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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."
We should make pennies out of nickel and iron. All copper pennies should be returned to banks for redistribution.
Hell, maybe we should get rid of pennies anyway when paying in cash. Electronic transactions should be denominated using pennies (single cents) but cash has to round to the nearest nickel.
Pennies are made mostly out of zinc these days.
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
At the current rate, copper sells at around $2.14/pound.
One penny weighs in at around 0.0034 lbs. putting the copper value of 100 pennies at roughly 73
Copper would break even with currecy value at around $2.94/pound
It's not about power, it's about current. You could have 10000V across a microfine wire as long as you kept the current low enough.
Moving to 240V would mean you could deliver the same amount of power with half the current and less current means thinner wires.