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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.
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)
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?
Correlation != causation.
It could just be that criminals that have always been stealing stuff, have now found that stealing copper cables involves far less risk, and better rewards than stealing from people's houses.
There's far more statistics to be done to understand any of the underlying causes... but you know, blindly blaming it on a bad economy works just as well.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
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
A glance at this graph will give you a swift education on why copper theft has increased recently.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
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.
"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...
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...
Of course its nothing to do with the recent peak in the price of copper.
It could just be that criminals that have always been stealing stuff, have now found that stealing copper cables involves far less risk, and better rewards than stealing from people's houses.
It could be, sure. But seriously, which do you think is more likely?
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
scraps steel for money
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.
And the prisons were indeed terrible places
This did not make for a safer, more law-abiding society.
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
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.
And it matches up nicely with the current downturn in the economy...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
drug testing at scrap yards.
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.
No, but the price of copper has ... duh!
No sig today...
More likely is that the price of copper has gone up massively over the last few years.
No sig today...
My city made it to /. SMH...
Visit my Forums?
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.
Thief: Let's steal copper cables!
GSmart: Let's steel copper cables!
Actually, this is not a new problem. 20 -30 years ago, people were going around with chain saws and cutting down aluminium traffic light poles when the price of aluminium went through the roof. Theft always goes up in an economic down-turn, but we'll also always have that "base-line" of thieves who will steal because it's "what they do," not out of necessity.
The real problem is that the damage lingers long after the economy recovers, as people who had to bend corners continue to bend corners. Eventually, it reaches the highest levels, such as BoA, CitiBank, AIG, as "just doing business."
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.
Prisoners are guaranteed Cable TV in prison by Federal Law.
Sorry. Someone pulled up all the cable. For the copper.
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/
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?
Which proves that the Lesser Depression was caused by a rise in the price of copper.
"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?
I think they are more throwing a fit because he crams them into dark green korean war surplus tents in the 115 degree Arizona heat with no cooling and limited water. I think they are more throwing a fit because he also uses hot boxes as additional punishment in those conditions. I think they are more throwing a fit because he is literally running concentration camps here in the US.
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.
Geez, guy, get a grip. Copper is easy to steal and fence; times are tough. Consider Occam.
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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.
Your use of italics is Peculiar.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Mod parent up. The root of the problem here is our failed economy. All this copper theft and stuff is nothing more than symptoms of that. It's not just the crackheads or meth addicts. It's people like the two brothers who dismantled an entire bridge and hauled it off for scrap. I mean, when was the last time you saw a junkie put forth that kind of effort to get a fix?
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
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!
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
Keep in mind charting any commodity versus the US dollar - the US dollar has depreciated in value fairly substantially since 2008. So that big spike isn't a rise in Copper (although it may be a contributing factor), it's the lowering of the US dollar.
#!/bin/csh cat $0
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).
This is exactly the point, the society is cannibalizing itself. Sure you have folks who would pull the gold from other people teeth while they chew for drug money, but there are a lot of folks who've gotten just plain desperate for money to keep the kids in milk and Captain Crunch. As we continue to saw off support for the poor, and their numbers swell, people will resort to ever greater acts of desperation, and the price will be a chronic failure of fundamental infrastructure. Its not like we haven't seen this kind of thing happen many times before in history. Just not here (at least not since the Great Depression.)
Considering that many thieves use the illegality of deadly force as justification to
When thieves can brazenly say "nya nya nya u can't touch me unless you catch me and I'll only go to jail for awhile so nyaaa" things need to change.
Maybe make it so they don't have to steal to survive.
Do that, and you can shitcan the thieves that keep stealing.
Unfortunately a lot of it is just plain unadulterated greed of people who only care about themselves.
Up until about 1820, there were 400 offenses in England that carried the death penalty. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/victorianbritain/lawless/default.htm
And the prisons were indeed terrible places
This did not make for a safer, more law-abiding society.
Actually, it did. Victorian England was a lot safer than today's England.
From here:
"The number of indictable offences per thousand population in
1900 was 2.4 and in 1997 the figure was 89.1."
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.
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'!"
1900 is not 1820. 1900 is about two generations later. By 1900 the law had been massively reformed, and policemen had been introduced. The 'Peelers'. With a police presence---the friendly 'Bobby', greater prosperity and reform of many abuses (the sort of thing that Dickens wrote about---and helped change) the crime rate dropped.
