Metals for the Confederation
by Benjamin ShenderThere are several qualities that metals would have to have in order to be usable by is our post-apocalyptic paradise.
1) Common enough that no one has bothered to mine the small deposits or commonly used in civilization in a workable form.
2) Low melting temperature. With bellows, a kiln, and charcoal we can get a fire pretty damn hot…but not hot enough to melt steel. For that you really need coal.
3) Does not oxidize, or, alternatively, its oxidization is a good thing.
A couple of metals that could work:
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper]Copper[/url] has a relatively low melting temperature, and can be worked without melting anyway. Also, while copper does tarnish, oxidization does not occur as readily. Copper can be untarnished readily with citrus fruit or another appropriate acid. Also copper is everywhere. Tear down the telephone lines! We have literally tons of copper at our disposal. It isn’t stolen because people think of telephone lines as part of the landscape now. Sad that. Copper is really good for the following things: any form of conductor, pretty things.
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminum]Aluminum[/url] also has a lower melting temperature. Also, it’s not like soup cans are going anywhere fast. As for tarnish, aluminum oxidizes instantly when exposed to air, good thing too. Yes, with aluminum oxidation is a good thing. It keeps the metal shiny, useable, and relatively non-reactive while having no really bad side-effects on the metal. It can be used for storage containers, silverware, and mirrors.
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold]Gold[/url] and [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver]silver[/url] are also excellent conductors, and while both tarnish it is not a permanent chemical change for either. Both also have low melting points and are useful in jewelry. They are much rarer, but after the crash no one’s watching the jewelry stores.
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin]Tin[/url] is also usable, although harder to find since aluminum has taken up most of tin’s old work. However, tin has uses in glass making, especially with regards to windows.
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead]Lead[/url] is also fairly common. The distinct advantage of this metal is its density. It can be used as sinkers for nets, projectile weapons, or for various other processes (including several involving glass and rechargeable batteries).
Any of these can be used to make a cutting edge. Certainly not the same quality of Teflon coated titanium reinforced super-steal or something like that, but who cares? It needs to enter flesh. That’s it. Even coming back out is optional in some cases. We won’t be playing around with the fanciest alloys any more because we simply can get it hot enough. Also, we’ll be limited by mining considerations. However, an enclosed earthen fire-pit burning charcoal with an appropriate bellows system (this could even be set up with a waterwheel) will get very very hot over the course of a couple of days. All you’d have to do is keep feeding it fuel, and in a week you’ll have a solid 2000 degrees F (that’s 1100 C to you foreigners).
The only issue is that of reusing the same old metal over and over again. Naturally this wouldn’t work forever. But there is enough mined metal in the United States to fulfill the needs of the Confederation several times over. There are fewer people, fewer needs, and items made to satisfy those needs are reusable.
One last thing, none of these metals are really that suited to farming except copper. And copper has two things limiting itself. One, its melting point is at about the threshold we would be capable of generating, and two, it is not so great for farming in mountainous terrain.
What about iron? Are existing deposits too difficult to mine without a high level of societal complexity/energy consumption? I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. Could there also be local stockpiles of various ores or items easily convertible a post-collapse civilization could utilize/recycle?
Comment by Davidh — 29 September 2005 @ 8:39 PM
I think that iron had a little bit too high of a melting point to make it really easy to use. I suppose we could use it in it’s current state…but beyond that….? eh, not so much.
Comment by Miranda — 29 September 2005 @ 9:33 PM
Iron actually had three strikes against it. Most iron we use is in an unaccesable form, either because it is a part of an alloy or otherwise is chemically bonded in such a way that excludes its easy extraction. That alone was not sufficent to dump iron completely, there are still ample supplies. However, the melting temperature is such that you really need coal to get it hot enough. We could kind of melt it a little, but we wouldn’t be able to really smelt it properly. Also, iron rusts, in a bad way, and quickly. We could use some, for a little while. But, I wanted to concentrate on metals we could still use in 200 years.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 29 September 2005 @ 10:11 PM
When the iron that we have maintained/scavenged (engine blocks, tools, magnets, generators, etc.) is beyond service (beyond our lifetimes?) it still might be useful as ballasts & counterweights, sinkers, crude tools, thermal mass, etc. Handling iron oxide for daily tasks is healthier than handling lead, I believe.
