Geologists doubt Earth has the amount of copper needed to develop the entire world

Aluminium is very commonly used. It isn't near as good a conductor as copper, but you can easilly use more toeget results and in most cases that works fine.

The reason we stopped using aluminimun more is it is relly tricky. when you tighten a screw the al deforms over time and so you don't get a lasting connection. Al also corrodes to a non conductive state. Many house fires were traced to al wiring in just the few years it was common. We can mitigate all the above issuses but it takes care and so copper is preferred despite al being much cheaper.

2. Distribution doesn't just include long distance distribution. It includes all the wiring between transformers and houses and all the internal wiring of the house and all the devices inside etc.

The US is allergic to it, but needs to get over it.

Aluminum wire was tried in the 1970s due to a spike in copper prices. The problem was that they just tried to swap it right in. Aluminum and copper have different rates of expansion. Over time, that would slowly loosen the connectors, and the wires would pop right out and cause a fire.

You can design connectors to handle both, and you'll see many electrical things today specify that they're good for aluminum or copper wire. It still has a bad reputation among electricians; they haven't unlearned the problem yet.

Now, one place it's more of a problem is in things like transformer windings. There are kilometers of wiring in any of them, so the higher resistance of aluminum is a problem.

Aluminium is actually a better conductor than copper when you judge it by mass, not volume. I think also by tensile strength.

In any case there's a reason that large overland wires aren't copper, but steel-cladded aluminium. Copper will always have its applications but so does gold and yet we're not running out of gold to plate connections with.

In cases like windings requiring more volume is actually an issue, in the case of PCBs... no, despite Apple's insistence, it's actually fine to have a phone that's 0.2mm thicker.

Heh. My batteries are flooded lead-acid, all 1320ah of 'em. No copper guilt here.

You're wrong in terms of long distance power lines being mostly copper, but this does seem a lot like fossil fuel propaganda.

Motors, generators, and transformers can be built using aluminium; they're just a bit bulkier and less efficient. Very common practice.

What I mean is that the bulk of current copper wiring goes towards distribution and consumption, not generation.

The big thing is that batteries really should be a last resort, behind demand response (using power when it is available, rather than storing it for later), long distance transmission, and public transport instead of private vehicles.

This isn't a big thing. This is a constant thing in every system. It's the push and pull between efficiency and resiliency. More storage capacity is less efficient when things are going well, but is more resilient and adaptable when they're not.

Or you use pumped hydro, or compressed air, or gravity batteries, or any of the other energy storage technologies that aren't chemical batteries.

Recycling aluminum, however, is much more energy-efficient!

So the irony is

I see what you did there...

Aluminium smelting is so energy intensive that Iceland, a country with a population of less than 400 000, is the world's 12th largest producer of it, even though the raw materials aren't mined there. Iceland just has cheap geothermal and hydroelectric power.

Aluminum expands under electrical loads and the wires become loose. Loose wires are a fire hazard.

The real solution is steel wire with a copper coating. Electricity flows on the outer region of wires anyhow.

Things like platinum notwithstanding, It will almost always be more expensive to go get things in space than on earth.

Hell, even on earth it is often too expensive to get metals like iron if there isn't rail or a port nearby. Imagine having to fly iron ingots around and the associated aviation fuel cost. Whatever crazy fuel bill you're imagining, multiply by a hundred or more if you're imagining getting it from space.

No, all of those metals in space are best used to build some future version of our civilization _in situ. _

The poor will have scavenged the abandoned buildings in built-up areas, yes. Still-occupied buildings and those in smaller towns with no easy access to a scrapyard are more likely to be intact. So it's more likely to be a case of "these are no longer to code, they are not grandfathered, you have a two-year grace period to switch them out" (staggered geographically or by building classification to avoid a run on plastic pipes) plus "road trip!"

We might also end up mining older dumps for stuff discarded when copper was cheaper.

If you have the tech to do that, just capture the asteroid in orbit and mine it in space.

This was my first thought, we aren't going to develop the whole world. That's not how this works. Who said that was a goal of... well ... anyone's?

That's a rhetorical question. Frfr tho, does that remind me work on your instance only, or what's the deal with that?

hey it has been 15 years

Meth-heads?

Yeah but maybe instead of wasting all pur fucking resources on phones which we buy every year we could pour some of that into developing critical infrastructure in places that need it. Also aluminium, if youre desperate, is a pretty good replacement for copper. I have a really hard time believing copper would be an actual bottleneck in this.