In view of the resource situation and economic cost of our country, our country has put forward the policy of "replacing copper with aluminum" in the cable industry since the 1950 s and 1960 s. However, in the current national wire and cable industry output value of about 1000 billion yuan, aluminum alloy cable still accounts for only about 3% of the proportion.

"Aluminum instead of copper" has now withdrawn from the government's industrial policy, but the call for "aluminum instead of copper" is still heard. So, the slogan that has been shouted for many years has not been recognized and implemented by the industry?

China's copper resources are seriously lacking, and the degree of dependence on foreign countries is more than 70%; while the proportion of aluminum imports is relatively small, and the domestic electrolytic aluminum production capacity is seriously surplus. Therefore, some people in the industry believe that it seems reasonable to expand the application of aluminum in wire and cable products.

However, after a detailed comparison of copper cables and aluminum cables in terms of environmental protection, safety and cost performance, it may be possible to find the reasons for the slow progress of "aluminum instead of copper.

At the sharing meeting of the Environmental Assessment Report on the Whole Life Cycle of Copper and Aluminum Cables held by the China Institute of Standardization recently, Dr. Chen Liang of the institute introduced that the above-mentioned report takes the five stages of raw material acquisition, product manufacturing, product use, transportation and waste disposal as the system boundary of the two kinds of cables, and adopts the evaluation index system of CML2001 and EI99, the effects of aluminum alloy cables and copper cables on global warming, acidification, eutrophication potential, human toxicity potential, and energy consumption were evaluated.

The report shows that the impact of product use on the environment is the highest, accounting for more than 98%, while the impact of copper cable on the environment is far less than the impact of aluminum alloy cable on the environment. And from the perspective of sustainable development, copper can be recycled by 100. Compared with primary copper, the impact of recycled copper on the environment is relatively reduced.

Medium and low voltage electric heating cables are mainly used in buildings, especially in civil buildings. According to data, the ratio of aluminum alloy cables in North America to the total cable is nearly 50%. Can the Chinese market be in line with North America?

Gu Liangmin, director of the trade department of China Minmetals Nonferrous Metals Co., Ltd., explained to the reporter of Energy that whether it is Canada or the United States, there are more single-family houses and the distance between them is relatively small. Different from China's national conditions, China is full of high-rise buildings., The population density is greater. It would be unthinkable not to consider safety in such a situation. The installation requirements of aluminum cables are very high, and it is generally difficult to meet the requirements in China. If the installation is not done well, accidents are more likely to occur.

Wu yuneng, deputy general manager of Jiangxi copper industry, said that there was no large-scale use of aluminum alloy cables in Europe, because they had fully studied and demonstrated the electrical properties, energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, environmental impact and life cycle cost of copper core cables and aluminum alloy cables, so as to draw the conclusion that aluminum alloy cables are not suitable for European countries.

"By establishing an energy management system, continuously increasing investment in environmental protection, improving the level of comprehensive utilization of resources, and increasing the development, promotion and application of energy-saving technologies, copper industry enterprises will certainly be able to minimize and reduce environmental damage and produce products that are more suitable for the market." Wu yuneng.

On the other hand, although on the surface, the price of copper cable is more than twice that of aluminum cable, but on the whole, the gap between the two is not so big. Li Jing, marketing director of the Asia Pacific region of the International Copper Association, told the reporter of "Energy" that the cable is not a separate product, and the cable should be calculated as a system quotation. For the power company, he is considering the system quotation, such as cable laying, the need to dig pipe wells and trenches underground, and how much space to dig, which is also related. In addition, the maintenance cost of copper is not the same as that of aluminum. "Taken together, I personally think the economic costs of copper and aluminum are not that different."