Scrapping future: Is carbon a replacement for copper?

Just want to start a discussion on the rise of a low copper scrapping future.

Carbon Nanotube Yarns Could Replace Copper Windings in Electric Motors - IEEE Spectrum

Above article has implications into the future I believe. Not sure whether there will be opportunities or we are seeing the slow death of the copper industry because carbon is so much more common than copper and the technology can only get cheaper over time.



Thoughts?

Pretty interesting. At the very least, it's new technology which is cool, but will take years to get on the market in a cost effective way, let alone a widespread one. So in my opinion, the older scrappers have nothing to worry about. As for us young ones, we may need to add a bucket to our sort in 5 or 10 years. Or, if all else fails, throw it on the shred pile. Lol.

We're looking at decades from now, if ever. The dynamics of ceramics and things like carbon fiber have to be tested thousands of times and be subjected to all types of environmental and load stresses before ever going to market.

My opinion would be this; copper is too useful. It will continue to be used. It is unlikely that carbon nano tubes will be able to be used as the windings for a five HP water pump any time soon.

Scrapping into the future: Anti-Matter


Cost: 62.5 trillion/g
What do you do with it: Most of us will never experience this first hand. But theoretically, anti-matter has the greatest energy density of any energy source and 1 kg of antimatter has the power of 47 megatons of TNT. Its incredibly expensive because it takes incredibly expensive technology to create it.