Not enough minerals. Insufficient Vespene Ga... er, Copper.

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Originally Posted by Slashdot

ScentCone writes "Pennies, pipes, untold miles of CAT5 - they tie up a lot of copper. Unlike abundant iron and aluminum, copper is relatively scarce. But it's vital to electricity generation/transmission, plumbing, and other uses central to a modern standard of living. Scientific American is providing a quick overview of the situation. They report the conclusion that there simply isn't enough available. Canada, Mexico and the US average 170kg of copper use per person, and the most generous estimates suggest that only 1.6 billion unused metric tons exist. More reclamation and use of fiber, wireless, and PVC helps - but won't be enough to cover the billions of people who don't yet live in highly wired/mechanized societies."

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...and yet, Cat5e is still so damn cheap. I wonder why...

So is this kind of like Peak Oil? Peak Copper?

My friend who works for a company that makes cable has been saying this for a while now..The price is going to skyrocket in a few years..

The price in pennies is going up, you heard it here first! ;)

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Originally Posted by Wildkat

My friend who works for a company that makes cable has been saying this for a while now..The price is going to skyrocket in a few years..

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Good thing for us that fiber-optics are becoming popular.

So do we invest in copper now or what? Is that possible?

well, since the value of the dollar is going down, we might as well take all the worthless pennies no one wants and melt them down into useful things.

Yeah, Pennies are definately the stupidiest fucking thing mankind has ever thought up.

I think we should all invest in CAT 5e. It's the smartest thing to do.

Something from Europe that I think that the US should do: have the item cost how much it says it costs. If you go to a convenience store, and want a bottle of soda, and it says that it's a Euro, then you're forking over a Euro. Here, it's going to be a buck seven if the price marked is a dollar. Tax built in = much more convenient.