Sponsor's Message

There's lots of talk about the looming oil crisis but it would appear that a lack of oil will be the least of our problems if some predictions are correct.

It seems that quite a few seemingly every-day materials (metals in particular) may well be in short supply fairly soon - and that could spell major problems for hi-tech industries and our modern lifestyles.

Take copper for example...

It's a soft, ductile, malleable reddish metal which is very important because it is an excellent conductor of heat and electricity. For these reasons it's used almost everywhere you find electricity being put to work.

Now have your say Got something to say about today's column, or want to see what others think?  Visit The Forums While you're here, why not visit the Aardvark Hall of Shame and perhaps make your own nomination. 7

Wires, printed circuit boards, electric motors, switches -- you name it and if it's something to do with electricity or electronics then it's going to have some amount of copper in it.

Over the years, attempts have been made to replace copper with other fairly good conductors, such as aluminium. Indeed, one infamous auto-electrical manufacturer decided it would be a great idea to wind their alternators with aluminium wire instead of copper. Virtually every single one of those units failed in a relatively short period of time. They're using copper again now.

Of course there are alternatives to copper: gold, platinum, silver etc - but do you notice something? Yes, they're all a whole lot more expensive and not without problems of their own (lack of strength being one).

Another problem is that we're also facing a shortage of these other miracle-metals of the 20th century. The price of platinum has gone through the roof in recent times and despite gold's high price, it's cheap compared to platinum.

What surprises me however, is just how cheap silver (currently) is. Whereas gold is currently selling for around US$550 per ounce and platinum for an astonishing US$1020, good old silver (an excellent conductor of heat and electricity) can be had for less than $9.

However, if you're really looking for an expensive metal that might get even more-so, what about a bit of rhodium? You'll need around US$3,200 to pick up an ounce of this stuff right now.

But back to the problem -- what happens once we've solved the oil crisis, perhaps with solar power (silicon is *cheap-as*) but find ourselves hog-tied for lack of key raw materials such as copper etc?

Unless there are plans to extend the periodic table of elements, we're not going to be able to cook up cheap alternatives for these metals as easily as we can switch to biodiesel or hydrogen on the energy front.

Given the amount of copper and other (soon to be) precious metals that are thrown away every day, investing in rubbish-tip sites might be a good option. I can see the day when we start mining old dumps for the masses of essential materials they'll be hiding.

So, even though we've got plenty of sand on the beach from which to make our increasingly powerful processors, RAM and other chips, we may find it increasingly expensive to wire the damned things up as the 21st century rolls on.

Should we be putting more effort into recycling those raw materials that are predicted to be in short supply within a few years?

Tell us all and see what others have to say in The Aardvark Forums

If you feel that this is a good thing and/or you hold a "geniune affection" for yours truly -- then you are welcome to gift me some money using the buttons provided. In gifting this money you accept that no goods, service or other consideration is offered, provided, accepted or anticipated in return. Just click on the button to gift whatever you can afford. NOTE: PayPal bills in US dollars so don't accidentally gift more than what you were intending :-)

Contacting Aardvark
I'm always happy to hear from readers, whether they're delivering brickbats, bouquets or news tip-offs. If you'd like to contact me directly, please this form. If you're happy for me to republish your comments then please be sure and select For Publication.

Other media organisations seeking more information or republication rights are also invited to contact me.

Just add a couple of lines of JavaScript to your pages and you can get a free summary of Aardvark's daily commentary -- automatically updated each and every week-day.

Aardvark also makes a summary of this daily column available via XML using the RSS format. More details can be found here.

Contact me if you decide to use either of these feeds and have any problems.

Linking Policy
Want to link to this site? Check out Aardvark's Linking Policy.

Did you tell someone else about Aardvark today? If not then do it now!