Earth's Copper Supply Inadequate For Development?

ScentCone writes "Pennies, pipes, untold miles of CAT5 - they tie up a lot of copper. Unlike abundant iron and aluminum, copper is relatively scarce. But it's vital to electricity generation/transmission, plumbing, and other uses central to a modern standard of living. Scientific American is providing a quick overview of the situation. They report the conclusion that there simply isn't enough available. Canada, Mexico and the US average 170kg of copper use per person, and the most generous estimates suggest that only 1.6 billion unused metric tons exist. More reclamation and use of fiber, wireless, and PVC helps - but won't be enough to cover the billions of people who don't yet live in highly wired/mechanized societies."

Comments

It's not going to matter anyway...

[ThinkFr33ly]

The oil and natural gas we use to generate electricity to power devices that require copper will become too expensive to use long before we run out of the copper we use in the construction of these devices.

Pennies must go!

[FuzzyDaddy]

Yet another reason to get rid of this useless coin. Add this to:
Nobody uses them.
They are dangerous to children when swallowed, due to the zinc (unlike all other US coins)
And let's face it, Lincoln already has his picture in enough places!
(Ok, done ranting now...)

Economics

[leandrod]

Economics is all about how we deal with scarcity. Prices go up, alternatives are found. If prices went up, we'd go 220V to use thinner wires, we'd prefer local sources of energy to use shorter lines, we'd go all fiber for data and voice, and so on... and we'd find new sources, alternative metals.

Re:REAL Scarcity would mean HUGE price increases

[Tlosk]

"You do realize Heinlein has you beat by 50 years or more, right?"

If you worry about filtering your knowledge against all that has come before you and all that is going on right now, you will be paralyzed into inaction. There's just way too many people out there all working with essentially the same wetware for much unique thought to pop into existance. Outside of academia where novel thought is the currency of the profession, it's simply more practical to charge ahead with your own thoughts and claim them for what they are, yours. I'm perfectly willing to take it on faith that when someone says they thought something up on their own that they are bring truthful.

Anyone who has done any serious reading will know that eerie feeling of encountering someone else who has developed a similar line of thought as one of your own, especially when it comes from a source hundreds or even thousands of years old.

So what's my point? Not that you shouldn't point out the reference to Heinlein, just try not to be so condescending about it. As if it's somehow the person's fault they don't already know about someone else who has developed a similar or parallel idea. There's lots of ways of making a friendly connection to older material. If anything it's a bit of a compliment I think to mirror thought that has become recognized as important enough that people 50 years later still associate it with a particular person in history.

Re:Monster

[Rei]

Just to nitpick the humor: copper connectors would be bad (the connectors are made of gold so that they don't corrode, not for its conductive properties; copper corrodes readily), and a wire made of silver would be far more reasonable (silver is much cheaper than gold and a better conductor).

Really, though, I don't understand the big panic. So copper prices rise as the easily minable deposits get exhausted - and? There are replacement materials. There's silver for when you need great conductivity (better than copper), and there's aluminum for when you don't (and you can tolerate metal fatigue). There are many other metals that could be used in between the two, and many of the metals that are common in the ground but are hard to refine show signs of significant price reduction in the future.

So the length of runs of wire that you can use become shorter. So it uses a little more power. So bandwidth capability decreases. Or, so people pay a higher price. Copper will never disappear; the shortage just means that people will have to turn to mining less rich/harder to refine deposits.

So what?

And who is to say that copper wire is going to continue to be in such demand? Optical fiber seems to be going into wider and wider use. More technology is turning to wireless communication. In short, I really don't see this as a huge issue. There have been shortages of various ores throughout all of recorded history. We'll cope just fine.

Re:REAL Scarcity would mean HUGE price increases

[kahei]

Just as I don't believe we're anywhere near to running out of oil in the next 1000 years,


That's a pretty unconventional view -- actually, a unique view -- in the minerals world.


One of the reasons I formulated my anarcho-capitalist belief system


Ahh :) I'm sure you derive great personal pleasure from your politics but if I were using your research, I would want it to be driven by a rational understanding that mineral resources are finite, not by your 'belief system'.