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New Cable Designed To Deter Copper Thieves
Hugh Pickens writes "Pervasive thefts of copper wire from under the streets of Fresno, California have prompted the city to seal thousands of its manhole covers with concrete. In Picher, Oklahoma, someone felled the town's utility poles with chain saws, allowing thieves to abscond with 3,000 feet of wire while causing a blackout. The theft of copper cables costs U.S. companies $60 million a year and the FBI says it considers theft of copper wire to be a threat to the nation's baseline ability to function. But now PC World reports that a U.S. company has developed a new cable design that removes almost all the copper from cables in a bid to deter metal thieves. Unlike conventional cables made from solid copper, the GroundSmart Copper Clad Steel Cable consists of a steel core bonded to a copper outer casing, forming an equally effective but far less valuable cable by exploiting the corrosion-resistance of copper with the conductive properties of steel. 'Companies trying to protect their copper infrastructure have been going to extreme measures to deter theft, many of which are neither successful nor cost effective,' says CommScope vice president, Doug Wells. 'Despite efforts like these, thieves continue to steal copper because of its rising value. The result is costly damage to networks and growing service disruptions.' The GroundSmart Copper Clad Steel cable is the latest technical solution to the problem of copper theft, which has included alternatives like cable etching to aid tracing of stolen metal and using chemicals that leave stains detectable under ultra-violet light. However the Copper Clad Steel strikes at the root of the problem by making the cable less susceptible to theft by both increasing the resistance to cutting and drastically decreasing the scrap value."
Eventually, the thieves will take care of themselves.
Something like 70% of copper thieves have been convicted of theft once before. If there was a death penalty for thieves - and really, why not for all felonies? - this problem would quickly end.
But no, we have to worry about their feelings.
Steal more copper cable. Less monetary damage in goods loss, more damage paying people to replace stolen cable.
It might stop them from being able to get money from the cable, but it's not like it's going to deter them from stealing the cable in the first place under the assumption that the cable is copper.
Removing the market for scrap copper cable might also work. Typically this stuff flows thru metals recycling yards who are only too happy to look the other way when white-van-man shows up with a half ton of scrap copper. If these recyclers. or the smaller number of up-stream buyers, had to have paper work from licensed demolition companies or power utilities tracing the copper they buy you could stop the theft very shortly, without having to wait till every mile of copper is stolen and replaced before your deterrence sets in.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
'round these parts - thieves are stealing HVAC units from the roofs of closed businesses, schools, etc.
the problem is that the recyclers are paying in cash, and unless get wary when presented with a hundred or so bronze flower vases from a cemetery, just do a quick nod and a wink on the payout
Copper clad steel has been used by hams for decades. It is most effective at radio frequencies, where the "skin effect" causes the current flow to exist primarily in the outermost regions of the cable. 50 or 60 Hz AC current is not high enough frequency to have much of a skin effect, so it will consequently be a poor conductor compared to solid copper. There's no doubt that it is harder to cut, though.
Maybe if there were some jobs in this country people wouldn't have to steal copper. It didn't happen NEARLY as much a few years back and I doubt the number of meth heads has increased that much since then. 8.5% unemployment is bullshit, it's more like 15% if you count everyone, not just the people currently getting benefits. Also, why not do something about the places that buy the scrap metal?
Why stop here? Why not death penalty even if you get one little tiny hamburger. And his/her relatives in prison. For life.
Less copper in the cable = less expense in raw materials
Of course, this is for the same reason that people are stealing the cable in the first place: copper is EXPENSIVE.
Just send 20'000vac through that outer sleeve, that would act as a great deterrent!
I like it, though I'd execute the children, too. A crime-free society is less than a generation away.
We think much alike, you and I.
Squirrels probably do 60M in damages a year...
Pay scrap metal recyclers large rewards for turning in thieves (if convicted)
Pirates use the copper in the lines to steal trillions of dollars worth of copyrighted materials. By stealing the copper, you are stealing the copyrighted materials that were transferring across them. Since we can't determine exactly how much copyrighted material was in the copper at the time, we need to assume it's at least 10 million dollars worth per foot. Since we'll never be able to recover this money from thieves desperate enough to steal copper, we simply need to authorize the RIAA and MPAA to shoot anyone suspected of stealing copper on sight.
Is the upfront cost less than or close to that of just a pure copper solution? If not then it's not likely going to be implemented. I knew a couple people who worked for the electric company, they'd come home with 20lb buckets of scrap. Just a dozen short pieces pieces of very large gauge copper wire, that stuff I'd say would be worth stealing if you knew you could do it without frying yourself (an unlikely possibility unless you had a lot of experience with high voltage lines) but going down the street taking down power lines with a chainsaw, seems like you'd be better off driving into a convenience store with a pickup truck and running off with an ATM machine.