Some grades of stainless steel and other alloys will be around for thousands of years, too.
Comment by JCamasto — 30 September 2005 @ 12:26 AM
not trying to attack you or your post but as both a blacksmith and a horticulturalist, i see problems w/ your analysis.
#1. you can most certainly melt steel w/ charcoal by adding a stream of air to it.
#2. copper and aluminum are toxic to plants in anything more than trace amounts. one of the reasons for plants requiring a certain pH is that below or above a pH of 6-7 micronutrients (such as copper, manganese, boron, ect) become available in toxic amounts and so does aluminum.
#3. none of the metals you’ve discussed are strong enough to use agriculturally or even for any form of heavy work (prying, cutting, ect). all you’d end up w/ is a warped piece of metal and perhaps a ball as would be the case w/ lead.
yes, iron rusts, but if properly cared for it will outlast and outperform anything else that can be worked by hand. one thing to remember for a cutting edge is obsidian. it produces such a sharp edge until recently it was used for eye surgery because it was sharper than any scalpel.
Comment by mewood — 30 September 2005 @ 7:08 AM
Hmmm … so steel can be recycled. Is there any way that new steel could be made? Also, does this also hold true for iron?
Which is why I’ve largely outlined a metal-less future.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 30 September 2005 @ 8:15 AM
Mewood-
1) Could you build such a contraption using nothing but wood, stone, and earth?
2) I wasn’t planning on selling it as plant food.
3) Who cares?
Guys? Iron has its advantages, yes. But in no way is it irreplaceable. Indeed, iron has many disadvantages, which is why we currently use it in alloys of some kind or another. Those engine blocks are plated with other metals that are resistant to corrosion, because iron really isn’t. No, metal won’t be useful for hard labor, but I for one wasn’t planning on doing very much hard labor anyway. Obsidian makes excellent blades, and is very easy to refine later. But, back to metals, I think we’re spending too much time mourning the loss of iron and, apparently, agriculture, and ignoring the fact that the metals we do have, have a plethora of uses. Granted, you don’t want to cook with lead or make knives out of aluminum. But you can make a heating plate with copper very easily. Aluminum can be turned into light weight carrying equipment. Tin is exceptionally useful in glass work, leaving us only in need of sand. Stronger pulleys can be made, weights, and connecting bolts. And, guys? DO NOT underestimate the importance of pretty things.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 30 September 2005 @ 10:02 AM
Mourning the loss of iron and agriculture? Shit, I was celebrating it as a guarantor of our peace, freedom and prosperity forevermore!
Comment by Jason Godesky — 30 September 2005 @ 10:24 AM
1. Bronze, (roughly 9 parts copper, 1 part tin, can also include antimony, arsenic, etc.). Bronze is actually superior to Iron for most purposes, and was primarily superceded by Iron in mediterranean societies because of the limitations on the supply of Tin (mainly from Britain). Roman officers actually used bronze swords, while the lowly centurions had to make due with iron. Bronze can also be fully melted at temperatures that can be achieved by primitive furnaces, and therefore can be cast into complex tools, whereas iron requires much more advanced furnaces in order to fully melt and be cast. Steel, iron plus carbon, is another matter, harder and superior to bronze. Steel does not require melting the iron–the carbon was historically introduced via the carbon vapors from heating and hammering the iron over a charcoal fire–without ever melting hte iron. “Damascus” steel, and the low-carobn steel used in samurai blades were produced via this method: heat the iron over charcoal, repeatedly folding it over itself via hammering, thereby incorporating increasing levels of carbon. A good samurai blade would often be folded over 1000 times, and islamic societies used a similar process (hence the name “damascus” steel). Charcoal does not require much technology to make, neither do bellows–so the technological requirements of bronze or steel implements are not beyond the capabilities of a primitive society. While melting and casting steel in a primitive future may be unrealistic (?), forging it into new shapes to recycle it is not.
