There is a Northern Ontario story where a mine mistakenly sold gravel from the "Process" pile rather than the "Tailings" pile. Resulting in the street literally being paved with gold. I think it was Timmins Ontario.
History suggests that we are incapable of self regulating our consumption at scale. We change behaviour only when immediate circumstances leave us no viable alternative. Without serious pain our idiot brains simply conclude we are doing fine and keep us chugging along as if we are immortal and the world is a limitless provider of whatever we want. The end of this civilization is nigh. At some level we all know it but not in a way that creates enough psychic or physical pain for us to change our behaviour in a material way (buying an electric car and diligently putting out our recycling won’t cut it I am afraid). Conflict between our immediate self interest and the needs of the future is always resolved in favour of the now. Nothing in our history suggests we are capable of better as a group. We are products and victims of our evolution. Voluntary degrowth would entail a level of foresight and active reasoning that is beyond the capabilities of the collective. Even if it were not, we have created a civilization supported precariously on the untenable notion that because having some stuff is good having more stuff must be better. Time for a (another) reality check for humanity. Assuming there is anyone left to write our history they will no doubt be astounded by our wilful blindness to the inevitability of the collapse of what is clearly a house of cards in the path of a hurricane. Based on past cycles they will probably also promptly head off down the same path that got us here. God is clearly a sadist.
It's probably pie-in-the-sky, but we need a cultural change away from self-centered capitalism. The cult of capitalism - the presumption that a free market solves all and anything that impinges on it is evil - needs to be uprooted (I typo'd that as 'uprotted' at first; maybe should have left it) and replaced with something emphasizing belonging. (Yeah, I know that sounds woke, which is a problem, too.)
The right is masterful at coopting language. Per my other note here, we need to be better. But we also need a social movement that aligns all human interest as well as nature's and counters the cult of capitalism.
So true. I appreciate this comment. 'Self-centred' capitalism has/is the root cause of many of our current issues. Alignment of human interest and nature (which are actually one and the same) is already underway... and the cult of capitalism is a long-standing trip-up to achieving positive change.
"while EVs are the fastest-growing source of demand, increasing sevenfold from 2% of global copper demand in 2024 to 10% in 2050."
As we all know, projecting 25 years into the future is a complete waste of time.
for example EVs are currently in the process of migrating from 400 V to 800 V traction buses. Combined with improvements of efficiency from mid voltage buses it could well be that we see EV's with less copper than Current production ICE vehicles.
Adding into this the greater use of aluminium conductors and I can't really see how EV's are part copper problem.
"But aluminum has its own issues."
Well that's bait and switch argument if I ever saw one. That article is about the environmental impact of any refining and does not in any way mention an aluminium shortage which is what we're talking about here.
No, we're not gonna run out of aluminium. It's one of the most common elements on the planet.
" You can run 300 e-bikes with the batteries in one Rivian pickup truck, would we not be smarter to invest in making our roads safe for them?" How many African elephants is that?
The electric bike market is a fulfilled market, anybody who wants an e-Bike could both get one and afford it. Therefore, there is relatively little growth apparently visible within that transport space. Consequently, it won't make any difference to the supply or demand of copper.
" The wiring is designed to carry 1,800 watts of power to incandescent lightbulb" That is a very strange way of looking at things!
The average European House has a supply of 64 A multiplied by 240 V = 16Kw. The average USA House (the information is not so clear here) is 2×100×120 = 24Kw. The average developing world house is fed at 32 A multiplied by 240 for a total of 8 kW.
Socket voltages and Current range from 120 V at 10 amp, 240 V at 16 A and occasionally higher.