Is there any source on the Pitcher utility line theft story? I can't find anything. I doubt the "blackout" was a very big deal considering that the town is a ghost town with only six residences remaining. The town has been basically dead since it was declared a superfund site, and then a tornado hit a few years ago and wiped away the rest. Kind of puts that part of the story in perspective...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picher,_Oklahoma
Neat , saves material, too - even though manufacture is more expensive, I guess the saving on copper is worth it. I guess the thing it exploits is that at high voltages you only get current near the surface of a conductor (which is why many things use braided wire)
...the purchase of stolen copper. And make a few big-time new story examples out of violators. That'll put a serious dent in the problem.
As someone who has been hit repeatedly by these morons, a few thoughts. Radio in general offers a very attractive target to these thieves, especially (believe it or not) older installations like AM radio stations. (At low frequencies like AM, the tower itself is actually the antenna -- that's why there are insulators in the guy wires -- and the tower field is laced with gobs and gobs of soft copper that acts as the ground plane.)
1. Copper-clad steel is nothing new. Some of this is just marketroid hype (though to be fair, I don't think anyone has ever made clad *telcom* cable before). But other types of clad conductors have been common for some time -- not just to deter theft, but because of the price of copper.
2. The real problem is the scrap metal dealers. You can't tell me that they're not suspicious when a couple of teenage guys come dragging in the core from a big honkin' three phase HVAC unit. But THEY want the copper even worse than the thieves, because they turn around and sell it in ton lots at a huge profit.
3. Copper is considerably more conductive than steel. We can get away with it at RF frequencies because of skin effect (i.e., the signal travels through the "skin" of the conductor, rather than the center), but it's not a perfect solution. It's much more difficult to work with and it's easy to accidentally strip off the copper cladding, leaving you with far less desirable steel at the connection point.
4. These thieves really are morons, and yes, most are repeat offenders. They even talk to one another in jail and compare notes. When we were hammered in February of 2010, the deputies who investigated our incident told us that they even knew who most of these people were. We had video cameras and they scoured the images to get a clue as to who it was.
But sometimes I have to laugh. One of our FM stations here is in the huge metropolis of Pumpkin Center, Alabama, which defines "middle of nowhere." The house up the (dirt) road from the transmitter site has been hit repeatedly; I drove to the site to do routine maintenance a couple of years ago and noted that the air conditioner had been ransacked. But they won't mess with the FM site.
I guess the fact that our landlady likes to go out and there and shoot with her boyfriend gives them pause. The sight of all those targets with bullet holes all around the center makes them think twice. :)
Then some thieves tried to cut the gigantic, 6" copper coax going to our 100,000 FM in North Central Alabama. I posted a note that said, "Dear morons, if you try to cut this line, please have your life insurance paid up .... "
They've stolen our grounding several times since, but they haven't touched that big coax again. :)
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
There is nothing new about 'Copper Clad' or copper covered steel. It has been around for over 65 years - my 1944 copy of the Radio Amateurs Handbook mentions copper clad steel wire for wire antennas.
"exploiting the corrosion-resistance of copper with the conductive properties of steel"
Isn't copper the best conductor, second only to silver, but quite weak against corrosion? Stainless steel is by far better against corrosion then copper.
I think they may have that flipped around...
That's the real sollution. Most of these crimes are perpetrated by repeat offenders. Kill them on the first offence, hell even wait for the third offense, and you'll see these kinds of crimes dwindle to nearly nothing. We keep tollerating this kind of shit from people and that just encourages them to go do it again. They really don't mind jail. Hell they like jail, it's warmer than their home, it has better tv than their home, and the rent and food are free. JAIL DOES NOT WORK! We need a better solution is either jails that are truly terrible places to be, or capital punishment.
It's not new, and while it increases resistance to cutting, it also increases resistance to the flow of electricity (especially at lower frequencies). So you need a heavier and bulkier cable to do the job.
Uh, the article does not explain what is new about this. Copper clad cable has been around forever. It has been used for High Frequency antennas where the tensile strength of the steel is important and the skin effect keeps the RF currents near the surface. I don't think there is much skin effect at the frequencies they are promoting this cable to be used for. As others have already pointed out, the problem is not limited to electric or communications cable. Plumbing, and HVAC systems are also prime targets. Better regulation of metal recycling and the prosecution of those recyclers who do "look the other way" would go a long way to stopping this problem.
Of course a few more charred bodies like was found on a building roof near here recently when a copper thief THOUGHT the 660 volt power line to the chillers was disconnected and it wasn't could also be a deterrent
Of course, if we had that fiber network we've paid for several times over in telephone fees, that would also deter thieves from stealing copper too...
