Electrical

Copper is the standard benchmark for electrical conductivity. It conducts electrical current better than any other metal except silver.
Copper is routinely refined to 99.98% purity (even more pure than Ivory Soap) before it is acceptable for many electrical applications.
Number 12 (AWG) copper wire is the most common size used for branch circuit wiring in buildings. The amount of copper products consumed in the U.S.A. this past year would make a size 12 wire that could encircle the Earth 2,630 times or make 140 round trips to the Moon.
CDA's Electrical Energy Efficiency program illustrates how a simple upsizing of copper conductors used for electrical distribution can earn significant paybacks to building owners, usually within one to two years or less.
Installing #10 AWG wire instead of #12 AWG for feeding a 15-amp lighting load running half time (4000 hours per year) pays back the difference for its higher cost in only 9 months, at $0.075 per kilowatt-hour (kWh).
Because half of all the electricity generated in the U.S. is consumed by motor-driven systems, the most significant energy savings are realized by upgrading systems with high-efficiency motors.
A high-efficiency 3-hp motor operating full time at $0.08 per kWh would repay its cost premium in less than 5 months, and from then on save money and electricity.
Premium motors are not only more efficient (mostly because they are made with more copper), they also last much longer and generate less heat.
Wherever electricity flows, connectors are required. Copper in its many varieties is the dominant and favored material whether conductors are used for high-current power distribution or "signal" level currents used for data and telecommunications.
Some high-power connectors weigh in at 20 pounds or more, while tiny electronic connectors may weigh as little as a few milligrams with spacing between pins less than half a millimeter. The United States is the world's leader in the multibillion-dollar connector industry.
A consortium assembled by the Copper Development Association is working on a project to develop die materials for use in casting copper motor rotors. Such rotors would dramatically increase motor efficiency. Commercialization of the process is expected in 2002.
Power quality problems that plague many modern offices and factories are largely preventable. Copper-intensive solutions include using larger neutral conductors to handle harmonic loads, better grounding systems to dissipate transients and lightning, and fewer outlets per circuit to lessen interaction between office equipment and computers.
Scores of lives and billions of dollars in property could be saved each year if buildings were properly protected against lightning. A single lighting strike at a commercial facility could cause thousands of dollars per hour in lost production.
Copper and its alloys are the most common and most effective materials used in lightning protection.
Nearly 50 tons of high conductivity, oxygen free copper wire was used to make 1,700 super conducting electromagnets for a collider at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. The magnets are used in the 2.4-mile diameter underground collider to study subatomic particles.