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I don't know about other countries but in Canada, I can think of a few aluminum smelting operations and they're all geolocated in close proximity to hydroelectr
by morkalork 11mo ago
I don't know about other countries but in Canada, I can think of a few aluminum smelting operations and they're all geolocated in close proximity to hydroelectric dams.
- auspiv 11mo agoOther countries are very much the same. Almost always located near giant hydroelectric generation facilities. Brazil + Russia are two big ones that come to mind. Probably China too.
- wat10000 11mo agoIceland has a massive amount of geothermal and hydroelectricity. A large portion of that electricity is exported in the form of aluminum.
- IAmBroom 11mo agoWhat a fascinating sentence to read!
- morkalork 11mo agoIt's an interesting way to frame it, like how California exports water to Saudi Arabia via alfalfa
- speed_spread 11mo agoAluminum can be thought of as "solid electricity". Base mineral is abundant but transfomation is energy-expensive.
- PlunderBunny 11mo agoIn New Zealand, a hydroelectric dam was effectively build for an aluminium smelter [0] 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiwai_Point_Aluminium_Smelter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiwai_Point_Aluminium_Smelter
- bigiain 11mo agoI heard a story from a usually reliable friend, that there are old decommissioned aluminium smelters on the river or in the mountains east of Portland, that closed up back in the early 2000s or so when Google and Amazon and other datacenters started showing up and buying all the capacity from the hydroelectric dams nearby.