ARGUMENT71 米国有米寒假小组9日作业

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TOPIC: ARGUMENT71 - Copper occurs in nature mixed with other minerals and valuable metals in ore, and the proportion of copper in the ore can vary considerably. Until fairly recently, the only way to extract pure copper from ore was by using a process that requires large amounts of electric energy, especially if the proportion of copper in the ore is low. New copper-extracting technologies can use up to 40 percent less electricity than the older method to process the same amount of raw ore, especially when the proportion of copper in the ore is high. Therefore, we can expect the amount of electricity used by the copper-extraction industry to decline significantly.
WORDS: 504          TIME: 0:34:05          DATE: 2007-2-9

In the argument, the amount of electricity used in the copper-extracting industry is expected to significantly decrease. The conclusion is reached by citing the fact that the current unique approach to extracting copper consumes large amount of electric energy, and that the new copper-extracting approach use up to 40 percent less than the older method. However, the argument is logical flawed and hence is not a reasonable expectation.

To begin with, there is no evidence suggests that the new cooper-extracting technologies are going to be adopted. The arguer assumes that the new method will be adopted because the unique old method required a large amount of centricity. Nonetheless, several reasons may prevent the adoption of new method, in which case the premise of prediction about the decline of electricity used in copper-extracting industry is invalid.

The first reason is that the feasibility of the new method is not verified. In the case that the new method required a numerous investment of capital, or that the electricity amounts to the small portion of production cost while compared to the cost of switch to the new approach, such as old equipment disposal, purchase of new equipment, need for rearrangement of raw ore supply contracts and so on.

The second reason is that the profitability of the new approach is not proved to be superior. On one hand, electricity must not be the single large portion of production cost. Other types of cost must be considered while evaluating the use of one production method. For example, the new method may save expenditure in electricity input, however, it may require substantially more input in labor, or raw ore input with high proportion of copper, which can be dramatically expensive than the lower proportion one. In either case, it can undermine the profitability to the new approach and hence prevent its use in production. On the other hand, the byproduct of the original method, if exists, are ignored. However, if the sales of the byproducts, which may absent in the new method, contribute a significant income to the refinery firms, then the new approach is likely not utilized.

In addition, even if the new copper extracting method is used, the amount of electricity used by the copper-extraction industry does not necessarily decline. For the electricity to decline, the arguer assumes industry produces similar amount of output. However, as the cost decline for adopting the new approach, price of copper is likely to decline as well, which evokes the demand for copper increase. If the increase of demand of copper is more than offset to decrease in electricity consumption per unit production of copper used, then the electricity may increase instead.

In sum, due to the overlook of several critical elements in the argument, the conclusion is not convincing. For a better argument, the speaker need to consider the possibilities as mentioned about and provide solid evidence.  

Moreover, even if the new copper-extracting technologies are adopted, it is no necessary that the electricity used by the copper-extraction industry to decline significantly.


[ 本帖最后由 cckant 于 2007-2-9 20:36 编辑 ]