Well, there is no way in the world that a solar farm or wind farm on its own will ever supply a smelter of any kind, unless it is really small, and even if small, would only be during periods of peak generation. The raw demand that smelting and coking takes is insane. Someone is dreaming.
Ever wonder why major aluminum companies moved ore smelting to Iceland? After shipping ore from, say, Jamaica, the cost of smelting was still lower than using fossil fueled generation, Iceland sits on top of a “super volcano” and has fully developed geothermal energy. Smaller geothermal energy is slowly developing in Central America near volcanoes. Where is the development money? Perhaps this is the best way to keep the people from migrating away from the area.
Use of plentiful geothermal resources is always a good idea, but the trade-off is the cost of shipping the final product to the demand. The delicate balance of supply and demand is heavily influenced by the cost of transportation.
Nicely done, thank you. I am new to your substack, but was drawn by a reference from Rolling and Orr, and your WSJ op-ed you reference here. That too, was nicely done. In the comment thread to that essay, I said that a better question is, is warming a bad thing? It always amuses me when greens are asked how much this program or that program will lower temperatures, and they cannot answer. Best answer I've seen is from a paper by Lindzen and Happer (2024) that said if the entire world forced net zero CO emissions by the year 2050, a warming of only 0.07 deg C (0.13 deg. F) would be averted. Let's see - tens of trillions of dollars to stop 0.07 degrees of warming. Consider that since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 1600s, the earth has warmed 4 degrees. Those four degrees have seen remarkable grow and improvement in human flourishing. Makes me wonder why people think another four is a bad thing.
Regarding your current essay about aluminum, you mention that the new smelter will produce about 550,000 tons of aluminum per year. Have you, or anyone else reading this, estimated the number of tons of aluminum needed to build and maintain a solar or wind farm of the size needed to power the facility? Asking for a friend, so to speak...
Thank you for your good work. I look forward to future essays.
Hi Barry, thanks for subscribing! I'm glad to have you here. Isaac and Mitch are fantastic and I'm grateful for their recommendation. That 550,000 tons is a napkin estimate from the WSJ's daily statistics, so actual production is likely to be lower. The Northwest Mining Association claims that a 3MW turbine needs 3 tons of aluminum, though I'm sure tech and designs vary. And of course there would need to be a lot of them. https://www.wind-watch.org/documents/metals-and-minerals-in-wind-turbines/
Answering my own question, the new smelter would need around 25,000 MWH per day. This assumes a demand of about 15 MWH of energy per metric tonne produced. That does not include mining or shipping the ore; merely the processing of the ore at the smelter.
In terms of solar, around 4,000 MW of new solar power would be needed to meet that demand, or 3,000 of new wind capacity. The amount of aluminum needed for fabrication and construction of the wind farm would be small, relative to the annual production. Solar farms require about 15 times more aluminum per megawatt than wind, and about 80,000 MT would be needed. However, nearly 3,000 square kilometers of land would be needed for the wind farm, compared to less than 1,000 for the solar array.
If a nuclear plant would be used, about 1,000 MW will be needed, requiring a little more than 20 square kilometers.
CAUTION: These estimates are intended to be Fermi level.
Well, there is no way in the world that a solar farm or wind farm on its own will ever supply a smelter of any kind, unless it is really small, and even if small, would only be during periods of peak generation. The raw demand that smelting and coking takes is insane. Someone is dreaming.
Ever wonder why major aluminum companies moved ore smelting to Iceland? After shipping ore from, say, Jamaica, the cost of smelting was still lower than using fossil fueled generation, Iceland sits on top of a “super volcano” and has fully developed geothermal energy. Smaller geothermal energy is slowly developing in Central America near volcanoes. Where is the development money? Perhaps this is the best way to keep the people from migrating away from the area.
Use of plentiful geothermal resources is always a good idea, but the trade-off is the cost of shipping the final product to the demand. The delicate balance of supply and demand is heavily influenced by the cost of transportation.
Nicely done, thank you. I am new to your substack, but was drawn by a reference from Rolling and Orr, and your WSJ op-ed you reference here. That too, was nicely done. In the comment thread to that essay, I said that a better question is, is warming a bad thing? It always amuses me when greens are asked how much this program or that program will lower temperatures, and they cannot answer. Best answer I've seen is from a paper by Lindzen and Happer (2024) that said if the entire world forced net zero CO emissions by the year 2050, a warming of only 0.07 deg C (0.13 deg. F) would be averted. Let's see - tens of trillions of dollars to stop 0.07 degrees of warming. Consider that since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 1600s, the earth has warmed 4 degrees. Those four degrees have seen remarkable grow and improvement in human flourishing. Makes me wonder why people think another four is a bad thing.
Regarding your current essay about aluminum, you mention that the new smelter will produce about 550,000 tons of aluminum per year. Have you, or anyone else reading this, estimated the number of tons of aluminum needed to build and maintain a solar or wind farm of the size needed to power the facility? Asking for a friend, so to speak...
Thank you for your good work. I look forward to future essays.
Hi Barry, thanks for subscribing! I'm glad to have you here. Isaac and Mitch are fantastic and I'm grateful for their recommendation. That 550,000 tons is a napkin estimate from the WSJ's daily statistics, so actual production is likely to be lower. The Northwest Mining Association claims that a 3MW turbine needs 3 tons of aluminum, though I'm sure tech and designs vary. And of course there would need to be a lot of them. https://www.wind-watch.org/documents/metals-and-minerals-in-wind-turbines/
Anyone have any insight?
Answering my own question, the new smelter would need around 25,000 MWH per day. This assumes a demand of about 15 MWH of energy per metric tonne produced. That does not include mining or shipping the ore; merely the processing of the ore at the smelter.
In terms of solar, around 4,000 MW of new solar power would be needed to meet that demand, or 3,000 of new wind capacity. The amount of aluminum needed for fabrication and construction of the wind farm would be small, relative to the annual production. Solar farms require about 15 times more aluminum per megawatt than wind, and about 80,000 MT would be needed. However, nearly 3,000 square kilometers of land would be needed for the wind farm, compared to less than 1,000 for the solar array.
If a nuclear plant would be used, about 1,000 MW will be needed, requiring a little more than 20 square kilometers.
CAUTION: These estimates are intended to be Fermi level.