> My understanding too is that energy intensive manufacturing, like that of aluminum, often take place in regions of the world where energy is cheap: as an exam

> My understanding too is that energy intensive manufacturing, like that of aluminum, often take place in regions of the world where energy is cheap: as an example the hydroelectric power along the Columbia River in the U.S. North West. In the west that's true - mostly American companies operating in Iceland and Norway where there's cheap hydroelectric power, the US isn't one of the top smelters. This involve shipped a lot of alumina and aluminium about. In China it's dug up, extracted, smelted and manufactured all within China. I don't know if that's because energy is cheap, but it's quite possibly not green!