"Pervasive thefts of copper wire from under the streets of Fresno, California have prompted the city to seal thousands of its manhole covers with concrete and in Picher, Oklahoma, someone felled the town's utility poles with chain saws, allowing thieves to abscond with 3,000 feet of wire while causing a blackout as the theft of copper cables in costs US companies $60 million a year and the FBI says it considers theft of copper wire to be a threat to the nation's baseline ability to function"
Somewhere, an English teacher weeps.
Good thing we've got editors, right?
scraps steel for money
The root of the problem isn't making things a bitch to steal. It's the psychopathic globalist agenda which is making wars, and corporations making law, so everything is shutting down and going bust. This symptom, "stealing copper" is a seed test to see if they can create another Problem, Reaction Solution saga when the public finally gets sick of the unemployed gangs (or whoever the msm gets the people to blame) stealing the copper, let the police shoot them the public will cry, and then we'll hear about all these copper thieves being shot, and then shooting back, and then more public outcry, another new law ban the guns, then more cops, more psychopathic bullshit.
Chop off his hand. Although most of the people who steal wire are probably crackheads or toothless meth heads. They'd probably chop off their own hand for some more crack.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
And in another of todays bulletins, US hospitals solve the crisis of overcrowding by locking the doors.
Why not hire security guards to march up and down the streets all day and night carrying M5's with shoot-to-kill orders?
Better still, surround the copper cables with high frequency electricity to shock thieves to death.
I know, pass laws that give life imprisonment (or perhaps execution even?) for stealing copper cables!
Or perhaps it's time to elect Ron Paul so the banking cartels can be brought down and people don't have to steal copper wire in order to feed themselves? Nah, that'd never work.
Where I live (Vancouver, Canada) the copper is largely stolen to fund drug addiction. Legalize drugs (and give away the hard stuff under prescription) and lots of this theft goes away...
Flamebait? I was completely seriously. I don't commit crimes - those who do obviously don't want to be part of our society.
One generation from now, being completely serious will be a capital crime in our society (you'll need a good deal of craziness to survive).
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
In case you hadn't noticed, everything is a felony these days.
But I agree that a second conviction for theft should carry a very long sentence. Many crimes are crimes of passion, committed under circumstances that are unlikely to be repeated - and many more "crimes" are not really crimes at all - but theft has real victims and thieves have a very high recidivism rate. If there is one crime that we should punish with very long vacations from polite society, it should be theft.
Meth is a fucked up drug. Stick to caffeine and weed, people.
Unless it is well marked it will not prevent the thief from taking it. It will only from making as much as they thought they might. The damage to power networks and facilities will still happen.
drug testing at scrap yards.
And in world news tonight, millions of squirrels around the globe gather in protest chanting that the use of this new technology is prohibiting them from doing what they do best, gnawing. A representative from the Communications Workers of America agrees with this stance stating that the work performed by the squirrels generate high amounts of overtime for its members. Attempts to contact AT&T, British Telecom and Telstra were not immediately responded to.
Over to you in sports Tim...
My city made it to /. SMH...
Visit my Forums?
If I had an account, and karma points, I would say something constructive and civil, like "Maybe in future somebody could take it upon themselves to double-check upcoming submissions." I could also choose to say something witty: "Looks like those periods were made of copper, too! Good thing the word 'and' isn't as valuable."
If I was feeling particularly bored, I could rewrite the offending passage myself: "'Pervasive thefts of copper wire from under the streets of Fresno, California have prompted the city to seal thousands of its manhole covers with concrete. In Picher, Oklahoma, someone felled the town's utility poles with chain saws, allowing thieves to abscond with 3,000 feet of wire while causing a blackout. The theft of copper cables in costs US companies $60 million a year, and the FBI says it considers theft of copper wire to be a threat to the nation's baseline ability to function.' FTFY"
But I don't, so I won't; I'm an Anonymous Coward. This is three run-on sentences strung together. Fucking edit your shit.
Really? Then you must be the ONLY person alive not to have. With so many laws on the books, it's impossible NOT to have unknowingly broken one of them, whether it's your dog mating with another dog within 1,500 feet of a public school (California) or other such stupidity.
We had the city pass a really stupid law - because kids were holding on to the back of buses during the winter and "sledding", they passed a law making it illegal to hold on to or grasp any part of a vehicle in motion inside city limits. So how are you supposed to steer?
Ditto with the law they passed trying to ban massage parlors by defining massage as the physical manipulation of any part of another persons body - making everything from handshakes to helping your kid blow her nose.
It's a safe bet you've broken a few stupid laws.
Ah, more humor being sucked out of /. I'd think this would have been modded above -1 at this point.
to the third world!
Thief: Let's steal copper cables!
GSmart: Let's steel copper cables!
