If we want to have artificially-generated demand for zinc – if we really need to ensure domestic production capacity – there’s no requirement for it to be the penny. I’m sure that we can find something else to make out of zinc.
The penny itself wasn’t always zinc. I don’t remember the changeover year.
The current copper-plated zinc cent issued since 1982 weighs 2.5 grams, while the previous 95% copper cent still found in circulation weighed 3.11 g (see further below).
Zinc is most commonly used as an anti-corrosion agent,[123] and galvanization (coating of iron or steel) is the most familiar form. In 2009 in the United States, 55% or 893,000 tons of the zinc metal was used for galvanization.[122]
Zinc is more reactive than iron or steel and thus will attract almost all local oxidation until it completely corrodes away.
We can just subsidize zinc production, or purchase something that requires those anti-corrosion properties.
I also am not at all sure that this was in fact the rationale. I can’t find a reference online to this being the rationale. I do see reference to zinc being useful because it’s particularly inexpensive. And the numbers given on this article seem to support the idea that pennies don’t really work out to generating a very substantial demand for zinc.
It’s Not Big Zinc Behind The Campaign To Keep The Penny
To run through the numbers, a penny coin weighs 2.5 grammes. Let’s call that all zinc (it’s not, but close enough). There’s 5 billion made a year, meaning that we’ve got 12,500,000,000 grammes, or divide by a million to get 12,500 tonnes. Now, if that were 12,500 tonnes of gold being made into coins every year, with global virgin production being around 3,000 tonnes, then sure, that would be a contract worth, umm, influencing the political process, to secure and keep running. The same would be true of many metals in fact. But it’s just not true of the zinc industry. Using the USGS, the correct source for these sorts of numbers, we find that US production of zinc is around 250,000 tonnes a year, global production 13.5 million. Even if we assume (as we might, sounds like the sort of thing that might be true) that US coins must be made of US produced metal this is still a very marginal part of the total market.
Further, zinc runs about $2,200 a tonne at present, meaning that we’re talking about maybe $25 million a year as the zinc cost of our pennies. And we’re told who and how much is paid to keep lobbying for the penny:
But his written statement did not mention that Weller is actually a lobbyist and head of strategic communications for Dentons, a law firm representing the interests of zinc producer Jarden Zinc Products, a major provider of coin blanks that are made into currency.
…
Jarden Zinc Products spent $1.5 million from 2006 through the first quarter of 2014 lobbying on such things as “issues related to the one-cent coin” and represented by Weller when he worked at B&D Consulting and, more recently, Dentons.
No, the important point here is not the zinc industry, nor “Big Zinc”. The important part is this “a major provider of coin blanks”. If your business is making coin blanks then obviously you’re very interested in the continued existence of coin demoninations that are made from coin blanks. That they’re made from zinc is an irrelevance compared to that.
Believe me, you don’t spend the best part of $200,000 a year in lobbying expenses in order to sell $25 million’s worth of zinc. This metal is a commodity, you can sell that amount in one ten minute phone call to any London Metals Exchange ring member. Heck, give me a couple of days to get organised and I could sell it for you at the market price. I’d also charge rather less than $200,000 to do it.
EDIT: WP seems to also support the author’s argument.
The company has resisted past efforts to eliminate the penny in the United [1] through an astroturf lobby organization called Americans for Common Cents.
The company’s largest source of revenue comes from the production of coin blanks, having produced over 300 billion blanks at their Tennessee facility.
I’m fairly sure that I’ve read some articles by this guy on Forbes before, because I remember that he had some article on something, many years back, that I really liked and I distinctly remember thinking that his thumbnail looked kind of frumpy. I believe that he’s British. Looks like he hasn’t been at Forbes in almost a decade, though.
I was born in Torquay in 1963, grew up mostly in Bath (with a couple of years in Naples, Italy as a result of my father\’s Naval career) and was educated at Downside Abbey.
EDIT: Also, a “ton” and a “tonne” aren’t the same thing – that’s not just dialect. A “ton” here in the US means a short ton, 2000 US lbs. A “tonne” is a metric ton, 1000 kg. I don’t know what Brits normally mean if they write “ton”, whether it’s a short ton or a long ton or metric ton. In the US, we’d normally write “metric ton” instead of “tonne”.
Calling that an advertisement for Kagi seems a bit hyper reactive to me. I think they’re just including it as a source along with the info for transparency’s sake. I appreciate it for the context it provides.
If they didn’t explicitly do it every single times, and often italicize it, I might agree.
And then they wrote some ad copy for why Kagi is better than DuckDuckGo to me afterward because they decided (for some reason) that this was about which search engine was better, as if I gave a shit. Which, again, advertising.
You’re free to comment every time if you want. I have no intention to change what I am doing, because I happen to like them, and my use of the term predates my use of that engine – I wrote googles prior to this.
If you want to ban me because you cannot tolerate my writing style, do so, and I’ll go use communities other than those you that you moderate. Trying to harass me into changing what I write is not going to have an effect.
