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IANAM (Not A Metallurgist), but my understanding is that "bulk hot metallurgy", like smelting aluminum, has major efficiencies both from large scale and from ru
by bell-cot 2y ago
IANAM (Not A Metallurgist), but my understanding is that "bulk hot metallurgy", like smelting aluminum, has major efficiencies both from large scale and from running continuously. With fixed costs, labor, etc. - a small & part-time plant probably would not be economically viable, even with "free" electricity.
- zer00eyz 2y agoI know that steel isn't aluminum but the mini mill for steel changed everything: Here is a current example of marketing hype around this: https://www.primetals.com/portfolio/mini-mills/mini-mills-for-long-products https://www.primetals.com/portfolio/mini-mills/mini-mills-fo... They arent new, but they did kill big steel in America: https://www.construction-physics.com/p/no-inventions-no-innovations-a-history https://www.construction-physics.com/p/no-inventions-no-inno... (long but a great read). I would have thought that aluminum would have gone this way as well.
- bell-cot 2y agoAgain, IANAM...but an aluminum smelter produces bulk metallic aluminum from ores (generally aluminum oxide, Al2O3). Vs. the input to a steel mini-mill is almost all bulk & scrap steel (not ire ore), and its output is various steel products - bars, beams, pipes, rebar, wire, sheets, and such. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_smelting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_smelting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_mill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_mill