The key difference, as far as I see it, of a post-collapse primitive society compared to an ancient primitive society is that the latter has the potential advantage of much of the knowledge of “civilization.” Bronze and steel are excellent examples. One of the reasons why I say that we are not “moving backwards” to a historical primitivism, but “moving forward” to a new primitivism informed with the full body of knowledge acquired by civilization.
I don’t think that this is an irrelevant debate. Advanced metals were a powerful tool of hierarchal intensification in history, and could well be so again in the future. In a post-collapse world, it is fully possible that we end up with an oppressive, hierarchal, feudal society that really sucks, to put it eloquently. It is also possible that we end up with an egalitarian, utopian rhizome that is personally materially and spiritually fulfilling and sustainable. Both are probably extremes of the spectrum, but how WE act now to lay the framework for a post-collapse world will probably determine where on that spectrum future society rests. Concentration of metallurgical skills will trend towards feudal hierarchy. Devolved, vernacular metallurgy capable of creating efficient weaponry and tools will trend towards rhizome. It is a technology disparity that will lead to stratification, and it is this disparity that we must avoid. For this reason, I think that discussions such as this one on metallurgy are part of a broader theme: the technological capabilities of civilization must be carried into the post-collapse world in the most devolved, vernacular manner possible. If we can do that, then the hierarchal tendency of concentrated, centralized technology will be disarmed.
A few technologies that I think will be key to quality of life in a post-collapse world: glass, ceramics, metal blades, cast metals, weaving. I’m sure there are more, but it might be worth discussing each of these in depth, and figuring out how a small band can effectively, independently achieve these ends.
Comment by Jeff — 30 September 2005 @ 11:50 AM
Jeff’s point reminds me of the incredible security the Roman Empire placed around their blacksmiths. Entire campaigns would be waged at times just to retrieve a single blacksmith. They were under very close surveillance. Because even one escaped blacksmith could tip the balance of power, by showing someone else the fine art of Roman smithing.
It’s been ages since I last read E.A. Thompson’s Romans & Barbarians, but I recall a very engrossing discussion of this nature in the first chapter or so….
Comment by Jason Godesky — 30 September 2005 @ 12:04 PM
Hey –
You go, Jeff!
You hit exactly on some of the ideas I have so far failed to express well. There is so much knowledge available today that will make a dramatic difference in any ‘future primitive’ that we must not only take into account, but really take the time to understand and foster in positive ways.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 30 September 2005 @ 12:35 PM
See: automotive/railroad scrap yard. Also see: your local recycling program.
‘Cept reclaiming items alloys or coated/plated items can require high temperatures to separate the metals by melting point.
Comment by JCamasto — 30 September 2005 @ 12:36 PM
New steel, as opposed to recycled steel … recycled steel will extinguish over time.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 30 September 2005 @ 12:47 PM
One of the problems with new metals is the difficulty in getting ore–it’s a case of the low hanging fruit having already been taken. Way back in the beginning of our use of metals, high-concentrate ores could literally be found just lying around in many areas. There are even accounts of iron rocks being found with such purity that they could immediately be forged (not to mention meteorites). Today, that kind of chance is unlikely to provide the metals that will be needed in the future. There are still parts of the world (even highly populated parts) where small reseves of good quality ore can be reached with minimal mining (often just breaking away bits of a hillside), but they are not evenly distributed. This means that eventually the sporradic access to these ores will lead to regional specialization–after the viability of recycled metals is over. This can be a slippery slope towards hierarchy. I think the ideal situation is one where metals are simply not a required part of our life–despite the potential military advantage of metals, I think that with careful tactical development a group can compensate for their lack of metals, even in the face of a group armed with metals. For example, the saracen horsemen during 1st-3rd crusades effectively leveraged their improved speed and maneuverability gained by NOT wearing armor, and often defeated the heavily metal-rmed and armored European knights.