If you KILL the black market by removing the profit motive you make it difficult to buy the stuff on the black market.
Making a bigger police state is foolish; some of the biggest police states have been unable to stop forbidden things besides drugs...Christianity, revolutionary talk, underground papers, guerrillas, the French resistance, banned products, ALCOHOL, violations of copyright... just to name a few.
Cigarettes still continue under a really discriminatory tax; illegal non-taxed product is probably impossible to come bye and will be as long as the tax is not too high...
Free government clinics where you strap in and shoot up can be quite helpful in helping these extra desperate people (not to mention they flip out in a safe place.) A huge amount of domestic violence is drug related. You can't over limit them otherwise you create an alternative market to serve them! Yet another best solution impossible in the USA because the moralist nanny state freaks insist in dictating your lifestyle.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
After working in telecom, there are reasons the copper is solid. Do you know how many splices, nicks, stretches, & bends there are from a CO to a home/business? Many many more than are fixed, to put it mildly. "the company" just hopes the copper in the ground never moves around so much that is causes a disconnect.. which only really happens because it is solid copper from one end to the other, not just a skin. (when the skin is breached you would lose the higher freq required). Once copper is laid its paid for, the maintenance is the nightmare, this would just introduce an infinite more possibility of more areas that could cause problems.
Copper thiefs cost $60 million a year.. if a company, like AT&T, took that burden alone, it would be 60 million from like 19 billion profits, which is like .003%
I think the cable industry is more overburdened with social media experts (Hi Marketing company for a NEW cable design!) and bored reporters than meth heads actually stealing cables. (not that it doesn't happen, its just not worth researching/buying/testing/teaching people how to properly repair new cable vs industry standard = $$$$$$$$$ vs $)
No cash for copper. ID required and a direct deposit to a bank account.
Have gnu, will travel.
Use lead instead of steel. Don't incorporate it into the wire, just have a guy standing there with a semi-automatic lead dispenser, and when thieves try to steal your copper, you can lead them out.
we once had 1,500' of fiber optic cable stolen by some really dull copper thieves ... I guess they had a rather amusing trip to the scrap metal yard but, I'd wished they'd have dumped it back on the side of the road somewhere as due to our fubared funding situation at the time it was years before that system was operational again (until the gear was completely obsolete and had to be entirely replaced anyway).
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
$10 bucks doesn't sound worth the effort and risk. If your numbers are right and they really only get $10 bucks for the cable, then that speaks to a frightening level of desperation on a part of your populace. Maybe instead of making cables harder to steal we should make citizens that don't want to steal them...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Is theft of copper cabling "stupid law"? If not, you've missed the point.
I'm pretty sure their are jurisdictions were publishing something anonymously is illegal.
For example your post annoyed me and: ...
"""
Whoever -
makes a telephone call or utilizes a telecommunications device, whether or not conversation or communication ensues, without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person at the called number or who receives the communications; ...
shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
""" 47 U.S.C. Â 223(a)(1)(C)
Now sure "intent to annoy" means something entirely different - but do you really know every single law that applies to you in enough detail to know you have never broken one?
"i don't commit crime" does not restrict the crime to the stealing of copper cable, which should be obvious.
And they are still addictive. There's arguments to legalize drugs. This isn't one of them. In fact, you'll discover that some of the addicts that do this are alcoholics, their drug of choice is perfectly legal.
When you combine a messed up mental state with a desire for money to pay for the addiction, you'll get people doing stupid shit. Legalization won't change that. It isn't as though someone doing legal drugs will suddenly be clear of mind and a productive member of society.
Now don't misunderstand this as me arguing against legalization overall, I'm just saying it won't help this problem.
'Despite efforts like these, thieves continue to steal copper because of its rising value.
Are you really sure that's the root cause of this?
Of course the cable maker will clearly mark the cable, so it'll work. Copper thieves aren't first-timers, and they'll learn about this new cable real fast.
Stealing metals for scrap value.
You've also got this huge trend of stealing Catalytic Converters from high sitting Toyota vehicles. My neighbor had his catalytic converter stolen twice, and at $2000 a pop, that's one expensive growing trend.
And I thought things were bad here in South Africa. The American copper thieves are making our guys look like amateurs :).
But it is a serious problem here. People going without landlines for weeks or months. Telkom replaces the lines only to have them stolen again in a short period.
We should have National Key Infrastructure (not the National Key Point) laws. If you do any damage to water, electricity, transport or communications (including postal services), you get a minimum mandatory sentence (3 years sounds about right), after which more years get added depending on how naughty you were.
crime against humanity, shoot on sight.
The Bonneville Power Administration in the northwest US has already started using copper clad steel wire (cable) for grounding purposes. I haven't heard if it is reducing theft yet. BPA hopes it reduces theft so it reduces safety risk of missing power grounds at substations.