Yes, I understand you think, “hail corporate!” is a good thing, as is giving a corporation that would happily fuck you over in a second like every other corporation free advertising, and “I gave a different for-profit corporation free advertising before now” is a weird excuse to continue to do it.
Too bad there aren’t any non-profit search engines you could promote instead of the one that charges people money in order to make a profit.
But yes, I will point it out your “hail corporate!” shit every time because advertising does not belong on Lemmy.
Too bad there aren’t any non-profit search engines you could promote instead of the one that charges people money in order to make a profit.
If I remember from prior discussions, you prefer Duck Duck Go. If you want to mention that you use Duck Duck Go, I have no problem with that. I think that that’s great.
giving a corporation that would happily fuck you over in a second like every other corporation
I think that Kagi has considerably less-incentive to do so than Duck Duck Go does, because they have a viable revenue model that doesn’t involve datamining me the way Google does or showing ads to me the way Duck Duck Go does. Yes, you can use an ad-blocker on Duck Duck Go, but then you’re offloading the costs onto other users who don’t do that, and in the long run, Duck Duck Go has an incentive to block users using ad blockers.
You may disagree with my assessment. But I’ve made that decision, I’m happy with it, I like the fact that Kagi added a Threadiverse search feature, and I am not going to change search engines to your favorite search engine, nor do I intend to stop telling people that I use Kagi.
You do not remember from prior discussions because I have no “preferred” search engine. Also, DuckDuckGo is just Bing and either you did not do your due diligence to learn that or you think I’m ignorant.
And I really do not care about your “hail, corporate!” excuses.
When you advertise a product on Lemmy, you are spamming and I will keep pointing it out.
You are correct on the Penny. The military still uses a lot of copper and zinc, just not how you are thinking. The “depleted uranium” rounds you are thinking of are anti-armor rounds. This is a fin stabilized sabot round that has a core penetrator made of DU instead of Tungsten, like the Russians use (we use some tungsten core rounds also). The US used these for the Bradley’s main 25mm Bushmaster auto cannon, M1 Abrams tank, 30mm fighter jet cannons and the big boy A-10 Brrrrt gun. Almost all small rounds, think infantry, use full metal jacket rounds. The core of the round (back then, now mostly steel) is made of lead. Then the lead is encased ( or jacketed) with copper. This would apply to 9mm pistol rounds(not used much in combat, if so, it is a bad day), M-16 5.56 rounds, .30 caliber machine gun, and .50 caliber machine and anti material rifles. Copper is used a lot in other areas also, primarily motor windings and generator windings. Zinc is used is almost everywhere as a galvanized coating on ammunition that is not jacketed and other things that have bare steel. The Bradley fires a standard round that is used more often than the DU sabot, called HEAT. This is an explosive round covered in steel with a jacket of zinc for corrosion resistance.
No problem. I have seen a lot of people think that the army was just tossing huge chunks of uranium around. The actual core made of depleted uranium is quite small, I believe it is less than 300grams in an Abrams 120mm shell. The cores are encased and not very radioactive, but I would bet they are still an environmental hazzard long after they are used. The US started using it when it proved harder of a penetrator than tungsten, and since it is a waste product, it was far cheaper.
What about galvanized steel though? You know, like traffic signs, light posts, some cars, various construction materials etc? You could use zinc in so many ways. I expect those applications would also take a lot more zinc than the pennies ever could.
The reason we continued to make the penny is to maintain zinc production, which is important for wartime manufacturing.
By ending penny production, it will save money, but may compromise our future ability to wage war.
If we want to have artificially-generated demand for zinc – if we really need to ensure domestic production capacity – there’s no requirement for it to be the penny. I’m sure that we can find something else to make out of zinc.
The penny itself wasn’t always zinc. I don’t remember the changeover year.
checks WP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_(United_States_coin)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc
We can just subsidize zinc production, or purchase something that requires those anti-corrosion properties.
I also am not at all sure that this was in fact the rationale. I can’t find a reference online to this being the rationale. I do see reference to zinc being useful because it’s particularly inexpensive. And the numbers given on this article seem to support the idea that pennies don’t really work out to generating a very substantial demand for zinc.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/01/03/its-not-big-zinc-behind-the-campaign-to-keep-the-penny/
EDIT: WP seems to also support the author’s argument.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarden_Zinc_Products
Did an Old English speaker write this?
I’m fairly sure that I’ve read some articles by this guy on Forbes before, because I remember that he had some article on something, many years back, that I really liked and I distinctly remember thinking that his thumbnail looked kind of frumpy. I believe that he’s British. Looks like he hasn’t been at Forbes in almost a decade, though.
kagis
Yeah, was apparently born in Torquay, England.
https://www.timworstall.com/2008/07/about-tim-worstall/
EDIT: Also, a “ton” and a “tonne” aren’t the same thing – that’s not just dialect. A “ton” here in the US means a short ton, 2000 US lbs. A “tonne” is a metric ton, 1000 kg. I don’t know what Brits normally mean if they write “ton”, whether it’s a short ton or a long ton or metric ton. In the US, we’d normally write “metric ton” instead of “tonne”.
