pandemic. | | Germans use outdated tech because it works. They use cash | very rapidly and efficiently. I'd say Germans handle cash | faster than paying with physical cards. | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | _> Germans use outdated tech because it works._ | | That's not a good argument for progress in general. We'd | still be in the stone age with that mentally. | | This is also a reflection on the lack of digitalization | and IT/tech innovation in Germany and Austria in general | vs other European countries that tend to adopt tech | earlier. | | _> I'd say Germans handle cash faster than paying with | physical cards._ | | I'd beg to differ when there's lots of change and coins | involved. | | Some could be fast with an abacus but that doesn't mean | we're not all better off with pocket calculators. | | Like with many things, just because that's how Germany | does a thing, doesn't mean it's great. | helloguillecl wrote: | Im very critical of Germany, and I think they have lost | the leadership in too many regards. | | But I think people miss how well do things work in | Germany despite the low (IT) tech. I didn't understand it | until I moved here. | onion2k wrote: | Fun fact about cash payments in Germany - they're all | reported to the government in real time. There used to be | fiscalization rules that meant Point of Sale devices had | to store 5 years worth of transaction data for auditing, | but recently theyve moved to just having the POS report | everything directly over the Internet. Lots of countries | do the same sort of thing. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscalization | enlyth wrote: | Anecdote but I was there a few weeks ago and did have a | similar experience. It was really annoying, so many small | shops chose not to take card, and as tourists you usually | get screwed on the exchange rates if you need cash. Also | a concert with 20k people attending, none of the card | machines worked, and no one seemed to kick up a fuss just | paid cash, while we had none with us so had to "enjoy" it | without drinks or food. | sva_ wrote: | Cash is still king in Germany, but use of "contactless" | payment methods have drastically increased in the | pandemic. | | Small shops often prefer or only take cash, or accept | card payment only from a certain amount due to fees of | the processors. I heard small businesses prefer cash for | tax reasons as well. | benmanns wrote: | Tax reasons means evading taxes by not reporting cash | transactions. | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | It's also super annoying to wait in line at the | supermarket until all banknotes, coins and pennies are | exchanged and counted between each customer and the | supermarket employee vs paying by card wich takes 2-5s. | It adds up to minutes wasted nearly every day.and | probably weeks/months over a lifetime. Plus the CO2 to | transport cash back and forth. | | But most seriously, cash payments enable tons of tax | fraud, especially by business owners in the hospitality | industry, making it unfair to those with jobs who pay | nearly half their salary in tax, while Gastro owners will | buy another Porsche or vacation home from the taxes they | dodged thanks to cash payments. | | I hope they ban cash, it's annoying, time wasting, | environmentally unfortunately and makes life super easy | for tax fraudsters to the detriment of those who have to | pay their taxes fairly. | | The privacy reason is some hypocritical bullshit, as | those same people using exclusively cash, carry privacy | invasive Apple/Android phones and constantly use spying | services of Google, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, | Tinder, Snapchat, etc. The real "privacy" they're | referring to means privacy from the taxman for their | illicit financial gains, a.k.a. tax fraud. That's the | real reason, and I hope it gets cracked down. | shrimp_emoji wrote: | >Going to the supermarket instead of getting groceries | delivered | | In what universe | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | Who are you quoting? I never said that. | jessaustin wrote: | Parent was trying to be charitable. Apparently your time | is quite valuable, so that it is a serious imposition to | find oneself ahead of you in a supermarket queue. Since | your time is so valuable, we'd all breathe easier if you | would avail yourself of more significant time savers like | the many grocery delivery services that are now | available. Or perhaps you should hire a personal | assistant to run your errands? | nradov wrote: | Grocery delivery services are mostly trash and don't save | time; in my experience dealing with the hassles often | takes _more_ time than just driving to the supermarket. | The delivery windows are too wide, and often too far in | the future. They don 't pick the right pieces of meat or | produce. And if something is out of stock they pick an | inappropriate substitute, not none at all. | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | No need to be snarky. You can have efficient grocery | shopping that saves everyone time if everyone paid by | card/contactless like you see in NL or the Nordics | instead of wasting time and resources counting coins and | transporting them around when the digital alternative is | so much more efficient. | | No need to create more CO2 for the packaging and | transport of groceries to your door if the supermarket is | on your way from work anyway. Plus you get to pick the | exact fruits and veggies you like yourself. | | I assume you have a US viewpoint where grocery delivery | is common but this is not a thing for consumers in | Austria outside of the capital. It also costs extra so | there's that. | jessaustin wrote: | I have never used grocery delivery; perhaps it has been | available in my area for a couple of years. After we've | been "locked down" for so long, it seems fortunate that | we're able to enjoy the company of fellow citizens in the | grocery store and various other locations where we all | queue together. People have waited behind me in queue | (and I've visited some benighted locales where queueing | is a habit the public has not yet mastered), so I | appreciate the opportunity to take the other side in this | transaction. One character we _don 't_ need around is | someone who feels like the line should move faster. | | Either you vastly exaggerate the time savings of card | payments, or credit card machines in your community are | more reliable than what we have here. Don't brag too hard | about living in the future, however, because here we | often have the option of self-checkout, which typically | is faster than even looking at a cashier. (Unless one of | the oldsters who annoy you so has wandered into that lane | and now contemplates the scanner as if it were the | cockpit of the Space Shuttle. In that case one might | offer assistance? Most of our self checkouts take cash!) | | The day will come when all purchases will require the | approval of several more parties than the buyer and the | seller. We will not enjoy that circumstance, so people | wiser (and perhaps less hurried?) than you will use cash | as long as we can. | fmakunbound wrote: | What's the reasons for that? | jbverschoor wrote: | Same reason people DuckDuckGo. They have a stronger | connection to the history of snooping on civilians | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | Easier tax fraud mostly to keep your illicitly gained | money away from the taxman. | | Plus conservative population that is skeptical about new | tech and strongly keeps outdated ways of working and | doing business (visible in any company there). Letters | are common as well and digitalization is pretty weak. | | Like what's the last tech product you remember that came | out of Austria? | overtonwhy wrote: | Mostly only required for drugs and gambling these days. | noah_buddy wrote: | I carry cash almost entirely to tip servers and other service | industry employees in cash. One Americanism for another, huh? | But that's only bills, no coinage. | jeltz wrote: | On Sweden we usually tip with the same method of payment as | we paid the bill with. | kwhitefoot wrote: | You tip in Sweden? Who do you tip, and why? And why them | and not others such as the cashier in a supermarket or a | bus driver? | noah_buddy wrote: | I usually pay credit and tip cash because I expect more | of it to make it to the servers and kitchen staff and | less to the owner/none to CC companies. | timoteostewart wrote: | I don't see Sweden on this historical tracker of money left | by the tooth fairy. The current U.S. average of $5.50 would | be 55 SEK! | | https://www.deltadental.com/us/en/tooth-fairy/the- | original-p... | MichaelCollins wrote: | I use it pretty much every day. Almost all restaurants and | stores have an ATM, and when not, there's always one | somewhere nearby. | | For me it's a matter of principle, I use cash because I want | businesses to continue accepting cash. I have credit cards | and I sometimes use them out of laziness (or for anything | over $200 or so, or online...) But if a business refuses cash | then I'll refuse to do business with them, because I think | they're disenfranchising people who don't have credit cards | and I won't support that. Thankfully this is fairly rare. | kevin_thibedeau wrote: | > Almost all restaurants and stores have an ATM | | You should never use a private ATM. They are prime targets | for skimmers. | stevenjgarner wrote: | The copper penny hoarders are beating you to it [0]. I met a | "retired" guy who is driving around the US buying boxes of | pennies from banks sorting them into copper or not. He sells | the sorted copper pennies to penny hoarders [1] and uses the | non-copper pennies to spend at the Walmart NCR cash registers | (they have to love him). He said he does not get rich but makes | enough to get by. | | We went out for a meal and discussed the feasibility of sorting | the pennies by date using