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Copper Thieves Jeopardize US Infrastructure
coondoggie supplies an excerpt from Network World that might make you consider a lock for your pipes: "The FBI today ratcheted up the clamor to do something more substantive about the monumental growth of copper theft in the US. In a report issued today the FBI said the rising theft of the metal is threatening the critical infrastructure by targeting electrical substations, cellular towers, telephone land lines, railroads, water wells, construction sites, and vacant homes for lucrative profits. Copper thefts from these targets have increased since 2006; and they are currently disrupting the flow of electricity, telecommunications, transportation, water supply, heating, and security and emergency services, and present a risk to both public safety and national security." (A July, 2006 post on Ethan Zuckerman's blog gives an idea of how widespread cable theft has affected internet infrastructure, and basketmaking, in Africa.)
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.
The price of copper has tanked along with the rest of the world economy. It is now down to around $1.50/lb. The article would have been more timely 6 months ago.
http://www.metalprices.com/FreeSite/metals/cu/cu.asp
A number of companies here in the US pacific northwest put names or serial numbers on their copper they put in place. So when the thieves show up to collect they give a call to the company listed to ask if it is on the up and up.
Then of course there are the brainiacs that broke into a power substation to steal copper. They took out their bolt cutters, and BAM, power out for a few blocks and more person up for a darwin award.
"US has now entered 3rd world nation status. Where individuals are so poor that ripping up and selling the vital infrastructure becomes a useful business."
Copper is easy to harvest and pays well when scrapped. Scrapping metal generally has been profitable in recent years, and that has everything to do with developing nations like China BUYING scrap as opposed to any US decline.
Aluminum gets less press but also pays well, often ten or twelve bucks per automobile wheel.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Yep. Copper prices have dropped considerably in the past few months:
http://www.metalprices.com/FreeSite/metals/cu/cu.asp
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
We need more incidents like these.
The site was clearly labeled with electrical warning signs, yet the idiot still went ahead with attempting to steal the wiring. Long story short, he probably will pay a little more attention to signs...
ignore parent, some guy spamming a lame ebay auction, nothing to do with article.
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
Scrap yards here (in Michigan) check id and print you a check before you walk out the door.
Not as strong as requiring a mailing address, but less of pain.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
It's called PEX. Its been used in the UK for years. US home builders finally realized it is cheaper, but still not up to code in some areas.
50 F is sufficient to prevent pipes from freezing. Turn your thermostat down in the winter if you are going on vacation.
In Chandler, AZ park lights have had the wire removed for miles. The problem is that it cannot be stopped by law enforcement, which means it pretty much cannot be stopped at all.
Someone sees some wire, they take the wire and get cash. Nobody wants to infringe upon the rights of the scrap dealers, so accepting of wire from just about anyone is going to continue. We now have people that in order to buy their next HD TV are ripping out the wires to street lights, homes, and anywhere else that wire can be obtained.
It is an easy way to get cash with very limited risks.
MOD parent up. In US urban areas, a lot of this activity is done by drug addicts. This is more of a sign of the break down in community vs. individualistic values than a sign of income disparities.
This report comes just as copper prices are plummeting due to the worldwide recession, which should reduce the problem significantly. Prices have dropped 60% since spring.
Airplane Photos, Airline News, Planespotting Guides
Right. And there is no way today you'll get a pawn shop to buy something that might be stolen.
I mean hea, our pennies are made of [copper] right?
Not really. Since 1982, US pennies have been 97.5% zinc, with a copper coating.
-kgj
I am an HVAC engineer and I have had $30,000 condensing units destroyed on construction projects for $200 worth of copper. I've seen LIVE power feeds ripped off of buildings. Something needs to get done. Unfortunately as the old saying goes, people are assholes.
I'm not not licking toads.
Look at it this way: they saved you the trouble of "finding" all the problems in the plumbing, and you can replace all that copper with PEX.
2007 California Plumbing Code (CPC) (effective 1/1/08) allows the use of PEX for domestic water systems in the State of California on a case by Case basis only. (ref: 2007 CPC Table 6-4 Footnote 1; previously: 2001 CPC 604.1 #2).
Yoda of Borg am I! Assimilated shall you be! Futile resistance is, hmm?
You're probably better off using <blockquote> instead. I've never had any trouble with it, and it's more semantically correct since it's a block-level element (<quote> is for short quotes and is supposed to be rendered inline).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Research performed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories showed bullet lead analysis to be unreliable. Following this research, the FBI announced that it was no longer making use of the process.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
crooked scrap dealers aren't that big of a problem. Nobody that buys copper for remelting is interested in orders under dozens of tons.. that means the companies melting copper are paying in $10k+ checks which mandate federal reporting... which means they don't have to worry about tracking you because their bank will do it for them.
The problem is the local junk yards that have a hard time knowing who's contracting to remodel and who's stealing. Thieves are clever and will only take 2-3 loads to small junkyards per month across 10 counties and work out in the country where nobody can hear them working. They're only dropping off a few hundred bucks at a time and half of them are illegals/felons using fake licenses anyway even if you did write it down.
Well-signed is an understatement. In Lima, Ohio, the power company has rented multiple billboards around town, to warn people not to steal copper from substations. "Cut copper, cut your life," they say, and look something like this.
Kid-proof tablet..
I remember aluminum wire, and the fires. The chief problem was not that the "metal tends to flow" (that is just wrong). The problem was that aluminum had a significantly different coefficient of thermal expansion. One way of dealing with it was to tighten everything regularly (prohibitively expensive) or to just attach the wires with screws that had coefficients of thermal expansion compatible with aluminum.