Alcoa Studies Feasibility of Geothermal Aluminum Smelting In Iceland
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 03. 3.06
According to the official company press release: "Alcoa (NYSE:AA) and the Government of Iceland have agreed to begin detailed feasibility studies for the development of a 250,000 metric ton per year (mtpy) aluminum smelter based principally on geothermal energy, at Bakki near Husavik in North Iceland. The agreement comes after Alcoa selected Husavik following an extensive joint public comparative study which weighed three prospective sites in North Iceland".
A perfect example of green pragmatism, what with threats of drought induced hydroelectricity shortfalls, and competing demand growth for green electricity. Why not take the aluminum smelting process to a source of infinitely sustainable energy instead of the other way around?
If this project succeeds, it's easy to forsee a scenario where other electricity-intensive businesses move operations to Iceland or to the Aleutians off Alaska. Steel mini-mills would be one example. Hydrogen production (by electrolysis) is another. Good thinking Iceland.
There is more to be said. US aluminum recycling rates are falling or flat, not increasing as they should to recapture the immense amount of energy and emissions embodied in a Kilo of empty cans. If citizens and local govenrment are unable or unwilling to make aluminum recycling work, it falls on the shoulders of the aluminum producers to keep their markets sustainable. Three cheers to Alcoa.
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oh great! that's all we need. in case there isn't enough methane up there now we'll add sodium hexafluoride into the mix??? Y not, it's only like 2,200X as radiative as CO2. is that a good thing to have up in Iceland? Jeez!
Electrolysis of water in iceland is one thing... moving industry up there is only going to mess things up more & faster.
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Good points. Let's see how the feasibility study deals with NaF. Emission controls may be possible. Would be interesting if an Alcoa rep chose to respond directly. Let's hope!
On balance, making aluminum with coal fired electricity could be far worse than this way.
Additionally, the significance of the NaF hazard you point to depends greatly on whether the prospective new operations in Iceland would represent a swap, for which older capacities were closed, or a true capacity expansion. If a swap, the net outcome would be postive from a forcing standpoint.
In comparison, the refrigerant 134a has even a higher forcing potential (39k comes to mind). That's a here and now hazard compared to this theoretical one. Just saying lets sweat the big exposures first. And lets find out the details before we go negative.
Aluminium production is not clean but by using clean energy can significantly cut the overall emissions despite the fact that process emissions will remain.
"Electrolysis of water in iceland is one thing... moving industry up there is only going to mess things up more & faster"
Could you possibly clear this point up a bit? I don't see why it could not be feasible and sustainable.
OK-- so it's about GWPs (Global Warming Potentials, a way the IPCC talks about just how re-radiative a greenhouse can be...) it goes like this: Methane is like 31x CO2 as far as its strength, Nitrous Oxide is 310x, HFC134a is 1,300x but the grand-daddy iof them all SodiumHexafluooride (SF6) is 23,900x GWP (so for every ton of this in the air, its like having close to 24,000 tonnes of CO2 in the air). SF6 comes from magnesium casting, semicondustor making and electrical transmission, but the main producer of this gas is aluminum smelting...
thats why AFAIK it is a bad idea to bring any of that industry to higher lattitudes where there is already warming 2-3X what there is at the equator...
just doesn't sound good. Again, electrolizing isn't bad... way different processes than making aluminum...
OK-- so it's about GWPs (Global Warming Potentials, a way the IPCC talks about just how re-radiative a greenhouse can be...) it goes like this: Methane is like 31x CO2 as far as its strength, Nitrous Oxide is 310x, HFC134a is 1,300x but the grand-daddy iof them all SodiumHexafluooride (SF6) is 23,900x GWP (so for every ton of this in the air, its like having close to 24,000 tonnes of CO2 in the air). SF6 comes from magnesium casting, semicondustor making and electrical transmission, but the main producer of this gas is aluminum smelting...
thats why AFAIK it is a bad idea to bring any of that industry to higher lattitudes where there is already warming 2-3X what there is at the equator...
just doesn't sound good. Again, electrolizing isn't bad... way different processes than making aluminum...
"Energy and Environmental Profile of the U.S. Aluminum Industry"
http://www.eere.energy.gov/industry/aluminum/pdfs/aluminum.pdf
That's slightly dated (1997) but holds an amazing amount of information about the aluminum industry.
It would be nice if they also covered end-use effects that have positive environmental effects (from lower weight, more corrosion resistance, etc). But it's nice that they profile that energy use for using scrap/recycled aluminum is 95% less than creating it from raw material.
Being an Icelandic citizen perhaps I could shed some light on this project and related issues.
First of all it may suprise the readers of TH that this decision got heavy criticism from the green society spectrum. Alcoa´s offices in Reykjavík were raided by activists the day the project was announced.
This is one of three proposed aluminium projects and would be the fourth realised smelter. If all plans come through Iceland´s annual production of aluminum will amount to 1.5 million tons up from 300 000 tons/year today.
A hydro power project/aluminum smelter in eastern Iceland was and still is criticised for its environmental impact.
Quick fact:
All electricity generated in Iceland today is generated by either hydro or geothermal means. Central geothermal heating is nearly universal around here as well. This means 75% of energy used here is from domestic renewables.
If it wasn´t clear... the bottom line of my earlier post was: In envrionmental issues there is no black and white contrast, only reflections on gray shades.
Lee, my point was that if there is a certain world demand for aluminium anyway, isn't it better to make it using clean energy rather than something else.