"you can now wire your house with CAT-5 and just plug in a computer cable" Not unless you are willing to accept power losses within the wiring of the house of at least 20% and as high a possibly 40% Or put it another way to supply 24 kW to the House you would have to take at least 30 kW from the power grid
No we're not gonna see houses wired with Cat-5 cable! Putting aside the additional cost on the power bill, it would make a mockery of your Sufficiency statements. Power over Cat-5 is only used for short very low current runs to things like Wi-Fi access points It is completely unsuitable for use on House wiring even with very low demand end points
What you are likely to see is the removal of the higher power Current feeds, everything will be standadised at 10 amp, this will indeed reduce the amount of copper Required to wire a house, but AC is not going away because the costs associated with the migration are astronomical.
To address your point about power conversion, what you are already seeing and will become far more common, will be power sockets in the walls which which sit on the 10 amp 120/140 AC bus and generate PD USB-C power delivery sockets instead and it's at that point the AC to DC conversion will take place
I noticed that you don't make any mention of the AC to DC converter which would take a large amount of copper/aluminium in its construction.
"Geologist Simon Michaux, working for the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK" I have read the report - it is out of date - It fails to take into account the tremendous increase in reserves of things like lithium that have occurred in the last decade.
"As we all know, projecting 25 years into the future is a complete waste of time."
Absolutely true! Just look at even the short Doomsday propositions that we have already lived through without even a tick of reality appropriated to them.
Heck, I believe that even attempting to foretell just the next ten years is nothing more than a fool's mind gone stupid.
I agree we need to be much smarter about where we use the finite resources we have. Using less is part of that, and so is setting up managed recycling schemes. We have a huge problem with copper theft here in NZ that goes largely unrecognised. Thieves are becoming more and more brazen- the other year someone even stole the copper roof from an observatory in Auckland that was being renovated. They just rolled up the sheets and dropped them down to the ground. A local charity had their outside taps stolen recently. Not too long ago a wind farm near Wellington had the copper from cables stolen- maybe $1000 worth- costing 100s of $1000s in damages. The scrap market is stuck somewhere in the 1950s when it comes to administration and accountability. What could help would be a register where "accredited" buyers and sellers can operate, but in the meantime everyone puts up with a costly nuisance.
"If you don’t like the words “degrowth” or even “sufficiency,” call it “demand-side mitigation."
I know I tend to go on about this and that language is never going to be perfect, but the sustainability movement desperately needs a language of enticement and positivity. Appealing to guilt or responsibility haven't worked. "Degrowth," a term of negativity that lends itself too easily to twisted meaning, will be no more successful than "defund" despite both having solid ideas behind them. "Demand-side mitigation" might work for economists but is far too wordy and unrelatable. "Sufficiency" isn't as bad but still implies sacrifice as well as someone determining what is sufficient for you.
For degrowth, I've proposed something like 'real growth.' I don't have anything for sufficiency (yet) but would love suggestions. Perhaps something related to (but not) 'life satisfaction'?
Is this centered on voluntary or mandatory compliance to whatever level of degrowth/sufficiency/have less/<insert other language here>? In your eyes, is this driven by individuals change of hearts or government mandates?
First it was paper bags, then glass. Now it is plastic and oil. In the near future its now going to be copper and other metals. The track record for the environmentalists is not looking very good. So how are you going to spin this on the capitalists?
I've been listening to these Doomsday prophesies for over 50 years. Not a single one, since before the first Earth Day, has come to fruition.
Coj1, they can't. This will end up just like the famous 1980 bet between Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich. They agreed on a basket of commodities: copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten. Each was rumored to be in short supply in short order.
Mr. Doom and Gloom (er, Ehrlich) took the position that the basket would be much more expensive; Simon happily took the opposite.
Simon won, hands down, as he better understood how humanity becomes better at finding formerly scarce resources. Another example was Peak Oil - human ingenuity created hydraulic fracking which opened up huge new finds of oil and gas.
And more to the point of this post, and supporting this comment, I dryly note that no one here has yet mentioned the latest find of VERY high quality copper (and in quantity) in South America in the Andes - Filo del Sol.
"On copper you are correct. Other metals will be in short supply too."
