In message .com, long
ironer writes

The company who makes them said they couldn't guarantee the same price
in a week's time, as copper was rising so fast

The Chinese are buying it all up, apparently


There's more to this than that though. Some weeks ago I saw (it might
have been in a New Scientist or Scientific American, so reasonably
dependable) that 25% of all the Cu on the earth's crust has already
been mined.

Well I know that there's a big feck off mountain in Irian jaya which is
the richest source of copper anywhere - it's hardly likely to run out in
the next few years.

The only problem is that it's contaminated with a lot of gold

Oh to have such a problem !

Since virtually all of this 25% has been used in the 150
years since Faraday's time, recovery & recycling is vital for the
future at least until someone invents a non-Cu superconductor operating
at room temperature.


--
geoff