I really don’t think that metals are necessary for a high-quality of life in most key areas: Efficient sustainable housing doesn’t need metal. Metal ploughs are probably acutally a less effective means of agriculture than are permaculture, forest gardens, seed-balls, etc. Clothing, cooking, crafts are all easily adaptable to a non-metal world. The major exceptions–at least things that I haven’t yet heard of good alternatives to metal–are cutting wood (both for firewood and for efficient home building) and some military applications. I also don’t know enough about glass-making to know if it is possible without metal. I think that glass is crucial to leveraging our knowledge of passive-solar, so I would definitely want to find a way to perpetuate our ability to use glass after it is no longer possible to recycle it.
Comment by Jeff — 30 September 2005 @ 2:47 PM
vitrified clay has an incredible number of industrial uses—including conduction and hard edges—and doesn’t require extreme temperatures, oil, or metal to produce. (though to be sure that’s how it’s produced now.) i can’t see making a plough of clay, but then ploughs are part of the trouble we’re in, n’est-ce pas?
Comment by joy — 30 September 2005 @ 6:33 PM
I discarded steel for lack of raw iron mostly. There is a certain inherent difficulty in making decent steel out of rusted through iron at low temperatures. Specifically you end up with something between a paper weight and swiss cheese. There are some metals that we can use, that was my point. In general, I favor rock, wood, and bone based technologies. You may not be making super-conducting magnets, but who cares? What good would they be anyway? The only limitation is your creativity. Hell, you can make advanced seige weaponery out of two trees and hemp plant. Granted you still need to find a couple big rocks. But, honestly, if you can’t find a big rock you really aren’t going to make much of a hunter anyway.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 1 October 2005 @ 12:46 AM
I totally agree with the post talking about how limited ores will be and thus leading to regional specialization. I hope/bet we will see both ends of the spectrum from feudal kingdoms to egalitarian hunter/gather societies. I imagine the resource rich places will actually turn out to be the ones with the most hierarchial structure (to acquire/use the resources) and the ones that will be less endowed (and thus also suffer greater pop loss) will support a more egalitarian society even if it is only a few people per hundred sq. miles.
Comment by Davidh — 1 October 2005 @ 12:14 PM
AND>>>>> I forgot to mention: I totally think preserving knowledge is key. We need more monastaries, post carbon institutes, lifeboats, ecovillages. I would really like to see a decently well funded program to build outposts that will store up the (more valuable) knowledge of this era and preserve it for future ones.
Comment by Davidh — 1 October 2005 @ 12:15 PM
Remember that the Ewoks of Endor historically defeated the much more powerful Galactic Empire forces with little more than natural fiber rope and stone hatchets. Admittedly, this was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, but I’d like to think that knowledge of terrain counts for something in warfare.
Also, kickass leather hats may have something to do with military success.
Check out http://www.velvitoil.com/Charmake.htm for info on how to home-make high quality hardwood charcoal with no more materials than would have been available to any one of our primitive ancestors.
I agree with Jeff that it is extremely important that this knowledge be available to all, to avoid hierarchy.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 2 October 2005 @ 9:40 AM
A fairly important side question: how does their distribution pair up with the distribution of areas where agriculture may still be viable?
Comment by Jason Godesky — 4 October 2005 @ 11:04 AM
My guess would be that the metals and coal close to good farm land would have been used first. Fruit closest to the ground.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 8 October 2005 @ 1:11 AM
Hey –
But good farm land of the past is not likely to be the good farm land of the future…. so we’re still guessing.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 8 October 2005 @ 10:05 AM
Right … the good farm land of the future will be a much reduced subset of the good farm land of the present. The present climate is the most perfect for agriculture the earth has ever seen–and our use of other inputs makes lands that would not even be arable under this climate, useful. The future will see a climate much less amenable to agriculture, and without the benefits of those inputs. If anything remains arable at all, it will be only the most verdant areas today–because it’s not like they’ll be changing their latitudes or geological makeup any time soon.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 8 October 2005 @ 6:09 PM
Hey –
No no no….
