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The prices of battery storage and solar power are dropping through the floor, any gov't who sanctions extremely expensive nuclear power right now are idiots.

Are you saying that batteries (I'll assume solar is free and costs nothing to install and maintain) are cheaper than nuclear power plants? So, 1d worth of power is cheaper with batteries than nuclear?

Well, let's see. Let's make it cloudy for just 1 day (or you know, make it night),

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
http://www.kitcometals.com/cha...

35Wh/kg for lead. So, price of lead is $1/lb or $2.2/kg. In 1 day, nuclear power plant produces 1500MWh*24 = 36GWh of energy. So storing that in lead-acid batteries, (I'll use 36Wh/kg), would use 36Mt of batteries costing $80b in raw materials alone (36Mt = 36e9kg = ~$80b in lead)

So who looks like an idiot now? 1 *DAY* storage of power produced by a nuclear power plant costs many times more than the capital costs to produce said nuclear power plant. Heck, at 3 days, you may as well buy all the coal and oil for Japanese power plants to last a year.

Sorry, but on a large scale, power plants *are* batteries. Maybe once you understand that, you'll understand how wasteful using regular batteries on a power grid actually is.

The only real "battery" that actually competes is called gravity - pumped storage. Which is hydro. And those cost money too and can't be installed everywhere.

PS. Instead of linking stupid youtube videos, link me a real manufacturer where I can buy the claimed in video $1/W panels. I would like to buy some, really. All I can find around here is the useless $4-6/W crap. I need a few hundred Watts photovoltaic for my 80+% efficient thermal panels and I'm not willing to spend more than $1/W for them. Thanks in advance.

with the price of Copper continuing to rise, who will be able to afford copper based PCB's in the near future? Silver has been consistently in the 5-12 dollar per ounce range and copper demand has reached the point that it's starting to hit the same levels with the expectation that copper will eventually level out at 100 per ounce or 10x the historical price of silver.

Um...silver's been above $20 per troy ounce for a while now. Copper, OTOH, has been closer to $3-$4 per pound. Copper has had a run up in price, but not nearly enough for it to make silver cheaper for wiring/PCB fabrication/etc.

As I write this, silver is $21.29/ozt. Copper is about $3.25/lb. Copper would need to rise above $310/lb just to equal silver...a two-order-of-magnitude increase.

It would only be beneficial to our economy if we figured out a way to do transmutation of elements that would make metals abundant and cheap, it's not a negative, it's a positive. Aluminum is used as a store of value, here is a 5 year chart.

According to this website nickle has a spot price of ~ USD 11.8 per pound and copper has a spot price of ~ USD 4.36 / pound. http://www.kitcometals.com/charts/nickel_historical_large.html http://www.kitcometals.com/charts/copper_historical_large.html So _if_ this works, it is a type of anti-philosopher's stone: converting an expensive metal into a less expensive one.

According to this website nickle has a spot price of ~ USD 11.8 per pound and copper has a spot price of ~ USD 4.36 / pound. http://www.kitcometals.com/charts/nickel_historical_large.html http://www.kitcometals.com/charts/copper_historical_large.html So _if_ this works, it is a type of anti-philosopher's stone: converting an expensive metal into a less expensive one.

Zinc could also be profitable if the timing is right. At one point in 2006 it exceed $2/pound, while 181 post-1982 pennies weigh one pound.

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The FBI report cites thefts that happened in April. In April copper was going for $4/lb. Since then we've had the biggest deflation since the great depression, and in that time metal prices have fallen MORE than during the great depression.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/mining/3543370/Metal-prices-fall-further-than-during-Great-Depression.html

Today copper closed at about $1.55/lb. That's roughly what aluminum was going for in April. (Aluminum is now $0.71/lb)
http://www.kitcometals.com/charts/copper_historical.html

So their statement that "copper prices from 2001 to 2008 have increased by 500%" is no longer even close to the truth. Right now it's closer to 50%, and it still looks to be falling.

This is one problem I figured the current administration had fixed.
http://www.kitcometals.com/charts/copper_historical_large.html#6months
Tank the housing market, and copper isn't needed, the price falls, not worth steeling.
But thieves are apparently slow learners.

No, not really. Cost to mine copper *today* is MUCH greater than 5 years ago or 3 years ago or even last year. Oil price dictates input costs. 500% increase in oil price probably means that the $0.40/lb floor 5 years ago is now closer to $2.00/lb.

Secondly, the MAJOR exporter of copper is Chile. Chile is in big trouble because of natural gas shortages from Argentina. This means Chile electrical power production, which is used to run the mines, is in serious problems.

$0.05/kWh => $0.25+/kWh may cause some problems.

Finally, copper stocks are not exactly going back up to levels 5 years ago.

http://www.kitcometals.com/charts/copper_historical_large.html#lmestocks_5years

If China and India want to build up their infrastructure, copper supply will not keep up with demand.

And finally, vast majority of copper comes from Chilean mines that were discovered 100+ years ago. There is no new sites that have same merits as those ancient ones.

You mean like the 5 year spot chart here? 400% increase in just a couple of years? It is doing just that, and that is before the real demand goes up; electrical motors for Cars as well as copper wiring going into chinese homes.

The value of the metals did not inherently increase.

Yes it did. Copper is in worldwide shortage. Go do some research. This will get you started.

For current prices of base metals on the open market, check out Kitco metals. For the relation to US currency, see coinflation.

about $.014 minus fuel costs

Working from memory, pre-1982 pennies are 3.11 grams of 97% copper (3 gm.)
That means that it takes about 151 pennies to get a pound of copper.
Today's trading price of copper is $2.14 per pound .
The gross margin to melt your change is $.63/lb.

Nickels may be next to fall, 3.25g Cu and 1.25g Ni.