Amazon Is Buying America's First New Copper Output In More Than a Decade (wsj.com)
- Reference: 0180595316
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/16/0419230/amazon-is-buying-americas-first-new-copper-output-in-more-than-a-decade
- Source link: https://www.wsj.com/finance/commodities-futures/amazon-is-buying-americas-first-new-copper-output-in-more-than-a-decade-516a0a1f
> Amazon is turning to an Arizona mine that last year [1]became the first new source of U.S. copper in more than a decade , to meet its data centers' ravenous appetite for the industrial metal. The mine was restarted as a proving ground for Rio Tinto's new method of unlocking low-grade copper deposits. Rio signed a two-year supply pact with Amazon Web Services, a vote of confidence for its Nuton venture, which uses bacteria and acid to extract copper from ore that was previously uneconomical to process. The move by Amazon is the latest example of a technology company rushing to secure the power and critical materials necessary to build and operate artificial-intelligence data centers. The Nuton copper will satisfy only a sliver of Amazon's needs. The biggest data centers each require tens of thousands of metric tons of copper for all the wires, busbars, circuit boards, transformers and other electrical components housed there. The 14,000 metric tons of copper cathode that Rio expects the Arizona Nuton project to yield over four years wouldn't be enough for one of those facilities.
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> Rio deployed its bioleaching process in the recent restart of a mine east of Tucson and has partnerships to take the technology to several others in the Americas. The idea is to uncork the low-grade ore left behind at old mines and is key to Rio's plans to boost output when new discoveries are harder than ever to bring online and copper demand is surging. [...] "We work at the commodity level to find lower carbon solutions to drive our business growth," said Chris Roe, Amazon's director of worldwide carbon. "That means steel, and that means concrete, and it absolutely means copper with regard to our data centers." Roe said the copper will be routed to companies that produce components for Amazon's data centers. As part of the deal, Amazon is supplying Rio with cloud-computing and data analytics to optimize Nuton's recovery rates and help the miner expand production.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/finance/commodities-futures/amazon-is-buying-americas-first-new-copper-output-in-more-than-a-decade-516a0a1f
This is the way. Source it locally. (Score:5, Insightful)
It makes me want to vomit, the way the United States and the United Kingdom have ceded production of raw materials to China and other countries.
We don't make new lead in the US.
We had trouble with copper until this one mine dared start up again.
Our steel mills have been sold off.
England can't even refine iron ore into steel anymore.
All of it for 'environmental' reasons.
Listen up, cupcakes: A country that can't work it's own raw materials will be subjugated by those who do.
Here endeth the lesson on national sovereignty.
Re: (Score:3)
> Listen up, cupcakes: A country that can't work it's own raw materials will be subjugated by those who do.
Do you have historical examples of that happening, or is it a hypothesis?
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> It makes me want to vomit
It makes me want to start a company in Brazil called Mississippi.
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Listen up cupcake, destroying your country's environment means your country isn't worth living in in order to use the metals for which you seem to have a woodie.
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So, like a good imperialist you prefer to asset strip some other country rather than do it responsibly in your own.
Thank you for your honesty.
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"We don't make new lead in the US."
I thought that Uranium turns into Lead after it finishes giving off neutrons, and othep particles
Of course that takes n thousand years or so
Lead is also the end product of other radioactive decays
Canada has lots of copper and other minerals (Score:2)
But according to Trump the USA "doesn't need it."
No, they don't. (Score:1)
> The biggest data centers each require tens of thousands of metric tons of copper for all the wires, busbars, circuit boards, transformers and other electrical components housed there.
No, they do not, circuit boards aside. Wires, bus bars, and transformers (which are just a bunch of wire and a core) can all be made of aluminum. They then have to be bigger, but aluminum is cheaper than copper. You have to use AlOx paste where you join aluminum to some other metal, but it's readily available. Don't gaslight us.
Re: (Score:2)
Was not aware of the distribution level AL based transformers. Thanks for that, learned something new. [1]https://www.maddox.com/resourc... [maddox.com] Cost according to the linked article is 1/2 for the AL ones.