Well, if you had been in on that 1980 Simon/Ehrlich bet, you would have lost as well. So I ask this, given your superior knowledgebase (earning a Ph.D isn't an easy task), what are your citations for your shortage supposition? And which metals would be in your "basket"? Further, as in the human progression of "light" (e.g., wood fire, candles, plant oils, whale oil, kerosene, electric), what is your percentage estimation that some other "bright bulb" (pun intended) would come up with alternatives (of various and sundry discoveries) to make your supposition moot?
Geologists Might Have Stumbled Upon the Largest Gold Mine in the World
$83 billion has just been sitting there underground this whole time.
"A deposit of gold ore recently discovered in China isn’t just giant. It’s supergiant. So much so, in fact, that Chinese experts claim it could be the largest deposit of any precious metal—not just gold ore—in existence today..."
I have always wondered what life would be like if we had never gone to the Moon. Would we have cell phones? Would we have electric vehicles? No matter what, I still look at wind and solar as going back in time. It will never be what everyone thinks it is, it can't be. You can't guarantee the wind will blow and the sun will be out.
Yes, without the military race to the moon (and make no doubt, this was a military race between the US and the Soviet Union), we might not have the explosion of tech that we did during the 60s and setting the stage for later developments.
Without photovoltaics, which started their climb to prominence for space utilization, we'd not be doing much in space right now. But you are right - an average of 12 hours a day without sun doesn't do much for PV.
And we just witnessed, with Spain and Iberia, what happens when this experiment of all REs gets to a critical point, things can go haywire rather quickly. All of my electrical engineering friends are still clucking their tongues over the massive stupidity as its underlying cause has been known for a long time.
And the RE ideologues refused to listen to that reality. With modernity comes close tolerances and REs proved they can't hack it when scaled. Spain just announced they were investing in, for quickness sake, new natgas generator plants.
Everything can have a valid purpose when used in the correct manner and when its implementation is done correctly. This wasn't that.
On copper you are correct. Other metals will be in short supply too. Using less, consuming less, is the correct approach if you are not wedded to the economic ideal (and myth) of continuous growth, as are the bulk of global economists. I wrote about this myself here: https://wayneteel513055.substack.com/p/do-not-take-things-from-the-ground
Low voltage DC requires more copper, not less. Just look under the hood of an EV; the cables to the 12V starter battery to run the ~1 kW lights and accessories are about the same size as the orange cables to run 100 kW fast charging to the 800V battery.
HVDC is one application where aluminium makes sense over copper, because there's less penalty on thicker conductors (no skin effect) and aluminium gives you less resistance per dollar.
There's a big gathering of all the top DC lighting representatives next week in Savannah GA at the www.realcomm.com Electrify event. Granted, this event is targeted at large commercial building developers and owners, the LumenCache platform is ideal for both residential construction and commercial.
The cost of Copper is turning many electricians to Cat5 Class 2 lighting solutions. Perfect timing for the release of the ReNetA platform where the real benefits can compound: Tunable White built in, more efficient than AC, lower install cost, ...
There's a big gathering of all the top DC lighting representatives next week in Savannah GA at the www.realcomm.com Electrify event. Granted, this event is targeted at large commercial building developers and owners, the LumenCache platform is ideal for both residential construction and commercial.
The cost of Copper is turning many electricians to Cat5 Class 2 lighting solutions. Perfect timing for the release of the ReNetA platform where the real benefits can compound: Tunable White built in, more efficient than AC, lower install cost, ...
I'm as guilty as the next fella when it comes to copper. One can't use PEX in a plenum space, so I spec copper water service as the cost of making the transitions from copper to PEX multiple times is about the same as using copper throughout a commercial project. That & I'm not a fan of PEX. I know, it's been around for a long time, but so was lead pipes & teflon frying plans.