Transmission lines in the national electricity grid here (India) consist of steel core for strength with an outer aluminum layer for conductivity. This solution has been in place from the time electrification started in India.
To Share Is To care
We can tell that you have certainly missed the point tbird81, or are you ignoring it because it's inconvenient?
Not that it matters, you've already told us all what to think of your opinions.
"I guess the fact that our landlady likes to go out and there and shoot with her boyfriend gives them pause. The sight of all those targets with bullet holes all around the center makes them think twice. :)"
Extend the right to defend your proporty: A thief who ignores "no trespassing" signs and breaks into a clearly private area should be viewed as having has given up his right to safety. The law should allow security systems that do bodily harm, problem solved.
Same reason too (strength and cost). When you are talking shorter run, like in a house, where weight doesn't matter and voltage is low you go copper. The lower resistance is well worth it. However for the long haul runs aluminium wins the day, and steel at the core to strengthen it. The higher impedance does lead to a bit more loss, but then you are talking as much as half a million volts so that equalizes things a bit.
Copper clad steel wire has been around for decades. This is new how?
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
. . . the sacking of Rome?
Something like 70% of copper thieves have been convicted of theft once before. If there was a death penalty for thieves - and really, why not for all felonies? - this problem would quickly end.
Good idea. That would stop the file sharing problem, too!
"Unlike conventional cables made from solid copper, the GroundSmart Copper Clad Steel Cable consists of a steel core bonded to a copper outer casing"
Coppering steel replaces stealing copper?
When they chop down poles to read the print on the cable its a bit late, AND companies arent going to rush out and rewire everything with all new (and more expensive cable) just so they can still have their poles cut.
I mean, i hear you, this is a long term solution, but all the "it isnt going to work" is based on the fact that few if any companies will jump on this bandwagon, especially when they know that when the economy improves theft will go down anyway.
So they invented some non-recyclable material which is supposed to replace the recyclable one? How is this good?
Cables that are cut.
Roads that have the manhole cover removed.
Garbage can that has its cover stolen.
Street signs that needs to be constantly replaced.
Fire hoses with the chain and cover removed.
New Economic Perspectives
They are ripping down power lines from train rails while they are online....... (and sadly they know how to ground so they can remove them safely)
Then why do north european countries with socialized healthcare and education AND social security still get hit by copper thieves?
There are always people who want still more. Claim social security and go out stealing copper to get more money. Or do you think thieves are such noble people they don't claim social security because they got another source of income?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
People obviously become copper thieves because they're too stupid for anything else...
Whenever you see rail electricians working on the overhead line, they ground it to the rails. But copper thieves are not that smart so they pull it down and it hits the ground sparking, then stops. The thieves - thinking it's shorted out - proceed to cut it... ZAP!! - The system is designed to cut the power in case of shorts (happens all the time with trees hitting the wires in the wind etc.) and then turn the power on a few seconds later if the short is no longer detected. That's why the workers always ground it. The power is turned off but even if turned on by accident it will short out and stay off.
Some stupid thieves got fried here recently. Not only didn't they know about grounding, they also decided to steal a stretch with a feed in the middle... So not only was a cut in either end not enough to render the piece harmless but the thief at either end got fried despite most likely seeing the powerful flash down the line from his partner going first... 16.000 volts with a lot of amps makes for an impressive flash and zero chance at finding much to bury...
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
In Denmark, we has has lots of train disruptions due to stolen cables. So the danish railways has already started using the the copperclad cables with very low copper content.
But that does not prevent criminals from Eastern Europe to go for the old cables. It is not drug addicts, it is organized criminals that steals the cables, despite the penalty being relatively harsh (many years in a prison under living conditions way better than they could dream of back home in Romania, Bulgaria or wherever they come from).
Steel adds strength to cables with AC on them and a layer of copper on the outside is for good conductivity since thats were the current is.
First time I've heard of that being done to foil thieves. On a big cable its also cheaper to have a steel core than to make it from solid copper.
I think thieves who steal more than the value of a chicken shall lose a hand. At least that was the law St. Ladislaw I, King of Hungary made circa 1085 AD. (Eighty years before that, the law of King St. Stephan I prescribed hanging for the same offense.)
You have copper in your backyard or immediate fenced in property?
Get a large mean dog. Few people will risk jumping your fence
gold cables are out of the question? Too bad, it would improve the quality of electricity a lot from what I heard.
Security guards and, if things get ugly, dogs: it is a proven measure- it is easy to implement in countries where labour is cheap and cablefuckers are on the loose (like, say, Turkey, which is undergoing a boom in the sector of construction). Perhaps in other countries it is more expensive when you have to pay your guards real (non-turkish) salaries, but what the heck: you will be creating a few jobs.
