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To: d:oug who wrote (36388)	7/3/1999 12:16:00 AM
From: Zeev Hed	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 116758

Doug, to your question about the future of copper in power transmission and communications. I doubt that optical fibers will be used to transmit power, these fibers are used to transmit in the micro watts to milliwatts range, you cannot power your light bulb with that. There is also the question of energy conversion, even if one decided to transmit power on optical fibers, since the frequency range is in the near infrared, mostly and at most could be expected to expand to the visible (losses at higher and lower wavelength become too great). Converting light to electricity is very inefficient with current technology (about 15% conversion efficiency, particularly if you do not want to replace all AC appliances with DC systems). So, forget about fibers for power. How about non copper conductors like the ceramic superconductors. Well these will replace mostly aluminum and some copper used in long distances power transmission. Pirelli Cable has just announced a four year program for a test bed for such HTSC (High Temperature Superconductors, "high" meaning, liquid nitrogen) power transmission, but these cables (manufactured eventually by AMSC or a joint venture of Pirelli and AMSC) are not intended to be used within households for the simple reason that it is not economic for the typical household circuit of less than 1.8 KW. Remember these superconductors need to be cooled to liquid nitrogen temperatures. Thus these will be used (if they are ever used) for long distance high voltage power transmission. If this technology is ever deployed in a massive way, then one would want to buy silver, since the ceramic wires are sheathed within a silver tubular structure, at least with the current state of the art. I would not make a large bet on that, however, at the rate they are going, they may prove feasibility in four years, nice development money for the companies involved, but barely sufficient to cover their burn rate, IMHO. Replacement of copper in household power transmission, appliances and everything "electric or "electronic" will eventually happen, IMO, but will have to await the development of ambient superconductors. Once ambient SC are further developed, and can be made in any arbitrary form factor, then you could see, indeed, a precipitous drop in copper demand. Like any technology, however, the deployment will start first with very high value added products, since the cost will be relatively high, but I expect that within a reasonable time period, these cost of these materials will actually decline to 1/10 or less the price of copper for equivalent applications (the raw cost/lbs of these new materials is less than copper and has a density of about 1/5 to 1/8 that of copper, and furthermore, one would need a much smaller fraction for the same current density), despite the fact that initially, processing costs will be greater than for copper. Thus for now, accept the fact that copper has bottomed and you have few good years ahead for that industry, but that might very well be the last cycle. First was Anaconda (a former 30 Dow Industrials), and Phelps may not be far behind. You asked for it, you got it (VBG). Zeev