Thanks for this Lloyd - very interesting! Completely agree with your premise here. A couple of clarifying questions for you if you know - are EU copper wires in houses a thicker gauge than in North America due to higher voltage? And how difficult is it to retrofit a house from copper to Cat 5? Does that ever happen, or only in a major retrofit of the entire building? Should it be happening with the copper wire then being recycled?
No they are thinner - cables are rated by Current as well as voltage. The lower the Current the thinner of the cable.
1 kW load at 120 V drawers approximately 8.2 A. The same load at 240 V drawers 4 Amps.
Hence it's cable it's significantly thinner.
"And how difficult is it to retrofit a house from copper to Cat 5" physically, it's just a matter of pulling cables with some wall opening. Financially it's completely infeasible.
"Does that ever happen" - no the man power costs are far too high for it to be considered feasible.
The only time that it would be commercially feasible would be at construction time. Copper is already recycled at about a 96% rate. As you would only be doing it during building construction time there wouldn't be any copper to recycle because it wouldn't be there in the first place.
The problem with Lloyd's low voltage DC power distribution idea, which has been promoted by many other people, is that they tend to overlook the parasitic losses that occur within low voltage DC systems.
We have in the past tried city level low voltage DC distribution systems (books are available free on the web discussing the history of the systems, it's quite fascinating). The losses have always resulted in them being very expensive to run and operate, and incidentally have also resulted in the need for extremely thick copper conductors to make them work at all.
There is a Northern Ontario story where a mine mistakenly sold gravel from the "Process" pile rather than the "Tailings" pile. Resulting in the street literally being paved with gold. I think it was Timmins Ontario.
History suggests that we are incapable of self regulating our consumption at scale. We change behaviour only when immediate circumstances leave us no viable alternative. Without serious pain our idiot brains simply conclude we are doing fine and keep us chugging along as if we are immortal and the world is a limitless provider of whatever we want. The end of this civilization is nigh. At some level we all know it but not in a way that creates enough psychic or physical pain for us to change our behaviour in a material way (buying an electric car and diligently putting out our recycling won’t cut it I am afraid). Conflict between our immediate self interest and the needs of the future is always resolved in favour of the now. Nothing in our history suggests we are capable of better as a group. We are products and victims of our evolution. Voluntary degrowth would entail a level of foresight and active reasoning that is beyond the capabilities of the collective. Even if it were not, we have created a civilization supported precariously on the untenable notion that because having some stuff is good having more stuff must be better. Time for a (another) reality check for humanity. Assuming there is anyone left to write our history they will no doubt be astounded by our wilful blindness to the inevitability of the collapse of what is clearly a house of cards in the path of a hurricane. Based on past cycles they will probably also promptly head off down the same path that got us here. God is clearly a sadist.
It's probably pie-in-the-sky, but we need a cultural change away from self-centered capitalism. The cult of capitalism - the presumption that a free market solves all and anything that impinges on it is evil - needs to be uprooted (I typo'd that as 'uprotted' at first; maybe should have left it) and replaced with something emphasizing belonging. (Yeah, I know that sounds woke, which is a problem, too.)
The right is masterful at coopting language. Per my other note here, we need to be better. But we also need a social movement that aligns all human interest as well as nature's and counters the cult of capitalism.
So true. I appreciate this comment. 'Self-centred' capitalism has/is the root cause of many of our current issues. Alignment of human interest and nature (which are actually one and the same) is already underway... and the cult of capitalism is a long-standing trip-up to achieving positive change.
"...Voluntary degrowth would entail a level of foresight and active reasoning that is beyond the capabilities of the collective."
"The Collective": thank God that most of us are not of the hive mentality which you seem to desire. How boring would that be?
first, your link to the IEA report is broken.
"while EVs are the fastest-growing source of demand, increasing sevenfold from 2% of global copper demand in 2024 to 10% in 2050."
