Electrical Conductors
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| Element | Electrical resistivity @ 20°C |
| Silver | 15.87 nΩ·m |
| Copper | 16.78 nΩ·m |
| Gold | 22.14 nΩ·m |
| Aluminum | 26.50 nΩ·m |
Aluminum
aluminum is also used as a conductor here on earth, in fact you use it every day without realizing it. those HT cables have a steel core and an aluminum outer layer it's used because losses are fairly low at 110kV and the weight of the cable and cost of the towers is important
steel cored aluminum allows a longer span
Aluminum is abundant on the Moon. the principle disadvantage of Aluminum on the Earth is that is corrodes rapidly in an oxygen atmosphere. On the moon, in a vacuum environment, it would be an excellent material to use as a general purpose electrical conductor, considering that copper is not readily available on the Moon.
I expect we'll have to put up with aluminum wire on Luna though, which means higher voltages would be better
Copper
As a general conductor copper is widely used on Earth because it's cheap, reasonably flexible, reasonably light and the 2nd best conductor. Copper allows for ease of soldered and crimped/clamped connections. It corrodes worse than silver, this is usually seen in older wires that have turned green.
Copper is not readily available on the Moon.
Gold
Gold is is not an especially good conductor at all, though it is better than aluminum but not per unit weight as gold is much heavier. It is very expensive, but compared to the cost of transport to the Moon from Earth, the cost is not significant. Gold is usually only used as a conductor in very specialized applications such as very fine wires like those used to wire bond integrated circuits to their lead frames.
A more important everyday use of Gold is in Electrical Connectors
For connectors gold reigns supreme for several reasons
- 1. It doesn't tarnish (important on Earth, important indoors on Luna)
- 2. It's soft, so you can make the connectors tight and they dig into each other forming a good connection.
Silver
Silver is the best known conductor, but in an oxygen rich environment it tarnishes.
In the Lunar outdoors, (in a vacuum where it can't tarnish), silver would be way better than copper, or aluminum. However, unfortunately, Silver is not readily available on the Moon, and in most cases for large scale systems we will have to make do with Aluminum.
