`Kennecott Bingham Canyon copper mine operations`

World's largest open-pit mine, ~1 mile deep, ~0.5% copper ore. Used to illustrate why copper energy cost is rising: you must move 4,000 pounds of dirt per pound of metal.

Why is copper rising? Because we don't have any good copper ores. The best copper ores in the old days were five percent copper. Anyone from Salt Lake City or Utah? What's the Bingham mine? It's a copper mine. You can sometimes see it flying into the Salt Lake airport, depending on the route. I think it's just west of Salt Lake. It's the world's largest open-pit mine — about a mile deep, between these mountains, and they've been driving in circles and digging it deeper and deeper. The Bingham mine is about a half percent copper, which means to get a pound of metal you have to move 4,000 pounds of dirt. That costs money — and that's why it's rising to 500.