In a nutshell, allowing the aluminum to solidify gums the batch process up catastrophically. Friends who used to work at aluminum plants were surprisingly happ

In a nutshell, allowing the aluminum to solidify gums the batch process up catastrophically. Friends who used to work at aluminum plants were surprisingly happy when the plant was snowed in: it was more economical to keep workers onsite running rotating understaffed shifts at triple pay for the duration than to let the pots solidify. From the Wikipedia page on aluminum smelting: An aluminium smelter consists of a large number of cells (pots) in which the electrolysis takes place. [...] Smelting is run as a batch process, with the aluminium metal deposited at the bottom of the pots and periodically siphoned off. [...] However power must not be interrupted for more than 4-5 hours, since the pots have to be repaired at significant cost if the liquid metal solidifies. In addition to Wikipedia, there’s a surprisingly good explanation here: https://www.ega.ae/en/operations/smelters/production-process/aluminium-smelting/ https://www.ega.ae/en/operations/smelters/production-process...