Copper?
- Thread starter kmiklas
- Start date
- Copper kills viruses.
- Teck a copper producer is promoting copper for appliances for this reason.
https://www.teck.com/responsibility/approach-to-responsibility/global-citizenship/copper-&-health/
I am using copper futures in my automated trading. Symbol HG at CME.
https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/metals/base/copper.html
https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/metals/base/copper.html
The EV/Electric Vehicle projects (including China's EV project). EV's use a lot of copper--and nickel, cobalt, and lithium. It's lighting a fire under all of them. The "green" or "clean" energy economy uses a LOT of materials if they try to scale it up as much as they dream.
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/crb --to see recent surges in commodity prices
The following report details just how energy intensive the green energy project will be if a serious attempt is made to implement it:
https://www.manhattan-institute.org/mines-minerals-and-green-energy-reality-check
This paper turns to a different reality: all energy-producing machinery must be fabricated from materials extracted from the earth. No energy system, in short, is actually “renewable,” since all machines require the continual mining and processing of millions of tons of primary materials and the disposal of hardware that inevitably wears out. Compared with hydrocarbons, green machines entail, on average, a 10-fold increase in the quantities of materials extracted and processed to produce the same amount of energy.
This means that any significant expansion of today’s modest level of green energy—currently less than 4% of the country’s total consumption (versus 56% from oil and gas)—will create an unprecedented increase in global mining for needed minerals....
Copper is an industrial metal, used in very many industrial processes. This makes copper a different metal than e.g. platinum, gold or silver. So if people think that the economy is getting better and the amount of manufacturing is increasing, the price of copper will go up.
All electric and electronic products contain copper, mostly in the form of copper wire. For example: all electric motors are made of copper wire. EV cars were mentioned in a previous post; these are just one example of a copper use-case.
We need to mine the Moon, or Mars, and Greenland XD.
https://www.tor.com/2018/10/05/sorr...s-but-were-not-colonizing-space-anytime-soon/
SNIP
Helium three is an isotope of helium that has been hyped by space boosters. It is a potential fusion fuel ; its reaction paths produce fewer neutrons than do deuterium and tritium. It’s rare on Earth. Lunar regolith, on the other hand, might have its helium three replenished by solar winds. Why not, therefore, strip mine the moon for the fuel needed to for the world’s fusion reactors?
Why not, indeed…
I can think of a few reasons:
A: Nowhere on this planet is there a working commercial fusion generator which would use the lunar helium three. Indeed, the probability that we will build a working commercial fusion generator in the next few decades appear dim. As dim as they have for the last few decades. Building such a fusion plant is a challenge that has not so far been met.
B: Helium three reactions are harder to start than the more conventional deuterium-tritium reactions. However far off the prospect of working D-T reactors, D+3He reactors are even further off.
C: The Moon isn’t exactly rich in 3He. One might have to process 150 million tonnes of regolith to get one tonne of 3He. We don’t currently have the necessary tools.
D: There are other fuels for that also produce fewer neutrons. Boron 11, for example. Some 80% of the boron on Earth is boron 11. As previously established, Earth abounds in clever hominids who will dig up stuff for you.
And, just in case you missed that the first time …
WE! DON’T! FUCKING! HAVE! WORKING! COMMERCIAL! FUSION! GENERATORS! YOUR! GRANDKIDS! WILL! BE! LUCKY! TO! HAVE! THEM! IT’S! POSSIBLE! COMMERCIAL! FUSION! WILL! NEVER! BE! ECONOMICALLY! VIABLE ! TOUTING! LUNAR! HELIUM! THREE! AS! SOMETHING! FOR! WHICH! THERE! WOULD! BE! IMMEDIATE! DEMAND IS NUTS!
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