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
Easy solution...
Make power cables to prisons facilities that keep cells lit, kitchens powered, washing machines running, maybe even heating, etc the easiest target.
An odd form of Darwinism will solve the issue overnight.
If there is one crime that we should punish with very long vacations from polite society, it should be theft.
If theft is going to result in "long vacations", so should receiving stolen goods (since it is really "theft by proxy"). After all, it's the fences that enable thieves to dispose of the goods.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/DonohueLevittTheImpactOfLegalized2001.pdf
http://www.freakonomics.com/2006/03/16/lets-do-the-crime-drop-again/
This is just a proof positive that it makes sense to decentralise and get away from government monopolies of utilities. Small nuclear in everything.
You can't handle the truth.
kids were holding on to the back of buses during the winter and "sledding"
Back in the day, that was called bumper sketching.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
Since when was copper considered to be corrosion-resistant?
soon they will pass a law that if you steal copper you are a terrorist. that's basically where this is going. I don't condone the theft of copper, i just think it's crazy that just about any criminal act these days is a threat to national security.
So what you're saying is that stealing copper is a $60 million a year business.
In the description, they write "by exploiting the corrosion-resistance of copper with the conductive properties of steel". But this is copper clad *telecom* wire, so at megahertz or higher frequencies there will be no current in the steel core. Its all in the skin (effect) and the wire will have just the same conductivity as copper wire, minus any magnetic losses. I assume that they have made nice controlled impedance telecom wire, which is, to my knowledge, something cool and new. Kudos to the company that made it!
We got some copper clad steal Cat 5 cable a couple of years ago and had to throw it in the trash. Reason? We couldn't power any POE devices through more than about 50 feet of the stuff. It turns out to have 4 times the resistance per foot compared to copper.
This is why any lawyer will tell you to plead the fifth *anytime* you talk to the police. Doesn't matter if you are 100% innocent.
Is the world running out of copper or is it that recycling yards make it easy to "fence" stolen copper?
Someone told me a few years ago that the U.S. government eventually plans to let people sell their copper pennies for copper.
Any truth to this?
As someone with a half gallon glass jar of pennies I have been filling since antiquity I am interested to know.
See copperweld . It's obsolete here in the Midwest, though. The utilities here have been using ACSR for overhead conductors for decades. Buried cable is also aluminum. There is no good reason to use copper for power transmission (there is also no good reason to use copper for building wiring, but that's a different can of worms).
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Most power lines are NOT copper anyway, they are Aluminum. Aluminum is a better conductor than steel, and almost as good as copper. Rule of thumb is that you have to go down a standard gauge number step for aluminum to replace copper, ie: #12 gauge aluminum replaces #14 gauge copper for the same current. Even so the same length of aluminum wire that carries the same current as copper will be lighter in weight. The only downside of aluminum wire is that for small gauge use standard wire clamps make poor contact due to dissimilar metals. The feed line into most homes is aluminum.
Ya, call them terrorists.. like everything else that walks on 2 legs. Now I'm not saying they aren't criminals, but come on....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I have lived in the USA all my life ,except for a tour of duty in Spain.We seem to have the stupidest people in high places . You stop thieft of copper by removing the scrape dealers from scene . They no longer can buy scrap Copper. Any copper that is bought must have the picture of the seller , his fingerprints , a DNA sample , before he recieves one cent . Wake up people thieves are stupid , and don't want anything on record that can Identify them , most are shady caractors . Just to back up my statement look at the crooks in the senate , and what they have done to our country . Crooks are crooks even in suits .
Nothing else could be the deterent really.
New? Copperweld has been around for amost a century.
...an equally effective but far less valuable cable by exploiting the corrosion-resistance of copper with the conductive properties of steel.
They forget to mention "substantially thicker because steel is substantially less conductive".
If I remember from correctly from the physics class on electricity and magnetism, doesn't all the current travel along the outside of a wire anyhow i.e. it doesn't matter what you make the core of because it has no effect on resistance.
You're right if only a small percentage of the grid in a particular area is made up of cabling such as discussed in this article, or aluminum clad steel, etc.
But, if all of the power and phone cabling, etc gets replaced, and *every time* the thieves steal cable, it's almost worthless, after a few weeks or months you'd see the theft rate drop dramatically as they'll have learned that there's nothing worth stealing anymore.
Why stop here? Why not death penalty even if you get one little tiny hamburger. And his/her relatives in prison. For life.
One thing at a time, Ambassador. One thing at a time.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
I served on a grand jury a few years back. Based on the cases before us, the police in this area of Alabama have no interest in property crime whatsoever. The entire proceeding was laregely indicting people for drug crimes and the associated murder and mayhem. The way it works out, there is effectively no penalty for property crime thus the rash of them.