ML. The real gold mine would be that | an AI approach might potentially identify numismatic grade | pennies and really pay for itself. | | [0] https://www.wikihow.com/Hoard-Copper-Pennies | | [1] https://moneyning.com/make-money/how-to-cash-in-your- | pennies... | MichaelCollins wrote: | Codyslab sorting copper pennies using magnetic inductance: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gM9mOk6eb8 | | Seems very simple and low tech. | shrubble wrote: | There are slight differences in weight between the 1982 and | later, and the copper containing pennies. | | You don't need to use ML, you need a comparator of the kind | found in 1000s of vending machines. | OJFord wrote: | ML's just a comparator where the designer doesn't | (necessarily) understand the logic, right? | loa_in_ wrote: | If you have an universal constructor, yes, it's going to | be a problem that solves itself. | | In practice you need a high fidelity weight sensor and a | handful of transistors. | dehrmann wrote: | What if we ran that ML on the etherium network? | yieldcrv wrote: | is that a large enough driver of demand? | sva_ wrote: | I'm actually quite fond of the 25 cent coins I got from the US. | They work in shopping carts here (you have to put a coin into a | shopping cart to get it, and you get the coin back after you | bring it back, but they usually only accept 1 or 2 euro. I'm | much more likely to still have the quarter, since I can't spend | it here.) | | I got bunch of coins when I had to use a laundromat in the US | once, they only accepted quarters. Exchange $20 at a different | machine and get a ton of metal. I suppose its like legacy | software. | gerdesj wrote: | Back in the late '70/early '80s the UK 10p coin was similar | enough in size and weight to fool some German vending | machines as a "1 DM" coin (Deutchmark). The rough rule of | thumb rate of exchange was 1 GBP to 4 DM back then. | sva_ wrote: | A large number of European vending machines still accept | the 10 thai baht coin as a 2 Euro coin (10 baht are approx. | 30 cents). | | I heard the newer machines use a combination of methods, | including weight and electrical resistance to test if a | coin is actually the right one. | JoshuaDavid wrote: | The US mints about 8 billion pennies per year, which at 2.5g | each and 2.5% copper, works out to about 500 metric tons of | copper. Add in nickels (1.5B x 5g x 75% copper = 5600 metric | tons), dimes (3B x 2.2g x 92% copper = 6100 metric tons Cu), | and quarters (2.5B x 5.7g x 92% copper = 13000 metric tons | copper). | | Which works out to just over 25000 metric tons of copper per | year used in US coinage. | | About 2 million metric tons of copper are used in the US per | year. So all coinage represents about 1.25% of US copper | consumption, of which quarters are about half. | | There are some good reasons to eliminate small coinage, but "it | will noticeably help with a copper shortage" isn't really one | of them. | light_hue_1 wrote: | > Yes, the 1 cent coins have little copper, but multiple | millions are produced per year | | Billions are produced per year, not millions. The mint makes on | average 10 billion pennies per year, | https://qz.com/1318203/making-pennies-costs-the-us-mint-mill... | Varies by year. | | It is still a totally irrelevant amount of copper. | | One penny has 2.95g of copper in it. 10 billion pennies have | 30,000 tons of copper in them. Worldwide copper production is | 20 million tons. 0.015% of the world's copper is used for | pennies. That's a rounding error. | | Just because a number is big, doesn't mean it matters. | | Sure. Get rid of the penny. But not because it will impact our | copper supply in any way. | sixstringtheory wrote: | Still, I care less about relative quantities and more about | what can be produced with the absolute amount at hand. How | many houses, cars or circuit boards could be made with 30,000 | tons a year? | | There's always some bigger problem you can point to that | seems to render the point at hand useless, but as they say, | 30K tons of copper saved is 30K tons of copper earned. | tedunangst wrote: | What percentage of US copper consumption is devoted to penny | production? | tomnipotent wrote: | All new pennies since 1983 are 98% zinc. | twic wrote: | > For some standard EV models, Ford will use lithium-iron- | sulphate batteries | | Googled this, and google gave me a page full of results for | lithium iron phosphate batteries. Not a single mention of | sulphate (or sulfate). There are people actually getting paid a | salary to do this. | kccqzy wrote: | It is actually similarly difficult to Google other new battery | chemistries like lithium-iron-manganese-phosphate batteries | (Google would confuse it with lithium ion manganese oxide | batteries). | | Double quotes still help though. | londons_explore wrote: | Copper as a material is fairly unique in that many things we make | of copper have alternatives that could be used if the cost was | too high. | | For example, copper