If the climate continues to warm, then areas to the North (or South) become more viable as ‘farm’ land.
If we kick in a new Ice Age, then places like, oh, the Southwest Desert may well become much more lush, and thus ‘farmable’
Add to that newer techniques(ie permaculture, etc) and instead of flat plans being ‘ideal’, steep slopes become ideal; instead of needing areas of moderate-high rainfall, areas with limited rainfall become useful; non-traditional crops (non cereal grains) allow sustainable usage of boggy areas, dry slopes, short seasons and long droughts…
Besides that, areas that are currently ‘poisoned’ and ‘unusable without continuing petro-inputs, will in fact, recovery quite nicely, and quickly, once petroleum based inputs (both intentional and pollutive) stop…
I keep telling you, Jason, you are underestimating here
Janene
Comment by Janene — 8 October 2005 @ 8:05 PM
Yeah, you’re right, I got carried away there.
Though, most of the land we farm now will be unavailable for many centuries to come, so even so, land will still be a very limiting factor. Even permaculture, which as a form of horticulture is much more adaptable, is impossible in a global climate too different from ours. Sure, at some latitude, there will probably be something like you can find somewhere today–but there will also be entire latitudes where any cultivation at all is entirely out of the question. Cultivation will be defined to a maximum of two bands around the earth–and maybe just one about the middle. To say nothing then of soil quality, geography, etc.
If it can be done, somebody will–and cultivation will still be possible somewhere. Just nowhere near the same scale it’s possible today.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 9 October 2005 @ 2:53 AM
Much of the land will remain unusable for centuries, even millennia to come, if we let the healing take place naturally.
But what if we intentionally helped the healing process? We could accelerate it immensely.
Say, for instance, that grasses are the primary emergency aid plant for a given ecosystem. Instead of letting the seeds fall where they may, (and therefore lose much of its productivity) we take the time to plant the seeds. Instead of taking decades or even centuries for nature to reclaim dead farmland and install scrub brush, we could help nature do it in years. We could help to take the scrubland to pioneer trees in, again, years. We could take the pioneers to second growth in years, if we were to act as servants of life. We could heal the dead soil to a climax forest ecosystem in a lifetime, maybe less. If we were servants of life, and conscientiously helped the world to heal itself.
I believe we owe the world and the community of life nothing less after what we have done.
Agriculture? Snork, I say! There was a great essay by Dmitry Orlov in which he goes into the details of why small-scale gardening and/or permaculture is, by nature, more productive than large-scale agriculture. In a world where food is scarce, I think agriculture will be ‘taken care of’ naturally, because it would be a luxury few could afford.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 9 October 2005 @ 8:20 AM
Hey –
Yeah… ‘agriculture’ is really not a valid term for what I am talking about. Really, I am refering to ‘gardening’, encompassing any method for encouraging plant regrowth.
But again… centuries for the planet to recover naturally? I don’t think so. Centuries if poisons continue to be added, but it is very hard to prevent mother nature from developing ecosystems. Half the poisons farmers use is to prevent just that from happening. Dig a weed, or any other plant out of your garden and then wait a couple weeks… I can almost guarantee that within a couple weeks, something will be growing in that bare soil. Leave it alone, and you can watch the progression over a couple of years from ‘weeds’ (like grass, dandylions, thistles, etc) into more mature ecological systems (including many common herb plants, wildflowers, and small scrub trees). After a decade you would probably have significant development of larger, more significant trees. (In my own garden, I require constant vigiliance :-0 , to prevent Maple Trees from taking over)
Janene
Comment by Janene — 9 October 2005 @ 10:23 AM
Well, for life to recover, or for agriculture to become viable again? They are not the same goal. Wheat, corn and rice are very tempermental plants, requiring very specific climates, soils, etc. Life will recover quickly, to be sure. But it will recover for all that life that counter-balances wheat, rice and corn. The ones that put nutrients back into the soil that those plants take out–because the nutrients our crops need have been very thoroughly consumed. Even with those new, non-crop plants inheriting the world, it will take them a very long time to make that land viable for wheat, rice and corn again.
