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Vehicle charging stations targeted by copper thieves, Seattle City Light says
KOMO TV Seattle (via MSN.com) ^ | 15 January 2023 | Mo Haider

Posted on 01/16/2023 5:01:21 AM PST by zeestephen

"Since March of 2022, we have seen an increase of activity where we have had people coming and removing the charging cables..."They are taking the metal and they are turning it in for monetary gain...the amount of money...is nominal. It's about ten dollars..."

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat
KEYWORDS: climatechange; globalwarming
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1 posted on 01/16/2023 5:01:21 AM PST by zeestephen
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To: zeestephen

But copper is going up so it should get better.


2 posted on 01/16/2023 5:03:37 AM PST by oldasrocks
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To: zeestephen

Thieves call it free money.


3 posted on 01/16/2023 5:04:35 AM PST by no-to-illegals (The enemy has US surrounded. May God have mercy on them.)
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To: zeestephen

Like WOW!

I DIDN”T SEE THIS COMING!............./S


4 posted on 01/16/2023 5:04:52 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: zeestephen
I occasionally spend a little time watching youtube videos on EV charging stations and the huge problems you find at them. Often half the chargers are broken so you have to wait an hour for an open one. I've never seen mention of a vandalized charger but it's well known that copper is very valuable...what better way for a meth addict to score some easy cash?
5 posted on 01/16/2023 5:05:32 AM PST by Gay State Conservative (No Doubt Now: Stolen Election)
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To: zeestephen

OH NOOOOOOEZ !!!!


6 posted on 01/16/2023 5:08:23 AM PST by Tennessee Nana
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To: zeestephen; All
A conservative friend in CA who is also an EV driver for his 20 mile or so commute told me about this problem 6 to 8 months ago. Nothing new here frankly.

Check out this thread on Twitter, John Lee Petttimore on "rare earths" and mining and the ramifications therein.

https://twitter.com/JohnLeePettim13/status/1614178348694904837?s=20&t=1BMnK4TMSeHdNU5_Mfg97A

7 posted on 01/16/2023 5:10:52 AM PST by taildragger ("Do you hear the people Singing? Singing the Songs of Angry Men!")
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To: zeestephen

Send them over to the MLK statue...


8 posted on 01/16/2023 5:11:50 AM PST by Beowulf9
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To: zeestephen

“taking the metal and they are turning it in for monetary gain”

Thanks to our education system, “stealing” doesn’t explain it.


9 posted on 01/16/2023 5:12:46 AM PST by fruser1
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To: zeestephen

John Lee Pettimore
@JohnLeePettim13

January 14, 2023

https://twitter.com/JohnLeePettim13/status/1614178348694904837?s=20&t=1BMnK4TMSeHdNU5_Mfg97A

As a miner for 40 years I have worked in various mines around the world. Gold, platinum, copper, coal, lead, zinc, oil and salt. I’m going to tell you something, and here it is. We will destroy the earth in the name of “Green Energy” Follow along and I will explain.

MiningWatch Canada is estimating that “[Three] billion tons of mined metals and minerals will be needed to power the energy transition” – a “massive” increase especially for six critical minerals: lithium, graphite, copper, cobalt, nickel and rare earth minerals

Over the next 30 years 7.5 billion of us, we will consume more minerals than the last 70,000 years or the past 500 generations, which is more than all of the 108 billion humans who have ever walked the Earth.

Mining requires the extraction of solid ores, often after removing vast amounts of overlying rock. Then the ore must be processed, creating an enormous quantity of waste – about 100 billion tonnes a year, more than any other human-made waste stream.

Purifying a single tonne of rare earths requires using at least 200 cubic meters of water, which then becomes polluted with acids and heavy metals. On top of that, imagine the destruction and energy required to obtain these essential metals:

18,740 pounds of purified rock to produce 2.2 pounds of vanadium
35,275 pounds of ore for 2.2 pounds of cerium
110,230 pounds of rock for 2.2 pounds of gallium
2,645,550 pounds of ore to get 2.2 pounds of lutecium
Also staggering amounts of ore are needed for other metals.

By 2035, demand is expected to double for germanium; quadruple for tantalum; and quintuple for palladium. The scandium market could increase nine-fold, and the cobalt market by a factor of 24. (Marscheider-Wiedemann 2016 ‘raw materials for emerging technologies’.

The potential demand for rare metals is exponential. We are already consuming over two billion tonnes of metals every year — the equivalent of more than 500 Eiffel Towers a day.