is used for water pipes. But we also have | steel and plastic pipes. | | Copper is also used for wiring and electrical conductors - but we | can redesign circuits to use higher voltages (double the voltage | needs only one quarter of the copper). Or, we can switch to | aluminium for wiring, which is also a good conductor. | | Plenty of users are already economical with copper. For example, | have you noticed that if you buy a USB cable that's 1 meter it is | _less than half the price_ of a 2 meter cable? Don 't you think | that's odd, because presumably there is a fixed labour+materials | cost for the connectors, and a per-meter cost for the cable | itself? No... The USB specification requires a specific wire | resistance, which means longer wires must also be thicker (more | copper) to meet that spec. Lately, very cost sensitive USB wires | have moved to aluminium conductors. | | There is talk of electric cars with 800 volt (vs 400 volt) | battery systems... The main reason to switch is to reduce the | cost of copper wires and motor coils. | dangrossman wrote: | > There is talk of electric cars with 800 volt (vs 400 volt) | battery systems... The main reason to switch is to reduce the | cost of copper wires and motor coils. | | It's not just talk, a number of EVs run at 800V (Porsche | Taycan, Audi E-Tron GT, Lucid Air, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6). | And while there may be a cost benefit for the manufacturer, it | also makes a more desirable car for the owner, since they can | charge twice as fast. While most 400V EVs top out around 125 kW | charging rates, the 800V EVs can hit mid-200s. | dieselgate wrote: | > Currently recycling (an EV battery) is an expensive process | where North Americans are footing the bill," Chiang said. "That's | why they're charging people thousands of dollars for recycling. | That's why the stat is only 5% of all EV batteries are being | recycled. | | Wow this was new for me, it makes plenty of sense to reuse the | batteries when they're no longer sufficient for an automobile - | but is that's something available to the general public? | ZeroGravitas wrote: | I'm guessing Mining.com has a strong pro-mining take on many | different topics. | _whiteCaps_ wrote: | I think this is originally from Business In Vancouver magazine: | https://biv.com/article/2022/07/looming-copper-crunch-and-wh... | | (although replacing Mining.com with Vancouver would still be | true) | ZeroGravitas wrote: | I think it's an S&P Global report that they're all quoting. | | https://ihsmarkit.com/Info/0722/futureofcopper.html | | Not sure if that's available but the same source was | expecting a mild glut of copper over the next few years due | to new mines opening and no one seems to predict higher | prices long term, so I think this might just be standard | industry whining that taxes and health and safety and | environmental laws are holding them back. | | > Even though a rise in demand is anticipated, this will not | be enough to absorb the increase in supply, Commerzbank's | commodities analyst Daniel Briesemann said in a note. | | > Also, the conspicuous supply difference is due to the | expected noteworthy recovery in mine output. | | > According to ICSG, mine output >will rise by 3.9% due to | the commissioning of several new projects and the expansion | of existing mines, Briesemann said. | | > This was echoed by UK brokerage Marex Spectron, which said | in a research note Dec. 7 that according to CRU -- a | commodity research company -- the view is that after a | deficit in 2021, the following two years are expected to see | a surplus. | | > Aside primary copper production, an increase in secondary | production, from scrap copper, was also likely to contribute | to copper's surplus, Briesemann said. | jmyeet wrote: | It's good to highlight these issues but honestly I'm just not | worried about that because this is the kind of thing that spurs | innovation. That could be recycling more copper, using less | copper, findin gnew sources of copper, finding alternatives to | copper and so on. | | Remember that copper's primary use is as a conductor and there | are lots of conductors from aluminium to gold. | | I don't expect fuel-based vehicles to go away completely because | there are still use cases where fuel is better than electric. | Cold conditions are still a problem for EVs. Range is another | factor. | | What I expect to see more of is using renewables to store energy | in the form of fuel instead of in batteries eg producing | methanol, methane, ammonia or kerosene. This will at least be | carbon neutral. It's not currently economic to do it but the | advantage comes in not needing potentially expensive batteries, | being relatively easy to store and not requiring power grid | infrastructure in remote or unstable regions. | antiquark wrote: | Cars are here to stay, whether the collectivists like it or not. | nayuki wrote: | As if paving roads everywhere, providing free parking