In the 1900s, staring at the bleak devastation we had wrought, the U.S. government started most of the National Forests in the east from seed. Now, they are very recognizably forest. But a very different kind of forest. It will be centuries before they’re old growth again. Life recovers very quickly, but it takes a long time for things to be the same as they were before.
That’s actually another crucial point for me: that the earth will start healing itself almost immediately, once we stop trying to kill it. But the recovery of life is a very different prospect than the recovery of the earth’s ability to serve us as agricultural cropland. That will not happen until at least the first generation has passed away. That’s important, because it means there’s an important break between civilizations–the next civilization won’t be able to build very much on ours. They’ll have to start essentially from scratch.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 9 October 2005 @ 11:14 AM
Hey –
Sure, sure… that’s why I made the point that I have been talking about ‘plant regrowth’ not ‘agriculture’.
Just the same… the nutrients that those crops need CAN be replenished in a season or two… all you need are ‘nitrogen fixing’ plants and some good old fashioned manure and brown & green compost. If you took a current ag field, that is really in rough shape, added a layer of manure, a layer of brown compost, assorted bean plants (with companions) and then a layer of green compost…. then let the whole thing go wild for, say, two years… that field would be VIBRANT at the end of it.
Big difference, o’ course, between building the nutrients in the soil and growing ‘old growth forest’. BIG difference
Janene
Comment by Janene — 9 October 2005 @ 11:48 AM
Climax ecosystems by definition increase soil fertility as fast as soil fertility can naturally be increased. Forests are the best climax ecosystems, building one inch of topsoil every century or so.
Which means that ag land could easily be created. What was done with it then would be up to whoever had power over it.
Of course, no matter how quickly one does it, it’ll still probably take a generation, which means that much agricultural knowledge (those parts passed orally or by imitation) would be lost.
Either way, score.
Comment by Chuck — 9 October 2005 @ 1:30 PM
Something I wanted to mention last night, but the internet was being tempermental, was that regardless of temperature: moisture is a huge factor as well. Even if all these desert climates become cool enough, and other places cold enough, for growing food, if they’re still dry as a bone…
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 10 October 2005 @ 12:46 AM
Hey Ben –
Right… that’s where permaculture comes in. Its not going to change the climate, but it will dramatrically alter what happens to the rain that does fall…
So 10″ a year might be enough to grow plants that normally live in climates that get 15-20″ and so on….
Janene
Comment by Janene — 10 October 2005 @ 9:09 AM
Hey, why are bison not domesticable? I know there are bison farms in the US now, but are they domesticated?
Comment by Raku — 10 November 2005 @ 6:14 PM
I think the above, uh, whatever - was a randomly guided splammerbomb. I know I’ve seen this before…
Comment by JCamasto — 10 November 2005 @ 6:37 PM
Well I certainly hope that wasn’t a serious commentary on the future availability of metals.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 10 November 2005 @ 9:03 PM
HELLO, Ben!
Didn’t you READ it? We don’t have to worry about it, because the metals will be provided by the mid-level alien management, or perhaps the Romans.
Do try to pay attention.
Of course, with a last name like, “Schneider,” I may just be a part of the vast Jew conspiracy. A-cha! A-cha!
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 10 November 2005 @ 9:24 PM
Damn … that bit gets posted here every so often. I usually delete it in short order. I guess I’ve gotta keep it up, now.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 11 November 2005 @ 12:47 AM