As we all know, projecting 25 years into the future is a complete waste of time.
for example EVs are currently in the process of migrating from 400 V to 800 V traction buses. Combined with improvements of efficiency from mid voltage buses it could well be that we see EV's with less copper than Current production ICE vehicles.
Adding into this the greater use of aluminium conductors and I can't really see how EV's are part copper problem.
"But aluminum has its own issues."
Well that's bait and switch argument if I ever saw one. That article is about the environmental impact of any refining and does not in any way mention an aluminium shortage which is what we're talking about here.
No, we're not gonna run out of aluminium. It's one of the most common elements on the planet.
" You can run 300 e-bikes with the batteries in one Rivian pickup truck, would we not be smarter to invest in making our roads safe for them?" How many African elephants is that?
The electric bike market is a fulfilled market, anybody who wants an e-Bike could both get one and afford it. Therefore, there is relatively little growth apparently visible within that transport space. Consequently, it won't make any difference to the supply or demand of copper.
" The wiring is designed to carry 1,800 watts of power to incandescent lightbulb" That is a very strange way of looking at things!
The average European House has a supply of 64 A multiplied by 240 V = 16Kw. The average USA House (the information is not so clear here) is 2×100×120 = 24Kw. The average developing world house is fed at 32 A multiplied by 240 for a total of 8 kW.
Socket voltages and Current range from 120 V at 10 amp, 240 V at 16 A and occasionally higher.
"you can now wire your house with CAT-5 and just plug in a computer cable" Not unless you are willing to accept power losses within the wiring of the house of at least 20% and as high a possibly 40% Or put it another way to supply 24 kW to the House you would have to take at least 30 kW from the power grid
No we're not gonna see houses wired with Cat-5 cable! Putting aside the additional cost on the power bill, it would make a mockery of your Sufficiency statements. Power over Cat-5 is only used for short very low current runs to things like Wi-Fi access points It is completely unsuitable for use on House wiring even with very low demand end points
What you are likely to see is the removal of the higher power Current feeds, everything will be standadised at 10 amp, this will indeed reduce the amount of copper Required to wire a house, but AC is not going away because the costs associated with the migration are astronomical.
To address your point about power conversion, what you are already seeing and will become far more common, will be power sockets in the walls which which sit on the 10 amp 120/140 AC bus and generate PD USB-C power delivery sockets instead and it's at that point the AC to DC conversion will take place
I noticed that you don't make any mention of the AC to DC converter which would take a large amount of copper/aluminium in its construction.
"Geologist Simon Michaux, working for the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK" I have read the report - it is out of date - It fails to take into account the tremendous increase in reserves of things like lithium that have occurred in the last decade.
"As we all know, projecting 25 years into the future is a complete waste of time."
Absolutely true! Just look at even the short Doomsday propositions that we have already lived through without even a tick of reality appropriated to them.
Heck, I believe that even attempting to foretell just the next ten years is nothing more than a fool's mind gone stupid.
I agree we need to be much smarter about where we use the finite resources we have. Using less is part of that, and so is setting up managed recycling schemes. We have a huge problem with copper theft here in NZ that goes largely unrecognised. Thieves are becoming more and more brazen- the other year someone even stole the copper roof from an observatory in Auckland that was being renovated. They just rolled up the sheets and dropped them down to the ground. A local charity had their outside taps stolen recently. Not too long ago a wind farm near Wellington had the copper from cables stolen- maybe $1000 worth- costing 100s of $1000s in damages. The scrap market is stuck somewhere in the 1950s when it comes to administration and accountability. What could help would be a register where "accredited" buyers and sellers can operate, but in the meantime everyone puts up with a costly nuisance.
"If you don’t like the words “degrowth” or even “sufficiency,” call it “demand-side mitigation."