There is nothing refined about mining. It involves crushing rock, and then using a concoction of chemical reagents such as sulphuric and nitric acid, a long and highly repetitive process using many different procedures to obtain a rare-earth concentrate close to 100% purity.

As rare metals have become ubiquitous in green and digital technologies, the exceedingly toxic sludge they produce has been contaminating water, soil, the atmosphere, and the flames of blast furnaces.

Do you think solar panels are “Green” Think again. There is nothing green about solar panels. Did you know we clear cut forests, not for panel placement but for the wood needed to produce the panels. Don’t believe me, have a read. https://hiddenhistorycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/BurningCoalTreesToMakeSolarPanels.pdf

I have seen the destruction of mountains, lakes and pristine waterways all in the name of #GreenEnergy. A recent report by the Blacksmith Institute identifies the mining industry as the second-most-polluting industry in the world. Soon to be Number # 1 Why? Green energy.

Green’ technologies require the use of rare minerals whose mining is anything but clean. Heavy metal discharges, acid rain, and contaminated water sources — it borders on being an environmental disaster. Put simply, clean energy is a dirty affair.

Wind turbines guzzle more raw materials than previous technologies: ‘For an equivalent installed capacity, solar and wind facilities require up to 15 times more concrete, 90 times more aluminum, and 50 times more iron, copper, and glass than fossil fuels or nuclear energy.

Think of China. One-fifth of China’s arable land is polluted from mining and industry. Mining the materials needed for renewable energy potentially affects 50 million square kilometers, 37% of Earth’s land (minus Antarctica). Now imagine that number 10 fold.

If you’ve gotten this far still believing that renewables are clean and green, well, I have a bridge to sell you. We thought we could free ourselves from the shortages, tensions, and crises created by our appetite for oil and coal.

Instead, we are replacing these with an era of new and unprecedented shortages, tensions, and crises.


10 posted on 01/16/2023 5:21:34 AM PST by linMcHlp
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To: oldasrocks

At the rate at which demand for copper is growing, copper is soon to be one of the “rare earth” metals. It is not permitted to open new mines for it anywhere in the US, and the processing of copper ore is so damaging to the environment that it shall be forbidden everywhere on earth,


11 posted on 01/16/2023 5:21:58 AM PST by alloysteel (People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do - Isaac Asimov)
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To: zeestephen

The stupids that presume to rule over us as our betters will need to have the consequences of their stupidity pounded. into. their. thick. heads. over and over and over again until it finally dawns on them that their stupidity is self-destructive.


12 posted on 01/16/2023 5:24:27 AM PST by Nervous Tick (Truth is not hate speech.)
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To: alloysteel

I’ll have to start going through my penny collection, and saving anything 1981 and earlier. The copper in them will make them more valuable.


13 posted on 01/16/2023 5:24:42 AM PST by EvilCapitalist (81 million votes my ass.)
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To: zeestephen

They have been stealing ground wires and system neutrals forever…


14 posted on 01/16/2023 5:24:59 AM PST by EEGator
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To: linMcHlp

Thanks for posting this.


15 posted on 01/16/2023 5:26:30 AM PST by vivenne
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To: alloysteel

>> the processing of copper ore is so damaging to the environment that it shall be forbidden everywhere on earth

Hence the joke —

Q: What did progressives use for light, before candles?
A: Electricity.


16 posted on 01/16/2023 5:26:33 AM PST by Nervous Tick (Truth is not hate speech.)
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To: zeestephen

It should be up to us taxpayers to supply the copper for those that can’t afford it. Don’t you know there is a copper desert in the hood?


17 posted on 01/16/2023 5:26:57 AM PST by shoff (Vote Democrat it beats thinking!)
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To: Gay State Conservative

Catalytic converters?

Palladium, platinum, and rhodium…


18 posted on 01/16/2023 5:27:27 AM PST by EEGator
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To: EEGator

>> They have been stealing ground wires and system neutrals forever…

I guess the mark of a successful (and older!) copper thief is one who learned to distinguish ground and neutral wires from the other ones. :-)


19 posted on 01/16/2023 5:29:13 AM PST by Nervous Tick (Truth is not hate speech.)
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To: shoff

>> Don’t you know there is a copper desert in the hood?

I don’t care who ya are, that there’s funny.


20 posted on 01/16/2023 5:30:11 AM PST by Nervous Tick (Truth is not hate speech.)
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