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Michael, new houses get plumbed with plastic. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, plastic pollution is another major problem, but it does cut down the demand for copper. And as Lapsed Agnostic has pointed out, a vast quantity of copper can be salvaged as plumbing systems get replaced.
Given the comments on piping I indulged my curiosity about the advantages and disadvantages of copper and plastic plumbing.
https://tmhughesandson.uk/copper-vs-plastic-pipes/
I’ve looked at a few links this one is a good overall summary.
I guess if copper is needed more for other things then plastic piping is a good substitute.For you Michael, Radical electric motor runs without metal coils. Still in a lab and with all sorts of downsides but maybe someday we’ll have alternatives to copper (or metal) conductors.
For you Fat John DARPA sets new records for sending power wirelessly.
Very inefficient but that’s where we’re at.ET, the company you just linked to is right next to my nearest railway station! Come to Chelmsford for good, clear technical advice; we’re a load of geeks here.
Though we can’t get apostrophe’s right :-/
Lol.Clark, I was gonna apologise to you that I didn’t have a specific link for you. I’m a kind of (drunk right now) geek, I might fit in.
ET, your link is quite specific enough. I had noticed your geekery, and I congratulate you on it.
Adam: “What’s the difference between a geek and a nerd?”
Bill: “I don’t know; what is the difference between a geek and a nerd?”
Adam: “Ah, a geek would know.”A woman friend of mine, purchased a new small semi-detached house,the electricity came up from the ground adjacent to the wall between the two properties, we assume this was the cheapest was to do it for the joined two properties.
She then bought a second hand EV.
She had a terminal put on the front of her house, so she could charge her electric car.
They had to use very heavy cable, going from the party wall, along the wall of her living room, across the outside of the rear, then down the outside, of the side, then on to the front of her house.
So, four years ago, this cost her almost four thousand pounds.
Quite a lot of Copper.
I think she said there were three types of installations, depending how much current you draw.
She chose the middle priced one.
I guess 100 amps.
I might be wrong.
Probably a more expensive new house, might already be fitted with with a car charger/
Another woman friend of mine, just had solar fitted to her two bed semi, with a battery pack and electrical/electronic stuff, again not cheap.
If the New Labour Government want us to go all electric, I am assuming a modern house will have a lot more Copper than an older house.
If you build a whole new estate and each house was to be fitted with heat pump, solar roof and batteries and fast EV charger point, that estate will need much heavier wiring than an estate first fitted with electricity in the 1920’s – 1930’s.
What I am getting at, is that we will need more Copper not less Copper.
The rest of the globe who barely use electricity now, will expect electricity in the near future.
As the resourse of Copper becomes harder to obtain, the price of Copper will rise.When the British Electricity Grid was being installed one hundred years ago the population of the United Kingdom was half of what it is today.
One hundred/75 years ago, most people had very few electrical devices, now people have a lot of electrical devices.
I only see the demand for Copper – rising.Ok Michael, so your current (pun not intended) obsession is now Copper rather than Lithium; but Aluminium is a decent conductor of electricity.
Not as good as Copper, admittedly; but Aluminium has the added benefit of being one of the most common elements on the planet.
@Fat Jon, quite so.
My neighbour tells me that they are gradually replacing the National Grid steel cables, with new, larger diameter Aluminium alloy cables. He claims that the original zinc coated pylons are still good, if not messed about with, too much.
Aluminium is about three times lighter than steel.
They want to quadruple the current carried.
The massive sub station behind my daughter’s house has just had the steel cables replaced.
Four instead of two, from each hanger.You need an awful lot of cheap electricity to turn ore into Aluminium product.
In the U.K. we do not have enough electricity.
Our electricity is phenomenally expensive.U..last remaining aluminium smelter Lochaber fears extinction under Government scrutiny
@ Fat Jon, you are correct, that if we are to have an all electric future in the United Kingdom, then we will need to develope a substitute for Copper.
I wonder if Clark knows much about
HTLS
“high-temperature low-sag”Michael, sorry, HTLS is not something I know about.
I do know that the East Coast High Voltage DC interconnector is ten years behind schedule and hasn’t even been started on yet. I wonder a lot about “leaving it to the market”. The market is making a fortune from high electricity prices, and from non-generation from wind farms when the grid is inadequate to distribute or export their output. So there is certainly a monetary incentive not to upgrade the grid. I wonder if money is changing hands behind the scenes; we know corruption is rife these days.
It might be an idea to place aluminium smelting works near the wind farms. I expect aluminium can be smelted in start-stop fashion in electric arc furnaces, so this would be a way of using the wind farm output that the (as yet) inadequate grid can’t handle.
The price of electricity actually goes negative at times; they actually pay big customers to use it when they can’t get rid of it any other way. Intermittency does work both ways. But I have no understanding of the bidding system, and I’m not intending to learn. The problem simply shouldn’t exist as far as I’m concerned, so I’m not going to waste my time or brainpower on it. Screw the politicians; they’re corrupt and incompetent.