[1] https://www.maddox.com/resources/articles/aluminum-vs-copper-in-distribution-transformers
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This makes no sense - Amazon is giving a mining company commute services and cash to secure raw copper, which it will in turn hand off to wire/cable manufacturers in exchange for finished cabling to wire future data centers? This is crazy. I think it's more likely just an investment intended to increase supply and drive down costs - I can't believe Amazon actually want raw copper.
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On one hand, I agree that it sounds bananas. But on the other, maybe it does make sense. We all know that if done well vertical integration has numerous benefits including cost. For example Brembo owns practically everything they depend on — When you buy brake products from Brembo they are made from ore that companies they own mined and refined and they come in boxes made in their own paper product plant. If Amazon is buying the raw materials and passing them on at cost, then they're saving the costs
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When I worked for a large beer company, we made the 3rd party can producers buy aluminum for our cans from us. We bought it and sold it to them at our cost. That way we knew what their primary input costs were, and therefore what they were marking us up. This kept their prices in line. We also had our own can and bottle plants that produced part of our needs, mainly to remind our suppliers we could do it without them if we wanted.
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> I think it's more likely just an investment intended to increase supply and drive down costs
This keeps that specific copper off of the global market entirely. It makes this copper MUCH cheaper because its costs are paid up front. But it also could be used as a bargaining chip when buying copper from elsewhere. Especially if they can reinvest their savings to help scale this up.
facts are overrated on bizx's slashdot (Score:2)
subject says it all
Wrong accounting (Score:1)
It does not require that much copper. The calculation is incorrect.
Seems Satisfactory (Score:3)
A nearby copper mine for creating wire and cable, steamed copper sheets with the help of a water extractor, and lots of copper powder to make that [1]nuclear pasta [satisfactory.wiki.gg] is super handy!
IYKYK
[1] https://satisfactory.wiki.gg/wiki/Nuclear_Pasta
Explanation Is Nonsensical (Score:3)
Amazon doesn't make wire, bus bars, or even circuit boards. Though the latter is a close call.
Since Amazon manufactures none of these things, I can't help but wonder what their true reason for acquiring the copper supply is. Is it to get in to selling commodities? Is it to control raw materials to their suppliers for a cost benefit, or even a competitive advantage?
I'd really love to know who actually makes these decisions, to buy copper or invest in power generation, and what their thinking is. That Amazon builds data centers doesn't mean that they need to be in the raw materials or supplier industries. Not even if they subscribe to vertical integration business practices.
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> That Amazon builds data centers doesn't mean that they need to be in the raw materials or supplier industries.
Doesn't it? Past a certain size you can't just treat "the market" as an abstraction. Just as with power, at that size you can't just plug in that much equipment and assume the power will be there. At this scale supply is contracted ahead of time and does not spring into existence any time soon just because you are willing to pay for it. Amazon's risk isn't just having to pay more for copper-int
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> Since Amazon manufactures none of these things, I can't help but wonder what their true reason for acquiring the copper supply is
To keep profits on a steady increase.
data centers' ravenous appetite for the industrial (Score:2)
is this refering to power supply? like electrical lines? or generators/motors? wouldn't it be better to invest in something needed for nuclear powerplant? that's my understanding from playing SimCity on SNES.
Re: data centers' ravenous appetite for the indust (Score:2)
so the summary refers to data center components, looking up scrap ram recycling prices, there's not much copper in them.
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Don't nuclear power plants use copper wire?
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Which is sad because they're massively efficient when operational and are a far better investment than all the other fake-not-really-renewable sources that keep getting billions of subsidies. Even adding a 3rd of 4th reactor to existing plants would be a massive boost at a fraction of the cost of a new facilities. But the sad thing is, in America, we don't even have the steel factories to produce the massive pressure vessels needed for nuclear reactors. We truly are a declining empire.
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Nuclear plants require a 8-10 build-out. They wouldn't be ready in time for your basic ADHD--addled Chief Widget who will have a heart attack if its company is left behind in the Great AI Stampede.