Heh? I think the editors got their physics backwards. Steel is corrosion resistant, but is a poor conductor. Copper conducts very well but is also chemically active (which is why it turns green with time).
You just gave them another great idea, a small army of lawyers thanks you for their job security. Next thing you know they'll be talking about the potential revenues that aren't being generated by the outage and updating their books with all these catastrophic "losses". Oh shit....
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
In a typical (German, don't know about the US) home you have wire lengths of some ten yards and a thickness of maybe 1.5 mm (AWG 16). That is not that much copper, and adding pigtails at every splice might cost more in terms of work than it saves in metal.
For cleaning up existing aluminum installations, it may be cheaper than ripping the old cables out though.
In power lines with much thicker cables and longer distances between slices, however, deciding on aluminium should be a no-brainer.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Copper clad cabling is far from being something new, it pretty much existed since....forever!
The copper cladding is not really for corrosion resistance. Copper oxidizes too, just look at the Statue of Liberty. The reason the copper cladding works is because free electrons travel on the surface and not the center of the wire. It's called the skin effect. So you get the strength and cost effectiveness of steel, with the conductance of copper.
I wanted to laugh at your posting, saying, No way can anyone put stupid laws like these into effect; unfortunately, I have seen them myself! I have to admit I feel like it is slowly killing me each time I learn a little more about my government :(
So, I'll add to yours, I have a 3/4" water pipe coming into my house, and then it drops to 1/2" and I was wondering if I could upgrade my whole house to 3/4"; anyways, I'm searching Google and find my towns Water By-Laws and start reading (really, really slow day) and realized I am breaking many, many, many laws.
Examples(there are about 50 or so by-laws in total, most are common sense, but a lot of really stupid ones too): :( And there are rules to maintain ones property too. (petty: do I fail if I connect three 50ft hoses? -- it states "one hose" after all).
1. Only allowed one hose to be connected outside... I have a front and back yard to water.... And backyard garden that is quite a ways from the house
2. Not allowed to put any raw material down the server (what is piss and shit?)
3. Not allowed to put any chemicals down the sewer (guess I can never clean my Kitchen or bathroom again -- the document actually says "chemicals"; of course, being really petty, I wonder, "Would treated water (has flouride, clourine, etc) be legally considered a chemical?").
etc.
I am sad again now :( Fortunately "Till debt do us part" is about to start so after watching those poor people I always feel better about myself (sad, sad, sad but you take what you can get these days).
In BC they have introduced the legislation that requires recyclers to ask for government-issued identification for copper recycling and record and report sources of the recycled material to law enforcement. Since introduced last year, wire thefts dropped by something like 80%.
Bow before me, for I am root.
For cleaning up existing aluminum installations, it may be cheaper than ripping the old cables out though.
We have it in a bunch of old mobile homes here, like my mom's :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Disappointing. You didn’t include anything about your HOSTS file.
Copper-clad steel cables are not new
They caught one group of thieves that got a business license here (WA) to get around the wait. I wonder how many they haven't caught...
Okay, I wish I could express it as an equation so your mind could understand it, but:
When people say "I don't commit crime" they actually mean "I don't commit crime that matters to the majority of people in my culture".
When someone says "I've had nothing to eat today", do you retort (in your nerdiest voice) "Well, actually you've probably ingested many small organisms which landed in your mouth after 0000h, so, haha [chortle], you have actually eaten today."?
Stop taking things so literally! Can't you get some sort of book that helps you with interpreting things properly?
kids were holding on to the back of buses during the winter and "sledding"
Back in the day, that was called bumper sketching.
Really? I thought it was called road bumping... :)
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
That's a strange definition.
I take "I've had nothing to eat today" to mean the person hasn't eaten. No I wouldn't chortle about those small organisms since in we don't call that eating.
Whereas "I don't commit crime" I would take to mean "I don't break any criminal laws", possible "I don't break any laws that classify as felonies". Which I would have though everyone would take as the meaning.
To the majority of people in the US smoking marijuana as a "crime that doesn't matter", yet I'm pretty sure you go to prison for that in a bunch of places in the US. I certainly wouldn't say "I don't commit crime" if I used marijuana (without say a permissions note from a doctor in a state that has such a thing - though the Federal Government still calls that a crime).
I'm not taking things liteally. You are just being obtuse.
In fact the very post being discussed said "all felonies" which covers a while bunch of things that your ridiculous definition does not.
Good observation about skin effect, however "skin effect" is really only noticable at much higher frequencies like many tens or hundreds of MHz. At 50Hz or 60Hz which are the most common AC power transmission frequencies, skin effect is practically negligible, and therefore current IS carried throughout the cross-section of the conductor and not just the surface...
