Hanging over May’s hearing was the fate of the Basin’s last big electrical customer: the Alcoa aluminum smelter, which employed more than 400 workers before it

Hanging over May’s hearing was the fate of the Basin’s last big electrical customer: the Alcoa aluminum smelter, which employed more than 400 workers before it was idled several years ago thanks to competition from cheaper Chinese imports. Cryptocurrency mining won’t replace all those jobs — the process is heavily automated. But backers insist that a local mining sector, if allowed to grow, will attract other ancillary services, such as software development, and ultimately provide the Basin with some of the tech-fueled prosperity that Seattle has enjoyed. There's a lot to chew on here. The Alcoa plant story is practically a cliche. Yet another instance of what a world overflowing with cheap stuff looks like. The loss of the Alcoa plant means an ever bigger oversupply of electricity. Chelan County seems to have nothing to fill the gap. Why not sell the surplus to a buyer who will use the power locally? Who decides that an aluminum manufacturer is any more or less a legitimate business than an Bitcoin miner?