Kagi is a for-profit website that charges people money to use their search engine.
Stop advertising for them.
Advertising does not belong on Lemmy and I will point this out every time I see you do it.
Calling that an advertisement for Kagi seems a bit hyper reactive to me. I think they’re just including it as a source along with the info for transparency’s sake. I appreciate it for the context it provides.
If they didn’t explicitly do it every single times, and often italicize it, I might agree.
And then they wrote some ad copy for why Kagi is better than DuckDuckGo to me afterward because they decided (for some reason) that this was about which search engine was better, as if I gave a shit. Which, again, advertising.
Well yeah, italicizing it denotes that it’s the title of the source.
The “ad copy” was just them explaining why they personally like using Kagi, after you called them out for it.
With all that said, I think you’ll just end up Streisand effecting it in the end if you call it out over and over. 🤷♂️
Do people italicize the word Google when they “google” something? I sure as hell don’t and I have never seen anyone who does.
You’re free to comment every time if you want. I have no intention to change what I am doing, because I happen to like them, and my use of the term predates my use of that engine – I wrote googles prior to this.
If you want to ban me because you cannot tolerate my writing style, do so, and I’ll go use communities other than those you that you moderate. Trying to harass me into changing what I write is not going to have an effect.
Yes, I understand you think, “hail corporate!” is a good thing, as is giving a corporation that would happily fuck you over in a second like every other corporation free advertising, and “I gave a different for-profit corporation free advertising before now” is a weird excuse to continue to do it.
Too bad there aren’t any non-profit search engines you could promote instead of the one that charges people money in order to make a profit.
But yes, I will point it out your “hail corporate!” shit every time because advertising does not belong on Lemmy.
If I remember from prior discussions, you prefer Duck Duck Go. If you want to mention that you use Duck Duck Go, I have no problem with that. I think that that’s great.
I think that Kagi has considerably less-incentive to do so than Duck Duck Go does, because they have a viable revenue model that doesn’t involve datamining me the way Google does or showing ads to me the way Duck Duck Go does. Yes, you can use an ad-blocker on Duck Duck Go, but then you’re offloading the costs onto other users who don’t do that, and in the long run, Duck Duck Go has an incentive to block users using ad blockers.
You may disagree with my assessment. But I’ve made that decision, I’m happy with it, I like the fact that Kagi added a Threadiverse search feature, and I am not going to change search engines to your favorite search engine, nor do I intend to stop telling people that I use Kagi.
You do not remember from prior discussions because I have no “preferred” search engine. Also, DuckDuckGo is just Bing and either you did not do your due diligence to learn that or you think I’m ignorant.
And I really do not care about your “hail, corporate!” excuses.
When you advertise a product on Lemmy, you are spamming and I will keep pointing it out.
So two wins
What portion of our zinc production goes to manufacturing pennies?
Do you have a source for this?
https://www.usmint.gov/learn/history/historic-coin-production
This is the closest I could find and I really doubt that this means much in the 21st century.
I mean for fucks sake we were using depleted uranium rounds during the Iraq War, not copper.
You are correct on the Penny. The military still uses a lot of copper and zinc, just not how you are thinking. The “depleted uranium” rounds you are thinking of are anti-armor rounds. This is a fin stabilized sabot round that has a core penetrator made of DU instead of Tungsten, like the Russians use (we use some tungsten core rounds also). The US used these for the Bradley’s main 25mm Bushmaster auto cannon, M1 Abrams tank, 30mm fighter jet cannons and the big boy A-10 Brrrrt gun. Almost all small rounds, think infantry, use full metal jacket rounds. The core of the round (back then, now mostly steel) is made of lead. Then the lead is encased ( or jacketed) with copper. This would apply to 9mm pistol rounds(not used much in combat, if so, it is a bad day), M-16 5.56 rounds, .30 caliber machine gun, and .50 caliber machine and anti material rifles. Copper is used a lot in other areas also, primarily motor windings and generator windings. Zinc is used is almost everywhere as a galvanized coating on ammunition that is not jacketed and other things that have bare steel. The Bradley fires a standard round that is used more often than the DU sabot, called HEAT. This is an explosive round covered in steel with a jacket of zinc for corrosion resistance.
Excellent breakdown, thank you.
No problem. I have seen a lot of people think that the army was just tossing huge chunks of uranium around. The actual core made of depleted uranium is quite small, I believe it is less than 300grams in an Abrams 120mm shell. The cores are encased and not very radioactive, but I would bet they are still an environmental hazzard long after they are used. The US started using it when it proved harder of a penetrator than tungsten, and since it is a waste product, it was far cheaper.
What about galvanized steel though? You know, like traffic signs, light posts, some cars, various construction materials etc? You could use zinc in so many ways. I expect those applications would also take a lot more zinc than the pennies ever could.
So as soon as the zinc lobbyist pay him, he’ll back out.