Soon we will run into a very painful resource frontier, argues Ronald Rovers. In the energy transition, copper is needed everywhere, but it is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to extract.
Gold prices are skyrocketing. Even though we said goodbye to gold as a standard long ago, because we like to print unlimited amounts of money. Now banks and the rich are taking refuge in gold again. But what do you buy? After all, it has no physical value whatsoever. Yes, as a ring for your beloved, but you can do little else with it, perhaps some gold leaf on the dish at the star restaurant.
The real "gold" is copper. Copper prices are also skyrocketing. But copper is different, it is the basis of electrification, the basis of the entire energy transition. Cables from offshore wind turbines alone weigh 75 kg of copper per linear meter. See, then you're talking about something.
Problem is, rich copper mines are a thing of the past: At one time, virtually massive lumps of copper were found in Michigan, sometimes weighing as much as 200 tons. Most mines, however, had somewhere between 10 and 20 percent copper in the ores. That has now dropped to around 0.5 percent. So every kilogram of copper takes more and more energy to extract. And that goes exponentially: if it goes from half a percent to a quarter percent, it takes four times as much energy. It's a great example of resource depletion, that is, of using more than natural concentrations form. Because, of course, it still forms, only it takes millions of years.
So it is not gold but copper that has real value. It was already expensive, but is getting much more expensive, especially now that even according to our "visionary" Rutte, we have to prepare for war. Because wars eat copper. That became clear in Austria in World War I: water pipes had just been laid in some neighborhoods in Vienna. But shots had to be fired and copper was in short supply, so the copper pipes were demolished again to make bullets.... Unlikely but true. By the way, copper roofs and church bells were also requisitioned.
Why am I telling you this? To warn you. What's going on with chips in the auto industry is going on with copper in the installation world. Without copper, nothing works. So the key is to find solutions where either copper is not needed, or where an alternative to copper is available.
There are many possibilities, I think for example of remote-controlled light points, saves a lot of piping, cable and pipes. Besides, the switch is always where you want it. And with renovations, pipes are not in the way. Also consider water pipes or heat exchangers. Avoid shower heat exchangers, for example; they are not recommended anyway from a material standpoint.
Anyway, no doubt you have more ideas of your own to either not use copper or an alternative. Because beware: copper is becoming a real game changer, it is one of the many signs that we have hit our resource limits, as Trump and Xi also know. The prediction is that we will (want to) dig up as much copper in the next 18 years, as all that has already been mined in total so far. That is, since the Bronze Age.
Or: It's copper gone gold.
About Ronald Rovers
Ronald Rovers is an ex-professor, physical fundamentalist, future thinker and now author, in a quest for the ultimate sustainable physical balance on earth, Without fossil of course. Productive Land he calls "our real capital, for food energy water and material. And that requires us to live 'vegetarian', and therefore to build vegetarian. In that light, I explore the future of construction here."
He also wrote a book about it: 'Post Fossil Life' , living off land and sun.