spots, | and socializing the cost of collisions wasn't collectivist. | Right. | vkou wrote: | Yes, and we can really stick it to the collectivists by | spending ~$10-15,000/year per vehicle on the initial purchase | of the car, and the associated costs of insurance, gas, | maintenance, parking, and car-dedicated infrastructure. | cercatrova wrote: | In my years, I've often learned that only necessity will push | people towards solutions. In this case with copper, only once we | have used up most of the copper available easily will we truly | start to care about extracting it in more efficient ways, whether | it be through recycling or other means. If it's too easy to do | the naive way, people just won't care about efficiency enough to | do it the hard way. | | It's the same thing in software with bloat even as hardware gets | faster. Rather, it is precisely because hardware gets faster that | software engineers have little regard for the speed of their | software, since any inefficiences will be overshadowed by the | horsepower of the raw silicon. What Andy giveth, Bill taketh | away, I've always known, but now I see it everywhere, not just in | software. | nayuki wrote: | This is the inevitable outcome of continuing to uphold the status | quo of the car-dominant society: shortages in gasoline, lithium, | cobalt, copper, urban land, etc. | | We have to face the music: Converting gas cars to electric will | only fix a small fraction of all the problems caused by cars. | Redesigning cities so that most people won't require a car to | work and live is the real solution. | throwawaysleep wrote: | Even in retaining current living standards, environmental | action is an uphill battle. | konschubert wrote: | We need every possible contribution to fight the dooming | climate emergency. Bicycles AND electric cars. Renewables AND | nuclear AND carbon capture. | | I am very much against cars in cities, just like you, but this | is an independent topic. | | If you try to fight climate change by banning cars you will run | out of time and lose both fights. | nayuki wrote: | What you said is factually true, but I think there are bigger | problems in context. | | Most people, having grown up with cars from parents and | peers, can't imagine anything other than a car-centric life. | The distances are too far, the bus comes once an hour, and | biking is too dangerous. So getting an electric car might be | the only improvement that they can think of. Especially given | the upfront cost of electric cars and their reduced | convenience for long road trips, it's easy to feel that they | made enough personal sacrifices for the sake of the common | good. | | While electric cars are a somewhat bitter pill to swallow, | the real bitter pills are things like ending exclusive | single-family detached house zoning, increasing density, | allowing mixed residential-retail-office neighborhoods, | converting car lanes to bike or transit lanes, building rail | lines (which can easily take a decade), offering decent | inter-city train service. I fear that electric cars offer an | easy "personal responsibility" band-aid that exhausts | people's willpower to demand more substantial collective | change. | | > Don't hijack the climate emergency for your political | agenda. | | What's with this accusation? | nomel wrote: | > the bus comes once an hour | | And takes many hours to travel the same distance as a 20 | minute car ride. People who say "just hop on public | transportation" live in the top percent of cities where | that actually makes sense. | hunterb123 wrote: | Some people have only lived in highly dense areas and can't | imagine why you'd need a car in certain cities or regions. | | Those seem to be the people who push the car-less idea the | most, because it meets their world view, but doesn't work | once you step outside the downtown bubble. | | But what I think they want are solutions to the parking, | traffic, and other issues that stem from city | overpopulation and/or planning mismanagement of cities. | | As an outsider I agree cities need to rework how they | handle cars (idling in traffic for an hour to go 10 miles, | parking being hell, etc.) but it's a specific problem to | cities (some more so than others) | spookie wrote: | Spot on. I really hope that through automation, rural | public transportation becomes cheaper and more frequent | as a result. | | I was lucky, since I lived in town, but my childhood | friends would come to school by bus. It took them 3h to | get here, the motorist had to cover all the tiny villages | along the way, and time adds up. If we didn't have those | buses (most of them were vans), well then, I don't think | most kids would get their lessons. | | Who had cars though? No problem. | | But yeah, it's difficult to employ a system on a rural | area. | Scarblac wrote: | Climate change is one crisis, but there will also be a crisis | in availability of many resources (like copper). | coldtea wrote: | > _We need every possible contribution to fight the dooming | climate emergency. Bicycles AND electric cars. Renewables AND | nuclear AND carbon capture._ | | How about less cars, less power use, and return to 1980s or | 60s standards of technology? | ZeroGravitas wrote: | I'm not sure I can think of anything that's less efficient | now compared with 60s-80s tech? EV vs ICE, LED vs | Incandescent and so on. | | What kind of things were you thinking of? | WastingMyTime89 wrote: | How about less cars, more efficient use of energy, cleaner | power production, moving towards better standards of | technology? | | We don't need to regress to solve the climate emergency. | That's attacking the problem from the wrong side and | alienating people. | paulryanrogers wrote: | If it means my grandchildren would be significantly less | likely to die in water or oil wars then I'd take that trade | today. | luckylion wrote: | Not sure what we'd achieve by going back to less efficient | technology. Miles per gallon almost doubled since 1980, so | we'd need to get rid of 50% of cars just to break even on | that front and the same is true for lots of things. | schroeding wrote: | With "returning to 60s or 80s standards of technology", do | you mean repairability and great build quality? That would | a great step towards a circular / no-waste economy :) | nomel wrote: | > repairability and great build quality | | Maybe build quality of the assembly, but definitely not | the build quality of anything mechanical! Modern cars | have ludicrously better reliability than anything from | the 60's to 80's. A car not making it to 100k miles is a | rare exception these days, even with somewhat abusive | upkeep. | specialist wrote: | ...AND land use reforms. | tsimionescu wrote: | > We need every possible contribution to fight the dooming | climate emergency. Bicycles AND electric cars. Renewables AND | nuclear AND carbon capture. | | The problem is that some of these are working against each | other. Electric cars means much much higher electrical energy | needs - perhaps needing to even double the current grid. And | that works against the need to decomission fossil fuel | plants. | | As such, significantly reducing car usage seems like a much | safer bet than achieving a 0-carbon grid that is double the | size of the current one in ~15 years. | ZeroGravitas wrote: | EVs help renewable adoption, cleaning the grid as well as | cleaning the city air. | | They're literally batteries on wheels. | nradov wrote: | How would you propose to significantly reduce car usage in | 15 years? I've never seen a realistic plan for that which | accounts for politics, funding, and the time required to | build large infrastructure projects. Just pointing out that | we ought to do it doesn't get us anywhere. | acdha wrote: | I think you could do a lot with quick-build bus and bike | lanes, and some combination of pollution taxes and | market-pricing for parking & high-demand roads/bridges. A | lot of people will take a bus - it's so much cheaper & | less stressful - but only if service is reliable so I'd | focus on how you could remove delays there, and many | things like bus priority lanes or enforcement can be | implemented quickly at modest cost. | | The big question is politics: even in cities where many | people use transit, the political class favors cars. | hunterb123 wrote: | Push your local officials to redesign your city and _actually_ | invest in local transportation, not just funnel it to | contractor buddies. | | I agree there's a problem with cars in cities, but there's not | a problem with cars elsewhere. | | Electrifying cars and trucks helps diversify how they are | powered and keeps the logistics industries and tourist | industries humming. | | It also helps public transportation, taxi services, etc. | | Cars in cities is a local problem, not a federal or even state | one. | | What are those local solutions though? Trains for sure, use | Japan as the model. Privatized but government controlled, | cheap, clean, safe. | | Scooters? Those are an eye sore, they are laying everywhere, | but are useful. Maybe at least bike racks for them? | tammer wrote: | This is correct & I'll add that reorganizing around sustainable | ways of being is in fact an inevitably. | | And a result of this inevitably will be huge winners who invest | in sustainable ways of being and huge losers tied to old ways | of doing things. | kube-system wrote: | > Redesigning cities so that most people won't require a car to | work and live is the real solution. | | That is simple to say, but what does that actually mean? I | think some cities simply wouldn't exist if being navigable | without car was a requirement. People will never move around | Phoenix like they move around Amsterdam. | nicoburns wrote: | Why not? A lot of europea cities went car-centric (building | highways through city centres etc) in the 20th century, and a | lot of those changes have been rolled back. It won't happen | immediately, but it could easily