I know I tend to go on about this and that language is never going to be perfect, but the sustainability movement desperately needs a language of enticement and positivity. Appealing to guilt or responsibility haven't worked. "Degrowth," a term of negativity that lends itself too easily to twisted meaning, will be no more successful than "defund" despite both having solid ideas behind them. "Demand-side mitigation" might work for economists but is far too wordy and unrelatable. "Sufficiency" isn't as bad but still implies sacrifice as well as someone determining what is sufficient for you.
For degrowth, I've proposed something like 'real growth.' I don't have anything for sufficiency (yet) but would love suggestions. Perhaps something related to (but not) 'life satisfaction'?
I agree, we need a positive term. and a better name for Passive House too.
"demand-side mitigation"
Is this centered on voluntary or mandatory compliance to whatever level of degrowth/sufficiency/have less/<insert other language here>? In your eyes, is this driven by individuals change of hearts or government mandates?
Maybe “efficiency”?
First it was paper bags, then glass. Now it is plastic and oil. In the near future its now going to be copper and other metals. The track record for the environmentalists is not looking very good. So how are you going to spin this on the capitalists?
I've been listening to these Doomsday prophesies for over 50 years. Not a single one, since before the first Earth Day, has come to fruition.
Coj1, they can't. This will end up just like the famous 1980 bet between Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich. They agreed on a basket of commodities: copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten. Each was rumored to be in short supply in short order.
Mr. Doom and Gloom (er, Ehrlich) took the position that the basket would be much more expensive; Simon happily took the opposite.
Simon won, hands down, as he better understood how humanity becomes better at finding formerly scarce resources. Another example was Peak Oil - human ingenuity created hydraulic fracking which opened up huge new finds of oil and gas.
And more to the point of this post, and supporting this comment, I dryly note that no one here has yet mentioned the latest find of VERY high quality copper (and in quantity) in South America in the Andes - Filo del Sol.
Dr. Teel commented:
"On copper you are correct. Other metals will be in short supply too."
Well, if you had been in on that 1980 Simon/Ehrlich bet, you would have lost as well. So I ask this, given your superior knowledgebase (earning a Ph.D isn't an easy task), what are your citations for your shortage supposition? And which metals would be in your "basket"? Further, as in the human progression of "light" (e.g., wood fire, candles, plant oils, whale oil, kerosene, electric), what is your percentage estimation that some other "bright bulb" (pun intended) would come up with alternatives (of various and sundry discoveries) to make your supposition moot?
Well, well - lookie what just came over my gunwals:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a64929203/china-supergiant-gold/
Geologists Might Have Stumbled Upon the Largest Gold Mine in the World
$83 billion has just been sitting there underground this whole time.
"A deposit of gold ore recently discovered in China isn’t just giant. It’s supergiant. So much so, in fact, that Chinese experts claim it could be the largest deposit of any precious metal—not just gold ore—in existence today..."
So, two metals down...
I have always wondered what life would be like if we had never gone to the Moon. Would we have cell phones? Would we have electric vehicles? No matter what, I still look at wind and solar as going back in time. It will never be what everyone thinks it is, it can't be. You can't guarantee the wind will blow and the sun will be out.
Yes, without the military race to the moon (and make no doubt, this was a military race between the US and the Soviet Union), we might not have the explosion of tech that we did during the 60s and setting the stage for later developments.
Without photovoltaics, which started their climb to prominence for space utilization, we'd not be doing much in space right now. But you are right - an average of 12 hours a day without sun doesn't do much for PV.
And we just witnessed, with Spain and Iberia, what happens when this experiment of all REs gets to a critical point, things can go haywire rather quickly. All of my electrical engineering friends are still clucking their tongues over the massive stupidity as its underlying cause has been known for a long time.
And the RE ideologues refused to listen to that reality. With modernity comes close tolerances and REs proved they can't hack it when scaled. Spain just announced they were investing in, for quickness sake, new natgas generator plants.
Everything can have a valid purpose when used in the correct manner and when its implementation is done correctly. This wasn't that.
So much for "electrify everything", eh?
