Furukawa Electric supplies the aluminum harness for back door harness of Toyota's new model launched in January. The harness realized around 15% lower weight than copper harness. Furukawa Electric also got the aluminum harness order for Toyota's new model launched in the summer.

Alcan Cable will increase list prices approximately 12% to 15% on the following aluminum feeder cable products effective Monday, January 9, 2012:

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) could involve billions of sensors which are needed on utility assets, buildings, pollution monitors, traffic control systems, in agriculture and much more, but adoption has been hindered by conventional primary batteries, which will eventually need replacing and therefore cannot be fitted and forgotten for a long period.

I'm wondering because I've seen a few comments recently from people who seem to think that FTTC is an irrelevance for those on aluminium lines and that seems a very negative view to me.

With copper costs continuing to rise, Delphi Automotive is introducing an Aluminum Cable that performs comparably to traditional copper core cable without the added cost. The technology, which is also lighter than copper cable, is now in production and will be introduced on 2012 model year vehicles.

Demand for copper based products in the Middle East is strong enough to convince the manufacturer to commission a $136m plant that will extend Ducab’s product range into the ‘Extra High Voltage’ cable segment, manufacturing cable systems up to 400kv. The plant is a joint venture between Ducab, DEWA and ADWEA.

"Let's face it, the FiOS cost structure will never be as profitable as the legacy wireline structure," Shammo said during the Webcast of an analyst meeting on Wednesday.

Researchers report metallic-like conduction of an electrical charge across the biofilm of specialized bacteria, opening new possibilities for environmentally-sustainable nanomaterials and nano-electronic devices.

Copper's vital role as an electrical conductor will fire demand from renewable energy and technology industries even while the high price of the metal forces other industries to turn to aluminum as a substitute

Fushi Copperweld Inc., through its wholly owned subsidiaries, Fushi International (Dalian) Bimetallic Cable Co. Ltd., and Copperweld Bimetallics LLC, is the leading manufacturer and innovator of copper-clad bimetallic engineered conductor products for electrical, telecommunications, transportation, utilities and industrial applications.

Leoni, the leading provider of cables and cable systems to the automotive sector and other industries, now offers a solid aluminium conductor for the motor vehicle industry to wire the battery as an alternative to the common copper cable. It can be shaped in three dimensions and weighs only about half as much as the conventional component. Leoni will present this product for the first time at the IAA International Motor Show in Frankfurt, together with other lightweight construction solutions.

Separately, in Zhejiang, a source with the subsidiary of key Chinese nonferrous metals trader Wanxiang Group said China was expected to add 800,000-900,000 mt/year new copper capacity this year. "It's big enough to offset the impact from the outdated capacity shuttering," the source said. In South China, a source with the subsidiary of a Chinese copper smelter said: "Before the state's announcement, some companies with outdated facilities had already ceased using theirs, so we see minimal impact from the shuttering news." In another development, Chinese copper industry sources said the recent talk in China about using aluminum to replace copper due to rising copper prices would not have a significant impact on the copper market, citing the difficulties in using aluminum to fully substitute copper and lack of market acceptance. "Due to the performance factor, aluminum has proved unable to replace copper in many cases, so we don't see a major impact from the substitution talk on the copper market," the Antaike source said. The Wanxiang source said that some air-conditioner makers in China were trying to use aluminum to replace copper in the connecting pipes, but as aluminum pipes don't function as well as copper ones, the replacement was not popular. "As air-conditioners are inexpensive, consumers would rather buy those made using better material," he said.

Pure metallic carbon nanotubes could be the key to overhauling the electrical power grid with more efficient transmission lines - but only if they could be made in huge quantities and uniformly. Through a refined version of a technique called “amplification,” researchers at Rice University plan to make long and highly conductive nanotube fibers they dubbed “armchair quantum wire”  that could be woven into more efficient electrical transmission lines. They eagerly plan to generate a large quantity of this material by the end of summer. Aaron Franklin, a researcher at IBM’s Watson Research Center says that the update Rice study probably doesn’t reveal “the golden ticket for achieving high volumes of metallic-only tubes,” reports MIT Technology Review. We’ll just have to wait and see. Learn more.

Wireless subsea cameras, a smart wireless network linking wells, rigs and drilling units, and an ultrasonic scanner on flexible risers are among the latest wireless innovations on offer. Sean Ottewell reports.

A technique of charging vehicles wirelessly is being tested on cars driving around the UK.

scientific breakthrough at Rice University could boost our electricity supply without the construction of any additional power plants.

It will also be boosted by substituting copper, a practice that is more prevalent in China due to cost sensitivity and the absence of legacy issues where copper is already installed in wiring and cables in the country. It is seeing substitution to copper clad aluminum (CCA) cable and aluminum magnet wire in China from conventional copper products.

The CNT thread could become a preferred alternative to copper wires. Conductivity is so good that a tiny CNT light source may be capable of emitting light at levels rivaling that of existing incandescent or fluorescent bulbs while consuming substantially less power.