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Some serious chemical reactions. That's why aluminum wiring was outlawed in homes years ago. Spontaneous combustion...

32 posted on 01/21/2007 8:09:55 PM PST by TommyDale (If we don't put a stop to this global warming, we will all be dead in 10,000 years!)

Some serious chemical reactions. That's why aluminum wiring was outlawed in homes years ago. Spontaneous combustion...

I've always wondered if that couldn't have been averted by the simple expedient of electroplating a copper surface onto aluminum wire.
Considering that for electical uses copper is nomally refined by electrolysis anyway (a process that pays for itself in the value of recovered "impurities" which include silver), that wouldn't seem to necessisarily have been particularly expensive . . .

37 posted on 01/22/2007 4:35:30 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters except PR.)