Copper
Copper is known to be essential to all living organisms as it is a key component of the respiratory enzyme complex cytochrome C oxidase. Without copper, respiration would not occur and therefore life would not exist. Thus, there is no need for me to write about the passage.
Ok. It’s only a joke. Let’s just trust life for a moment and believe that they will find a way out for themselves and drive respiration in some other way. Let’s look elsewhere for the impact of copper on humans.
The earth
Actually, the disappearance of copper would not have a significant impact on our planet, that it only makes up 0.01% of the total mass of the planet. The disappearance of copper will not have any effect on the Earth. The ecosystem and the gravity will remain unchanged. Copper would also have no effect on the Sun because it is only found in supermassive stars, and the Sun, of course, is too small to support the formation of the element.
The history.
After carefully thinking about it, I believe that the effects of copper on history needs to be considered in two segments: before the 19th century and after the 19th century.
Before the 19th century
The disappearance of copper would have no significant effect on history before the 19th century, as the use of bronze was quickly replaced by iron. Thus, the disappearance of copper might even allow people to start using iron earlier. However, the use of iron would not be ahead of schedule too much because making iron requires a very high temperature. For quite a long period of time, humans would probably live in a life similar to that of the Neolithic Age.
Humans would then move quickly into the Iron Age and stayed in it until the second industrial revolution. However, it’s definitely a petty that, as a history lover, I’d like to say that many copper artifacts would no longer exist (iron, by comparison, is unlikely to be preserved for thousands of years without damage).
After the 19th century
The second industrial revolution was in the 19th century, and it was this revolution that led to the development and popularization of electricity. Copper, in our world, is widely used in our livelihood as a metal with excellent electrical conductivity and a relatively low price. Copper is undoubtedly irreplaceable. Although gold and silver also have excellent electrical conductivity, their scarcity and prices make copper destined irreplicable. The disappearance of copper has left mankind with the choice of aluminum as a material for electrical wiring, and this will undoubtedly increase the cost of electricity. To make this difference more tangible, let’s quantify the difference between the metals using resistivity.
The resistivity of copper is 1.75 ×10-8ρ(Ω·m). In contrast, the resistivity of silver, gold and aluminum is 1.65ρ(Ω·m), 2.40ρ(Ω·m) and 2.83ρ(Ω·m), respectively. By calculating the electrical power produced by the two metals, it can be easily estimated that, under the same conditions, transporting electricity using aluminum wires will result in 60% more losses than using identical copper wires.
Climate
Let’s make an estimation: according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global electricity consumption in 2022 will be around 27,000 terawatt hours (TWh). If 60% of the energy contained in that electricity is converted into heat and absorbs by the atmosphere, the temperature of the atmosphere would rise by about 11.3 degrees Celsius.
Of course, this estimate is not accurate. In fact, most of the heat is absorbed by the Earth or escapes into the universe. The Earth’s temperature wouldn’t rise that much (of course, we will all die if the average temperature rises 11.3 degrees Celsius). Nonetheless, considering that humans might generate more electricity to make up for the wasted electricity, the resulting CO2 could be fatal to the Earth’s temperature. Therefore, taking all these considerations into account, an average temperature rises of 3 degrees Celsius is reasonable. This rise in temperature will not be fatal to human, except that some animals will go extinct, the Arctic ice cap will disappear, and rising sea levels will flood coastal cities like Shanghai and New York. The population won’t decrease in a large extent, and people aren’t going to live underground to combat the heat.
Daily life
People’s lives are not going to be disrupted too much. The price of electricity will be doubled due to the increasing loss in transforming electricity, but that won’t matter in most cases. Of course, people won’t choose to use candles or torches to light up their neighborhoods, but still, there are some places where will be affected: hydrogen production through electrolyzing water will no longer be acceptable; anti-seasonal fruits and vegetables will no longer be viable (which means that winter fruits and vegetables will be very expensive); remote areas will not have improved internet, cell phone reception, lighting, and a host of other infrastructure.
The coins will also change a lot. Currently, the coins of most countries are copper-nickel alloys. This could control the price and the durability of the currency in an acceptable area. However, if there is no copper available, the government will have to choose Stannum or Iron as materials. Since Stannum is not durable enough and iron will be easily oxided by the atmosphere, the cost to produce coins will no longer be acceptable since the government have to frequently replace them with new ones. The world may not have any coins as a result. Paper money or electronic payments will become more popular among the citizens.
Thanks to its excellent thermal and electrical conductivity, copper is being used on a large scale in green technology. In addition to the electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen mentioned above, copper is also used in wind power, hydroelectric power and even nuclear power. Without copper, one might have to use silver or even gold to utilize those green energy. This would make green technology more expensive, and thus much less popular.
Electronic devices will become more expensive that they will contain more silver. Of course, there is also the possibility that silver will become cheaper (which will result in an even smaller effect of the world). This is because sophisticated electronic devices require a low resistance working environment, and aluminum could not meet the need. However, given the popularity of the Internet, people will also have to buy cell phones & computers no matter how expensive they are.
A world without copper would still exist, but much less interesting than our current world. Electronic devices will not be as popular as the modern society, and people will rely more on traditional technologies (technologies before the informational technology revolution, for example, fossil fuels). Still, modern technology will still exist, but they will only be used by rich people. It is reasonable that not everyone could afford silver for their devices.