As the United States transitions to cleaner, safer energy options, old habits are being pushed aside. They die hard, of course, but a green future beckons.
Kentucky, once known for its dirty energy plants, is primed to become home to the country’s first new smelter in 45 years, as Canary Media reported. This is the result of a $5 billion undertaking from Century Aluminum, the largest producer of primary aluminum in the country.
The company will get up to $500 million for the project via the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden-Harris administration’s record climate action investment bill.
The plant would double the production of primary aluminum in the U.S. while also reducing pollution by 75% compared to a traditional smelter, according to a news release from the Department of Energy. It would do so by using carbon-free energy and an efficient design.
Another plus is the creation of 1,000 permanent United Steelworkers jobs and 5,500 construction jobs.
“This project represents a major capital injection for the primary aluminum industry enabling the onshoring of supply chains for materials critical to energy, national defense, and electric vehicles,” the DOE stated. “Century Aluminum aims to work with job training organizations for workers who have been displaced through the energy transition.”
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The company is considering other locations in the Ohio and Mississippi River Basins, though it prefers northeast Kentucky. The decision depends on where it can get an affordable 10-year power supply contract for over one gigawatt annually, Canary Media reported, citing the Wall Street Journal. Construction is not likely to begin for two years and will take another three to be completed.
Aluminum is the second-most-used metal in the world after steel, Canary Media reported. But it requires vast amounts of energy to be produced, with smelters heating molten salt to over 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit and releasing heat-trapping perfluorochemicals into the atmosphere as well as sulfur dioxide, which threatens the health of humans, animals, and plants.
The smelter, if it draws electricity from the solar farms that are being built across the state — another industry that is transforming the former coal powerhouse — could become a model for clean energy development. And even while more environmentally friendly smelters are being developed, this project is not dependent on that.
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“We don’t need a new or emerging technology,” Annie Sartor, aluminum campaign director for advocacy organization Industrious Labs, told Canary Media. ”We need huge amounts of existing technology, and it needs to be available in places that work for the industry.”
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