Automotive will be a growing user especially if fuel cells gain traction. We live in an electric and electronic world. It all requires power and distribution. Think of those thousands of new windmills. They all need to be "somewhere" where the wind blows, then connected to a grid. Most often, much of the grid requirement does not exist. Same with nuclear. Too bad you cannot build a reactor just anywhere, so connecting it requires thousands of tons of copper. One of the reasons we are limping is that everyone wants the other guy to make those investments. So, its not just about cheap power sources, it takes copper to connect it. New York city may be just fine, but the growing middle classes around the world will suck up piles of copper just to get minimal power infrastructure . Whenever a power line is replaced, the new one is usually bigger because we consume more every day. But the copper cost remains a tiny part of these investments. Demand is inelastic at current price levels despite all the barking.