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
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.
Also, apparently he was so busy arresting illegal immigrants that hadn't committed any crimes and holding prisoners in inhumane conditions that he and his officers completely failed to investigate a huge number of rapes. That hasn't made him terribly popular except with white rapists.
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.
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.
Mod parent up. The root of the problem here is our failed economy. All this copper theft and stuff is nothing more than symptoms of that.
Copper theft is a global problem, and has been so for long before the housing bubble burst.
Dont pretend that America is the problem just because you want to whine about its economy.
"His name was James Damore."
Yes, everyone knows that the best way to deal with people who have little respect for authority is to prove to them beyond doubt, with petty, cruel and humiliating behaviour, that (certain) people in authority deserve no respect.
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 ----
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".
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.
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.
I'm sure you'll be happy to go to jail after your automated security system causes bodily harm to someone who accidentally ventures onto your property without seeing the no-tresspassing sign (maybe because they didn't go via the main entrance, or maybe they were blind or don't read English?), or people like the post man, firemen, police, etc. who may well have legitimate business (that is beneficial to you) on your property.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
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 whole idea is that prison isn't supposed to be fun. If you don't like it, then don't commit any crimes.
No wonder liberals never get anything done; they always focus on the stupidest, most inconsequential issues instead of concentrating on issues that really matter. Instead of making a big deal out of unjust wars like they did with all the protests during the Vietnam era, or making a big deal about civil rights for Citizens with different skin color like they did during the Civil Rights protests, today's moronic generation of liberals bitch and complain about pink underwear for prisoners while multiple wars rage on, and they say nothing about those.
I think they are more throwing a fit because he crams them into dark green korean war surplus tents in the 115 degree Arizona heat with no cooling and limited water.
So what? That's the weather here. Don't like it? Go move somewhere colder.
Our soldiers are in the middle east in 120-130+ temperatures, and they have to wear body armor.
And, citation needed on the limited water bit. I think you're making that up.
People have been living here in AZ for several thousand years without A/C. The Anasazi even built a whole canal system here, and they obviously didn't need A/C to do it.
Were these rapes in the county or one of the cities? The MCSO doesn't really have much in the way of detectives like a city police department, and much of their area is already covered by various city PDs (Phoenix, Tempe, Chandler, Scottsdale, Mesa, etc.). If a rape happens in Mesa, that's the Mesa PD's job to investigate, not the MCSO. If some kid gets lost in the mountains, that's the MCSO's job to mount a search and rescue effort. Joe just happens to like spending his officer's additional time on something that voters like. The areas where MCSO has jurisdiction, which aren't also covered by another municipal PD, are generally very unpopulated areas, except for the Town of Guadalupe which tried once to have their own PD and it was a complete disaster, so they went back to having the MCSO provide police services.
BTW, illegals have committed a crime, just by coming here without authorization. Try moving to Mexico without authorization from the Mexican government and see what happens to you (hint: it involves a lot of prison time).
Skin effect only comes into play at high frequencies, usually well into the RF region. At 50-60hz only a very small area in the center of the wire would not be handling any current. Even at AUDIO frequencies the skin effect is marginal. That's why the guys selling Litz wire speaker cables are full of shit with their claims of better frequency response.
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.'"
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...
Shenanigans. You want to see a period of substantial depreciation in the dollar, look at the graph for 1975-85: 15% inflation, but copper prices stayed relatively flat.
Somebody's gaming the copper market, just like they gamed the oil market when oil spiked up to $140 a few years ago...
0 1 - just my two bits
Angry authoritarian Lesbian Hillary Clinton, is that you?!
Dude, you often argue good points. Snowgirl also makes a good argument here; don't let yourself down with ad-hominems just because you disagree.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
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
I think they are more throwing a fit because he crams them into dark green korean war surplus tents in the 115 degree Arizona heat with no cooling and limited water. I think they are more throwing a fit because he also uses hot boxes as additional punishment in those conditions. I think they are more throwing a fit because he is literally running concentration camps here in the US.
Prison is meant to be a deterrent, not a fucking holiday resort. I say Sheriff Joe has it spot-on.
