Aluminium – the dullest of metals gets interesting
November 21, 2010
In my recent comment to NERN I said that more attention should be shown to the life-cycles of the major industrial metals such as aluminium, zinc, copper, nickel as a major source of energy savings. I’m going to go through the case study of Al to demonstrate that a metal doesn’t have to be rare to be big news.
Aluminium is a dull metal. Its uses are dull. Its geology is really dull. Its chemistry is dull. In fact its only really its processing that makes Al stand out and that’s because it is so energy intensive. You need vast amounts of electricity (for example Alcan Lynmouth has its own 420MW power station built adjacent to it) plus sources of sodium hydroxide and of fluorine (usually synthetic cryolite made from fluorspar these days) to get from the raw bauxite through semi-processed alumina to the metallic aluminium.
To give some scale; Alcan, probably the world’s single largest vertically integrated aluminium producer, ships 30 Million tonnes of raw ore a year to its refineries and it takes 4 tonnes of bauxite to produce 1 tonne of metallic Al. Global metallic Al production is between 35-40Mt depending on when you take the measurement which means that somewhere between 30 and 160Mt of material is shipped each year within the aluminium life-cycle before the metal even gets to the manufacturing stage. Of course the energy embodied in getting to metal is only one step.
UK estimates show that the difference in energy footprint between 1kg of primary production and 1kg of recycled production is 14kWh. The UK consumes around 1 million tonnes of Al per year representing an embodied energy of somewhere around 14M Mwh or 1.2M toe. Again to give some scale 4GW Drax produces around 25M MWh each year or 7% of the UK’s total consumption of electricity which implies that the amount of energy required to provide the UK with its Al needs is equivalent to roughly 4% of total electrical consumption (or 1 1/2 Sizewell B’s). Of course we don’t mine bauxite in the UK and much of the refined metal we use is produced elsewhere, so a lot of that energy is offshored to areas where we have no influence on the energy system employed. For example Australia, the world’s largest Al producer and exporter has grids dominated by coal, Guinea is a classic macro-hydro development story and former Eastern-bloc countries mostly use the Al smelter/nuclear power station combo that is also present at Wylfa on Anglesey. So we can pick our own baddies from that list 
Currently the UK uses roughly 50% recycled Al, about half of which is old scrap (mostly packaging) and half industrial new scrap, but still landfills 3 billion drinks cans a year.
So that all gives some idea of the scale of the aluminium industry in the UK and the world. The thing is that there is a new technology available that could cut energy requirements of primary Al production by 40% and cuts out the Bayer pre-production process with all its nasty caustic wastes. It also allows a higher percentage of recycled Al to be used within primary production so removing a step in the recycling chain and allowing for a smaller modular smelter. Its inventors claim that Al costs would be roughly 25% of current costs (down from $2,000 to $500/tonne) if their system were commercialised. Its essentially a conventional smelting technology that uses a flux, instead of the complex Hall-Heurot process that uses electrolysis.
In itself 40% of 14Twh is not even a 1GW conventional power station, but that isn’t the point. If you can drop the cost of Al by 75% you can massively increase its use in the automotive sector effectively swapping all steel chassis parts for Al and reducing overall rolling weight by 20%+. This is where the investment really starts to kick in because you can now structure the supply chain in the same was as the steel mini-mills with manufacturing close to consumption and a high % of recycling without excessive pre-processing. All of a sudden over the life-time of a car you have dropped the embodied energy by 50% and the daily energy consumption by 20%. This is a multiplier when taken with the drop in primary processing cost. I can’t claim to know what that multiplier would be but the 1 1/2 Sizewell B’s are joined by many oil wells (or however you are powering you personal transport these days).
So swapping Al for steel in cars is a realistic prospect. It needs investment to get it going on a national scale because it requires both new car production facilities and new Al processing capacity but on an energy basis it looks a stone cold winner. The best thing is that the process is exothermic so you can recover energy off the back of the smelter and optimise the process even further than the inventors have as yet.
Forging Ahead. Not you Sheffield !
June 21, 2010
In the past it was usually considered an advantage to have someone at the top of government fighting for their constituency and its interests. The member for Sheffield Hallam appear to wish to buck this trend and make his constituency suffer for voting for him.
