No it doesn’t. Aluminum exists and is a decent electrical conductor. I suspect this article was written by an LLM and prompted by someone who doesn’t know as much as they think they do.
All transmission and distribution conductors are aluminum wrapped around a steel core.
Utility service drops in cable form are usually aluminum, a 200A 240V overhead service drop in the US is a triplex cable with (2) #4/0 aluminum conductors for the 120V legs and (1) #2/0 aluminum neutral conductor.
Most of the low-voltage (480V primary, typically) transformers I buy have aluminum windings.
Most of the 400A and under panelboards I buy have an aluminum bus, and some of the larger ones do too. Silver plated copper bus is still used, but aluminum is cheaper.
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).
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.
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 green revolution
No it doesn’t. Aluminum exists and is a decent electrical conductor. I suspect this article was written by an LLM and prompted by someone who doesn’t know as much as they think they do.
All transmission and distribution conductors are aluminum wrapped around a steel core.
Utility service drops in cable form are usually aluminum, a 200A 240V overhead service drop in the US is a triplex cable with (2) #4/0 aluminum conductors for the 120V legs and (1) #2/0 aluminum neutral conductor.
Most of the low-voltage (480V primary, typically) transformers I buy have aluminum windings.
Most of the 400A and under panelboards I buy have an aluminum bus, and some of the larger ones do too. Silver plated copper bus is still used, but aluminum is cheaper.
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).
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.
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.)