"thats why AFAIK it is a bad idea to bring any of that industry to higher lattitudes where there is already warming 2-3X what there is at the equator..."
Don't the emissions get more or less mixed in the atmosphere? It's hard to imagine GH-emissions remaining local. Isn't that the whole point of trading emissions that it's our common atmosphere and it doesn't make a difference where you release the gases.
Lee:
SF6 is not Sodium Hexafluoride; it's Sulfur Hexafluoride. The chemical symbol for Sodium is "Na" (from the Latin term "natrium").
So which is it? Sodium Hexafluoride or Sulfur Hexafluoride? That's a major difference.
Update: it turns out that the emission associated with Aluminum smelting is SF6, or *sulfur* hexafluoride, not sodium hexafluoride.
The good news is that it's non-toxic. The bad news is that it's a potent green house gas. The mitigating factor is that it is emitted in relatively small quantities.
Quoted from Wikipedia:
"According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, SF6 is the most potent greenhouse gas that it has evaluated, with a global warming potential of 22,200 times that of CO2 over a 100 year period[1]. However, because its mixing ratio in the atmosphere is lower than that of CO2 (about 0.005 ppm versus 365 ppm), its contribution to global warming is accordingly low."
Their global warming potential also differs from what Lee reported: according to Wikipedia, it's factor is 22,200 x CO2, not 23,900. Still bad, but if the lower number is true, that difference (1,700) is greater than the global warming potential of HFC134a (which, according to Lee, is 1,300 x CO2).
hey Berkana it's lee (sorry i like to change my name LOTS) thanks for pointing out those... I will never use sodium hexa instead of sulfurhexa again... I am definitely not a scientist, just a concerned citizen, so I appreciate getting things more correct! for sure...
that 23,900 (my first comment i knew it was in the 20K area but though 'i must be mad' and before fact checking -the little i did- i wrote 2,200) but that 23,900 number come3s up A LOT in reference to SF6. so who knows if it is 22.2K or 23.9K and like you say that is a big difference... but not huge. (say 22lbs of CO2 from burning 1 Gal of Gasoline or eating a 16 oz steak. Meanhile 22 lbs of SF6 = 488,000 lbs CO2 or 525,000 lbs CO2 depending on using Wikipedia or eei.. they're both massive... but thanke for the NA advice... i won't forget it.
Tom:
it does make a difference. right now the poles heat up 3x5 times faster than the equator. sure, eventually it all gets mushed up together, but concentrations take a while to do that.. that's why the methane from melting 'permaforst' wreaks such great changes... then on top of that aspect, there are others to deal with, the angle of the sun and how much actual atmostpehere the radiation goes through on its way to earth, affects how much re-radiation you'll experience, so again up there: less is more... and then there's albedos, feedback mechanisms, so say there's extra warmth and the sea ice melts, then there's dark water instead of white ice so more heat gets absorbed instead of bounced away, and it gets even warmer... kinda like sticking your electric guitar into the amp.. feedback.. so by hook or by crook it does more damage to release these gases up there than say, in the tropics...
Find out the truth here:
http://www.savingiceland.com
I don't mean to add to the confusion, but are you sure aluminium smelting emits sulphur hexaflouride (SF6)? As far as I'm aware, the major emmissions from smelting are sodium flouride and aluminium fluoride (NaF and AlF3) and compounds thereof, arsing from the molten cryolite used to dissolve the alumina. There are also emissions of hydrogen fluoride (HF) and PFCs (perflouro-carbons). And if you use a coal fired power station, then as always you get sulphur dioxide (SO2): obviously that won't be a problem for a hydro-powered installation. An interesting cocktail of emmissions, which the industry seems to have been trying to address with varying success for the past 30 years, but not including SF6 as far as I can tell.
I think part of the problem is that in the various governmental reports, this group of emmissions are often lumped together, and then a list of examples is given for their source (e.g. semiconductors, refrigerants and smelting). Whereas often an individual industry is not responsible for the whole lot.
So does anyone have a definitive answer whether smelters generate SF6 emmissions? And if so, which bit of the process is responsible.
SavingIceland.com is right: aluminium smelting involves a mineral called cryolite, orginally found on Greenland. Its chemical name is tri-sodium aluminium hexafluoride (Na3AlF6). Alternatively it can be written as: 3NaF+AlF3.
The main emission from Al smelting is HF. As the fluoride is needed in the process, modern smelters use the raw material (aluminium oxide) as an adsorbent to filter the gasses coming from the smelting cells. Another emission is dust and traces of SO2 (depending on the sulfur content of the raw material used for the carbon anodes involved in the process) and PFCs. As PFCs occur during incidents in the cells that are undesirable, modern smelters emit a fraction of the PFCs that used to emitted in the past. Again, modern gas cleaning technology will help.
The CO2 balance mainly depends on the source of energy.
Aluminum is a very good material because once made it is good to go forever (we can recycle it an unlimited number of times). Throwing away aluminum is like throwing away energy and money. It is downright dumb.
The fluoride emissions are something that is controllable. Carbon dioxide from coal burners and the destruction caused by coal mining is not. I see it as, we can build a smelter in Iceland - if not, one is going to go up in China. It is easy for me to say that, however, since I don't live there...
Build a good smelter, with good pollution controls, and nice architecture and put that bounty of renewable energy to good use. One the aluminum is produced, it can be shipped via water (a relatively efficient mode of transit) to various parts of the world.