If you don't like the idea of that sort of treatment, you have the same opportunity to avoid it as the rest of us: don't do the crime.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
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.
You forgot: and don't look like a Mexican. because he is ignoring many many crimes committed by whites so he can imprison as many brown people as he possibly can.
The US constitution demands due process and no cruel or unusual punishment. If you have a problem with that, why do you hate America?
You forgot: and don't look like a Mexican. because he is ignoring many many crimes committed by whites so he can imprison as many brown people as he possibly can.
A fair comment that reveals my ignorance of the full issue. Grishnakh's post is the first I've heard of Sheriff Joe of Arizona and I wasn't aware of the racial controversy. Naturally, as a geek, I want things to be as fair and functional as possible and as such could not support a racist policy such as you describe.
The US constitution demands due process and no cruel or unusual punishment. If you have a problem with that, why do you hate America?
Here we hit more of a symantec issue IMHO; what exactly does one define as 'cruel or unusual'? I suspect my definition differs from yours.
There's also the philosophical (or political?) question of whether one considers prison itself and the loss of one's liberty to be The Punishment for The Crime, or whether prison exists to administer The Punishment for The Crime, with loss of liberty as a given.
As a kiwi I don't hate the US per se, but rather what it is allowing itself to become. I do very much like your constitution.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
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.
Posting flamebait on /. crime against humanity, shoot on sight.
Is file sharing a felony?
Learn to love Alaska
There's nothing for it: we'll just have to go wireless.
I had just assumed you were American like me, sorry. The point I am making with the "why do you hate America?" comment is that if you see torture, humiliation, degradation, concentration camps, and death by dehydration and heat stroke to be not "cruel and unusual" then the "justice" you seek is antithetical to the American constitutional ideology.
You are quite right, the parent should have said "I do not commit crime... that any DA would care about prosecuting."
I had just assumed you were American like me, sorry. The point I am making with the "why do you hate America?" comment is that if you see torture, humiliation, degradation, concentration camps, and death by dehydration and heat stroke to be not "cruel and unusual" then the "justice" you seek is antithetical to the American constitutional ideology.
Again I find it hard to disagree with you, although I'd point out that we're still coming up against personal definitions because I agree that death by dehydration and heat stroke are going too far.
I want to see a genuine deterrent and I'm sick of what I perceive to be the soft way we treat prisoners here in NZ and find similarities with the states. I guess I just don't believe in rehabilitation (such as we currently employ) which amounts to little more than an advanced university of criminal behaviour ultimately leading to further abuse of honest citizens upon the inmate's release.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
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/
Texas Penal Code 9.42. DEADLY FORCE TO PROTECT PROPERTY.
A person is justified in using deadly force against another to protect land or tangible, movable property:
(1) if he would be justified in using force against the other under Section 9.41; and
(2) when and to the degree he reasonably believes the deadly force is immediately necessary:
(A) to prevent the other's imminent commission of arson, burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, theft during the nighttime, or criminal mischief during the nighttime; or
(B) to prevent the other who is fleeing immediately after committing burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, or theft during the nighttime from escaping with the property; and
(3) he reasonably believes that:
(A) the land or property cannot be protected or recovered by any other means; or
(B) the use of force other than deadly force to protect or recover the land or property would expose the actor or another to a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury.
In Texas, you shoot them in the back as they run away. Or shoot them without warning if you think they may be intending to commit theft at night. Gotta love Texas.
Learn to love Alaska
Also, apparently he was so busy arresting illegal immigrants that hadn't committed any crimes
"Illegal immigrants that hadn't committed any crimes.." That phrase just makes no sense.
The problem is that a "genuine deterrent" of humiliation, sensory deprivation, abuse and torture does not work. When someone goes through that it tends to cause severe mental imbalances like post traumatic stress disorder, anti-social behavior depression, paranoia, psychopathy, sociopathy, etc. What your "solution" does is create the most horrible kind of criminal that will never be able to integrate into society under any circumstances and it is only a matter of time before they go on to commit more serious crimes, kill themselves or become institutionalized. This is a known fact supported by pretty much the entire community of psychology.
The punishment of being in prison is being away from the world. To reform prisoners they need to be shown compassion and understanding, they need therapy, education and training. They do not need to be beaten like a dog until all they can do is bite back.