Does thinking globally require unpleasant action locally ?  

Posted by Big Gav in , ,












What is omitted from the article, is that heavy industry corporations are not just looking for cheap energy sources in Iceland, but anywhere they can find 'em (whether they are coal, hydro or something else is not the key question, the questions are price and long term price security). New smelters are planned in for example places as varies as Trinidad (gas), the Brazillian Amazon (hydro), Greenland (hydro) West Congo (coal) and East Congo (hydro), Mozambique (hydro), S-Africa (coal) etc. So it isn't that a new smelter in Iceland will prevent a part of the Amazon or Congo rainforest being destroyed by a dam, or that it will prevent a coal powered plant from being built for a new smelter; aluminium production expansion is more limited from the supply side (available energy resources) than the demand side. Global energy resources are basically rather limited.
So when one of the smelters in Iceland would be cancelled, it would not lead to another one being built in the south, but it would eventually lead to a price increase in aluminium, eventually lowering demand.

A large part of aluminium (estimated up to a third) goes to arms/military purposes (thermite, alloys for APV's, tanks, jets, missile tubes etc). A lot of this is not recoverable and this is one issue with recycling.
Then again, nimbyism may not really be the right term to use if people in Iceland are not happy with their wilderness being destroyed for other country's military industry.
Other issues with aluminium recycling are that recycling a ton of al costs as much energy as producing a new ton of steel and that many products (e.g. tetrapaks) are made in such a way that it is not efficient to separate the aluminium.

Good point about the military uses of aluminium.

Do you have a source that shows the amounts that are used in each area (the "up to a third" number). It would be interested to understand how much can't be recycled.

I visited Iceland a while back and loved the countryside, so I'm not filled with glee at the idea it will be covered in dams and aluminium smelters but I do the geothermal power potential of the country has a lot to offer.

What is your view on expanding geothermal power (and using it to host data centres, for example).

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