On copper you are correct. Other metals will be in short supply too. Using less, consuming less, is the correct approach if you are not wedded to the economic ideal (and myth) of continuous growth, as are the bulk of global economists. I wrote about this myself here: https://wayneteel513055.substack.com/p/do-not-take-things-from-the-ground
Of course, critics will attack both of us as desiring the impoverishment of humanity. Perhaps they fail to recognize that much of humanity is impoverished, though some (not all by any stretch, especially on the fringes of mega-cities) are happier than we are. Perhaps we should pay attention to them? Shall we take a lesson from hobbits? See: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2025-05-27/growing-the-shire-not-the-burb-facing-the-housing-crisis-with-ecological-sanity/
Low voltage DC requires more copper, not less. Just look under the hood of an EV; the cables to the 12V starter battery to run the ~1 kW lights and accessories are about the same size as the orange cables to run 100 kW fast charging to the 800V battery.
HVDC is one application where aluminium makes sense over copper, because there's less penalty on thicker conductors (no skin effect) and aluminium gives you less resistance per dollar.
There's a big gathering of all the top DC lighting representatives next week in Savannah GA at the www.realcomm.com Electrify event. Granted, this event is targeted at large commercial building developers and owners, the LumenCache platform is ideal for both residential construction and commercial.
The cost of Copper is turning many electricians to Cat5 Class 2 lighting solutions. Perfect timing for the release of the ReNetA platform where the real benefits can compound: Tunable White built in, more efficient than AC, lower install cost, ...
No copper in shoes 😆❤️. We have an awesome electric scooter i commute to work on. I agree with the micromobility
There's a big gathering of all the top DC lighting representatives next week in Savannah GA at the www.realcomm.com Electrify event. Granted, this event is targeted at large commercial building developers and owners, the LumenCache platform is ideal for both residential construction and commercial.
The cost of Copper is turning many electricians to Cat5 Class 2 lighting solutions. Perfect timing for the release of the ReNetA platform where the real benefits can compound: Tunable White built in, more efficient than AC, lower install cost, ...
I'm as guilty as the next fella when it comes to copper. One can't use PEX in a plenum space, so I spec copper water service as the cost of making the transitions from copper to PEX multiple times is about the same as using copper throughout a commercial project. That & I'm not a fan of PEX. I know, it's been around for a long time, but so was lead pipes & teflon frying plans.
Thanks for this Lloyd - very interesting! Completely agree with your premise here. A couple of clarifying questions for you if you know - are EU copper wires in houses a thicker gauge than in North America due to higher voltage? And how difficult is it to retrofit a house from copper to Cat 5? Does that ever happen, or only in a major retrofit of the entire building? Should it be happening with the copper wire then being recycled?
"thicker gauge"
No they are thinner - cables are rated by Current as well as voltage. The lower the Current the thinner of the cable.
1 kW load at 120 V drawers approximately 8.2 A. The same load at 240 V drawers 4 Amps.
Hence it's cable it's significantly thinner.
"And how difficult is it to retrofit a house from copper to Cat 5" physically, it's just a matter of pulling cables with some wall opening. Financially it's completely infeasible.
"Does that ever happen" - no the man power costs are far too high for it to be considered feasible.
The only time that it would be commercially feasible would be at construction time. Copper is already recycled at about a 96% rate. As you would only be doing it during building construction time there wouldn't be any copper to recycle because it wouldn't be there in the first place.
Thanks very much for the clear explanation Bob - really appreciate that! Makes perfect sense.
The problem with Lloyd's low voltage DC power distribution idea, which has been promoted by many other people, is that they tend to overlook the parasitic losses that occur within low voltage DC systems.
We have in the past tried city level low voltage DC distribution systems (books are available free on the web discussing the history of the systems, it's quite fascinating). The losses have always resulted in them being very expensive to run and operate, and incidentally have also resulted in the need for extremely thick copper conductors to make them work at all.