Back in March I commented on the government loan guarantee of £80m to the Sheffield Forgemasters in order to build a world-leading 15kt forge press that would enable Britain to become a significant player in nuclear manufacturing for decades to come. The cost to the tax payer about £20m over 5 years in opportunity cost (things that we could have done with the cash).
Well the recent announcement that this loan guarantee is to be cut shows exactly what our new government thinks of UK manufacturing – it couldn’t care a toss. What Nick Clegg thinks of Sheffield – he’d rather kick them in the nuts than stand up to his public school buddy. How far our new chancellor looks when he tries to balance the books – no further than two years out. How much influence that DECC has on energy system planning – zero. And how bloody stupid partisan government can be when faced with a choice that involves long term thinking.
The argument is that this loan constitutes a subsidy to the nuclear industry and the new govt has said no public money to that industry. They are still quite happy to pile cash into windmills, solar panels for the top of your house and subsidise coal and CCS, but building an export capacity that would bring in millions every year from outside our shores. Apparently thats bad news. Not to mention how long it will take to wait for any new nuclear build within the UK with the only other forge press in Japan booked up years in advance.
Even Chris Goodall at Carbon Commentry thinks its a bad idea.
I’m not prone to swearing, but this is a bloody stupid idea and if I were in Sheffield (or staying at my Gran’s old house 10 miles away) I would be demonstrating outside Clegg’s front door irrespective of whether he’s now in his grace and favour mansion or not.
Falmouth Energy Week 2010 May 24-25
May 29, 2010
What a difference a year makes !
Last year was full of hope. Openness and interdisciplinarity was part of the deal. Media exposure was integral to the design of the event.
This year the doors closed. Chatham House rules were imposed (and this report is composed under those restrictions). No media were there to report (though some did attend).
So what did we discuss at this exclusive event ?
Well. It became apparent that attendees saw the exclusivity as part of a wider trend (though they didn’t apparently see themselves as contributary to that trend). The phrase ‘decisions made in smoke filled rooms’ was one that was heard in more than one session. Speakers seemed less open to suggestions and there was a definite sense of ranks closing.
Partly this was put down to the relative success of the climate skeptic movement and the failure of COP15, but also to the new government’s policy set and approach so far. However, as a newcomer to this ‘scene’ I can’t help feeling this is the way that the regulars prefer it.
Fuel poverty seems to be taking a back seat with some kind of diluted concept of equitable apportionment of cost taking over. A greater focus on real politique and economics rather than innovation was evident. Argument rather than advance you could say. Calls for quick action, some action, any action seemed like a call to spend money rather than a call to change systemic conditions. Gone was the rhetoric of radical progress. In came the mumbled apologies of compromise.
Utter Tosh from Frost & Sullivan !
May 12, 2010
Please someone pinch me ! I’ve just read this article on the Renewable Energy Focus website, which usually has some good pointers to decent reports, but this press release is just stoopid.
Apparently HVDC is the only viable transmission system for offshore wind (which its not) but it suffers from being too expensive at short distances (which it does) and apparently AC doesn’t work under water (?!?).
Now, news aggregators like REF can’t check everything. Its simply not economic to do so. But when a press release starts with a direct contradiction to existing reality (quote “Underwater electricity transmission is not possible with alternating current”) you have to at least have a flirt with checking the source.
I couldn’t get a hold of the report that this press release is publicising. Frost & Sullivan don’t give away their “research” for free, but if the report is of a similar quality to the press release I don’t want to read it !
For the record ALL the UK’s current offshore wind installations use AC transmission. HVDC is hampered by its expensive transformer/rectifier costs which mean that you need to have a cable run over about 30km before it’s better performance in terms of lower transmission losses outweigh the extra upfront expense in hardware.
Yes, its true that with more installations that cost will come down, but it will always remain as long as the onshore grid is AC. If you take the extreme example of Scroby Sands, 2.5km off Gt Yarmouth’s seafront. That wind farm just plugs straight into the grid through a small sub-station with no need for extra rectification kit. If it were forced to use HVDC you would need a rectifier at either end to gain virtually nothing in decreased transmission losses over 2,500m of cable.
So Mr Frost & Sullivan. Your report is wrong. Your press releases are misleading. How’s business ?