happen over say 50 years. | The barriers are political not technical. | [deleted] | nradov wrote: | Weather and terrain. Amsterdam is fortunate in being flat, | and in having a fairly moderate climate where it's rarely | extremely hot or cold. That situation doesn't obtain in | most large North American cities. Sure it's _possible_ to | ride a bike up a steep hill in Philadelphia in the middle | of an ice storm or across Phoenix in a 40 degC heat wave, | but it 's simply unrealistic to expect most people to do | so. We ought to do more to improve bicycling infrastructure | in most cities but that will never fix our fundamental | transportation issues. | kube-system wrote: | There is a very significant difference between a dense city | with a highway through the center of it, and a city that | never had a dense center to begin with. Many places that | people live in the US only exist because of cars. Without | cars, they'd cease to exist. | | There are not many cities in Europe that are predated by | the ubiquity of cars. | acdha wrote: | Maybe, but Phoenix is not every city in the country and it's | possible to make a lot of improvements even if you're not | perfect. For example, many cities have marginal finances | because a large chunk of their resources have been dedicated | to suburban commuters who contribute little other than | pollution. Reclaiming public space for residents, removing | density restrictions, and especially doing quick things like | dedicated bus or bike lanes can make a huge improvement in | desirability at modest cost. | kube-system wrote: | The second most populous state in the US is Texas. How | would someone possibly redesign any major metro area in | Texas to work without cars? Tear everything down and start | over? | | It was all built to work around the automobile as primary | transport. There's no patch fix. | acdha wrote: | You don't need to ban cars to reduce usage. The Texans I | know would like more bus & bike infrastructure and even | in Texas, most city dwellers make a ton of trips which | are within bike range. As a simple example, think about | how much the average family could do with the extra | $10-12k a year they'd save by having one car instead of | two. In a lot of places, people buy 2-3 ton SUVs so mom | can drop the kids off a couple of miles away - a distance | even a 4-5 year old could bike if it was safe. | kube-system wrote: | Of course there are people want it. | | The question is, how disadvantaged are public transit | projects given the barriers imposed by the existing | choices that have been made, and the marginal cost and | benefit of that project compared to existing choices? | | Sprawl is difficult to cover with public transit, so you | end up with a system that costs 2x as much, covers 1/2 as | much area, and takes 2x as long to go anywhere. The most | successful public transit systems in the world area all | places where driving is car is not a viable alternative | for many. In a world of 10 lane highways and free parking | in a sea of strip malls, it's going to be hard to | convince people to stand at a transit stop. | spookie wrote: | Yeah cities should be redesigned, but let's not forget everyone | else...? Most of us are still living in rural areas, whereby | public transportation wouldn't really solve much. | stevenjgarner wrote: | The looming copper shortage does not just coming for EV's. ICE | vehicles use a substantial amount of copper (and other metals). | "Starters, generators, and alternators contain an average of | 2.8, 2.6, and 1.5 pounds of copper, respectively. Alternators | also contain 3 to 4 pounds of aluminum. Most of the remaining | metal is iron. About one-half of the starters have a solenoid | that contains 0.5 pounds of copper." [0]. So that's at least | 4.3 lbs (1.95 kg) of copper per ICE vehicle, not including uses | in electronics etc. | | [0] https://www.911metallurgist.com/scrapped-starter-motors- | alte... | cmroanirgo wrote: | Correct. The article mentions that EV use 2.5 times the | amount of copper though. It also mentions how it's more than | just what's in the car - that more copper infrastructure is | required to power them. Lastly, it also mentions how using | aluminium as a substitute just moves the goal posts, bc more | bauxite need to be mined and smeltered. | twoeyes2 wrote: | Can aluminum take up the slack? I know long distance power cables | are often aluminum. Even some of the larger gauge in-home wires. | If copper prices rise too much, some demand will switch over to | other conductors. | salty_biscuits wrote: | Sure, depending on the application you can just redesign to | larger gauge aluminium. Aluminium has useful mechanical | properties that trump the lower conductivity (such as power | lines,where thermal cycles can make copper brittle). You could | argue that there is a silver shortage in a similar way as the | article has argued a copper shortage... ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-07-31 23:00 UTC)