“Just to meet business-as-usual trends, 115% more copper must be mined in the next 30 years than has been mined historically until now,” the study said.

  • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    3 months ago

    I mean, you’re right, but we can’t use braided aluminum wire to make the coils in transformers and motors, so aluminums greater conductivity by mass is undercut by not being able to take advantage of that property because the engineering for motors and transformers dictates solid wire of a specific diameter.

    Also an aluminum winding transformer or motor needs a bigger slug to deal with the more than double resistivity and at some point the benefits of aluminums cheapness and lightness disappear when you gotta have more heavy iron in the core, more heat and more winding failure due to vibration.

    I don’t think that means we’re not gonna see ev motors with aluminum windings, just that they’ll be in shitty cheap vehicles for poor people.