Or stop being hypocrites and ban alcohol, tobacco, and every other product proven to affect brain function, including coffee, tea, sugar, breakfast cereals, any product containing corn or corn by-products, chocolate (don't you DARE!!!) etc.
Don't forget the orangutans!... :D
In case you hadn't noticed, everything is a felony these days.
But I agree that a second conviction for theft should carry a very long sentence. Many crimes are crimes of passion, committed under circumstances that are unlikely to be repeated - and many more "crimes" are not really crimes at all - but theft has real victims and thieves have a very high recidivism rate. If there is one crime that we should punish with very long vacations from polite society, it should be theft.
To be clear, I think Silvergate's drawing attention to a real problem, which is why that title bothers me. Presuming that he's putting his best case forward, the title is complete bullshit.
The site promoting the book briefly explains how a person commits "three felonies a day".
Unless the "average American" (I take average to mean typical, not statistical mean) is routinely importing goods, wandering around wetlands, lying about their sick days, receiving classified data, talking to the cops, etc., it's hard to see how he or she is committing three felonies a day. You can even have a drug habit without committing a felony in many cases, and that's probably the worst area of law enforcement overreach in society today.
Strange enough, I recall, at least in Canada that the requirements for a grounding conductor be of copper.
Guess I won't be seeing that around here.
APK seemed to disappear for a long time, presumably because his doctors finally found a mix of medications that were effective, but I guess he's been off them recently...
- T
APK, I have come across your posts on various forums over the years. I have seen how you react to people who have tried to explain that your posts all but incomprehensible due to excessive capitalisation, bolding and quotation and the disjointed style you adopt .
... offtopic.
If someone has recommended that they reply to you as an AC it is only so that you don't follow them in every topic they post in quoting comments from some completely unrelated discussion. I am posting this as an AC for precisely that reason.
Here's the meat of this comment;
No-one, except you, cares about whether you 'won' an argument. No-one, except you, cares whether someone 'ran away'. No-one, except you (and some trolls who enjoy winding you up and watching you foam at the mouth) care _unless_ what you have to say is in some way pertinent to the discussion at hand.
I have come across your post at -1 because I have moderation points and am reading the 0 and -1 posts to see if there are any that are worth modding up. If I had found it at more than that, I would have modded it down - something I almost never do - simply because it has no place in this discussion. People are not modding you down as part of some conspiracy - they are doing it because your posts about things being 'too, too, 2 EASY' are offtopic. They are modding you down because complaining that people have 'run away' have no place on this site. They are modding you down because a post about people conspiring to keep you down is both nonsense and
They are modding you down as a way of trying to show you what posts are good and what are not wanted. Please, please try to understand this. It's not an attack on you. It's a way of trying to show you (and other people) what is considered a good post and what is not.
tomhudson is not a guise or a 'LUSER'. I have seen them post on this site for years. Same for mcgrew and webmisstressrachel. The others I don't immediately recognise (and I'm not about to trawl their previous comments), but given your misidentification of those, I doubt you are any more correct for them.
_My_ post is wildly offtopic, but after seeing your return to this paranoid and, frankly, creepy stalking of users you think are harassing you I am taking the time to try and get through. Post comments that are relevant to the topic. Stop trying to 'win' - not everyone is going to agree with you, learn to live with it. Pick one method of drawing attention to text - capitals or bold, not both. Stop with the excessive quotes - a relevant link or two is great, more than that and maybe you should consider submitting an article.
Hope this helps explain the reactions you get and goes some way towards helping improve your posts.
Is file sharing a felony?
Learn to love Alaska
Thieves will exist until all people will earn equal. Thieves = result of bad economy system. Some people earn 500$ monthly and some 50 000$.
Recipes for USA bankrupt - http://tinypaste.com/0d66f dd = dollar deluge (printed in the infinity)
There's nothing for it: we'll just have to go wireless.
You are quite right, the parent should have said "I do not commit crime... that any DA would care about prosecuting."
If Fe coated with Cu cable is equally good, but cheaper, why hasn't it been used everywhere?
it's not so much that the teachers are better, it's that they're equally distributed. In America, property taxes pay for public schools. So if you live in a poor neighborhood you have low value property, low property taxes and therefore underfunded schools. It's a clever way for the rich to have nice public schools w/o paying for the poor to get same. Finland doesn't allow that, they distribute the funds equally, and have no private schools. Adam Smith talked about this in Wealth of Nations. One of the checks and balances on the evils of Capitalism was suppose to be that the rich lived in the same environment as the poor (social and economic as well as natural); so if they screwed the poor they were really just screwing themselves. The world is big enough that that isn't true. Heck, forget the world, just the good 'ol US of A is big enough for the rich to ignore the plight of the poor.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/