Copper Shortage Threatens the Green Transition

Discussion (2 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

gehsty•about 2 hours ago

Terrible site to try read.

I have no idea about smaller cables but HV power cables (grid / offshore renewables etc) are consistently designed and produced using aluminum conductors. If you want to get really fancy I think you can even buy them with aluminum produced from geothermal power in Iceland (could just be an industry story though).

Not saying it’s not a problem but may not be as challenging as thought (and in debt-financed infrastructure land the price stability of aluminum is as much of a benefit as its low cost).

scblock•about 2 hours ago

Underground conductors for wind and solar plants are typically aluminum with copper concentric neutrals. Ground wires are often copper, but copper-clad aluminum is becoming more common.

duskwuff•about 2 hours ago

Both the text and the images of this article appear to be entirely AI-generated. I'm not sure there's any human insight here, just a robotic regurgitation of stock talking points.

(The same appears to be true of everything else on the site. The graphics for the "2000 Dot-Com Bubble Burst" article highlighted in the sidebar are particularly sloppy.)

Copper Shortage Threatens the Green Transition

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Discussion (2 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews