Is there enough copper on Earth for China's so called "Energy Transition?"

[NNadir]

3. Yes, this is true. Silver has the highest conductivity of any known...

...element. There is an error in the OP by the way saying that gold is more conductive than copper. Gold is the third most conductive element after silver and copper.

Aluminum, an Earth abundant element is sufficiently conductive to replace copper in many applications; however there in an energy penalty for doing so.

I am aware of conductive plastics and have attended a few lectures in the topic, albeit long ago. Polythiophenes, are famous examples, with conductivity bring a function of metal doping. They are not as conductive as copper I believe but certainly usable in esoteric settings. They've been known for a very long time.

I toured Oak Ridge when my son interned there as an undergraduate. They had a few calutrons on display in a museum type settings. It is true that they borrowed silver from Fort Knox to make them. Until that tour I'd always assumed that the ²³⁵U was separated by gaseous diffusion a K25. This is not true. K25 was not able to produce highly enriched uranium until after the war. The separation was performed by the Urey/Lawrence collaboration with some feed material provided with low enriched gaseous diffusion products.

As I indicated in the OP without enough copper, so called "renewable energy" cannot expand to the scale of human energy demand, given the long periods on which copper is essentially stranded either in the generation system or the backup system. Reliability has serious implications with respect to mass intensity, adding to the many reasons that nuclear energy is the only sustainable primary energy source.

I note that any Tokamak or Stellarator type system will require helium for superconductive magnets. The world is already facing a helium crisis. It's separated from methane at methane mines. The only alternative, which is still pie in the sky, is machinable superconducting ceramics. That isn't going to happen in the near term.

Fusion reactors of course make helium, but on a scale of a few grams a day. Curium and americium emit helium but again, too slowly to matter.

The worst and most idiotic nuclear energy ban is of course in the country where fission was discovered using an explanation offered by a refugee from that country. New Zealand has nothing on that coal dependent environmental hellhole Germany.

Thanks, as always, for your comment.