Early in the Computer Age, the first general purpose computers weighed about 27 tons and required the equivalent of a small studio apartment to support the thousands of vacuum tubes, crystal diodes, relays, resistors, capacitors and hand-soldered joints that made up the entire system.

Today ─ more than half a century later ─ computers are being made smaller, more compact, and designed to work faster in order to suit more mobile tech-savvy customers.

Surfing the Internet, checking e-mails or setting your fantasy sports lineup can now be done from the convenience of a laptop computer, cell phone or iPod Touch hand-held device. And many restaurants, coffee shops and neighborhood parks, including Manhattan’s own Bryant Park in Midtown, offer free WiFi access, so customers and visitors alike can sip their lattes or bask in the sun while shopping online or browsing the Web remotely.

One of the elements behind what many believe to be the greatest technological advancement of our time lies in the copper that makes all this always-on conductivity and connectivity possible.

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Today’s do-it-yourselfers have a bottomless toolbox of technology to help with any and every project. Air compressors, circular saws, biscuit joiners, jigsaws, impact wrenches – no matter which power tool you reach for, technology makes the job easier.

With most power tools, improvements in technology usually start at the motor, and virtually all electric tool motors, both cordless and plug-in, depend heavily on copper for power. As it turns out, “heavily” is not an understatement.

“Generally speaking, the more copper mass in the motor, the more powerful the motor is,” explains Deborah Brown, the component design manager for Bosch Tool Corporation. “To increase the power of our motors, manufacturing is challenged to fit more copper wire into the motor.”

A motor’s expected service lifetime is also strongly influenced by the size and number of copper components it contains, says Brown. Power tools now include sophisticated electronics – all requiring copper circuitry – to monitor tool performance and optimize tool usage and life.

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GeoColumn system promises smaller footprint, bigger energy savings over conventional ground-source heat pumps

Rising energy costs, global warming and rapidly improving technology are opposing forces that are conspiring, one might say, to change the way we will heat and cool our buildings in the near future.

This “warms race” is the impetus behind one innovation—the GeoColumn, a hybrid HVAC system that claims to improve upon two proven, but not always perfect, heating and cooling technologies.

The GeoColumn is a proprietary, “off the shelf” system that offers the benefits of direct exchange (DX) ground source heat exchangers, which produce heat from the surrounding earth, but it eliminates the costly and often difficult excavation or deep-well drilling these systems require.

GeoColumns also promise the efficiency of heat pump systems, which literally create heat from thin air, but which also frequently disappoint owners by failing to produce enough heat when temperatures fall too far.

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Will We Ever Be Lost Again?

Men won’t admit to many things. They rarely acknowledge that they’re going bald, gained a few pounds, caught a cold or are ever wrong.

One thing you almost never hear a man say is that he’s lost, especially when he’s behind the wheel. What’s worse (as many women will attest) is that men typically refuse to pull over and ask for directions—even if it means driving in circles for hours.

But thanks to modern technology, men no longer need to ‘fess up to their shortcomings on the road, or wander aimlessly hoping to stumble across a familiar street or the correct exit to get them back on track.

Global Positioning Systems (GPS) have made life on the highway easier to navigate, improved time management and made traveling less stressful for road warriors today.

A key component of these and many other electronic devices is highly refined, ultrapure copper. Although individual GPS units do not contain a large amount of copper, they would not be able to perform critical functions without it.

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Copper continues to play an important role in new automotive technology

It started as an engineering concept at the turn of the 21st century – gas-electric “hybrid” dream cars displayed at auto shows to gauge public reaction and market potential. But within just a few years (a wink of time in vehicle development terms), hybrids have evolved into one of today’s most important automotive trends.

Numerous components have come into play in the advancement of this technology, but one element in particular – copper – has been indispensible in helping to propel the growth of hybrid vehicles.

According to General Motors Chief Engineer Tim Grewe, “Copper has two important roles in hybrids: It runs the electricity, so you have large amounts of copper in the motor and battery, and, more importantly, the copper technology is making hybrids viable commercially.”

Vehicles, along with their electronic components, must be made robust enough to take years and miles of often hard driving, unlike electronic products that remain stationary throughout their lifetimes. Grewe pointed out that for many hybrid automotive components, including electric motors and the electronics and circuit boards that regulate them, manufacturers like GM turn to “high ounce,” or heavy weight, copper laminates.

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Nobel environmentalist goes geothermal at home

Competing products all make great claims and seek endorsements that will, they hope, attract consumers. And in today’s era of increasing environmental consciousness, being known as a “green” product is quickly becoming the highest accolade of all.

Recently, one high-efficiency home heating and cooling system earned an endorsement of sorts from perhaps the best-known environmentalist on the planet—Al Gore.  Although the former U.S. vice president, a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for his environmental activism, has not publicly lauded his new HVAC equipment, he voted his approval of an innovative ground-source heat pump system by installing one in his own Nashville home and office headquarters.

According to an assistant, Kalee Kreider, Gore was intent on a geothermal system from the start, and a number of options were researched. “He made the final decision on this heat pump technology,” Kreider says. “He lives there with Mrs. Gore (Tipper), and he works out of the house.”

The new HVAC equipment, manufactured by Earth To Air Systems of nearby Franklin, Tennessee, replaced an older heating and cooling system that had a federal Energy Star rating for efficient operation, Kreider says. “But when you look at overall energy use, this new system is far more efficient.”

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