The following commentary was written by Annie Sartor, aluminum campaign director at Industrious Labs. See our commentary guidelines for more information.
The clean energy revolution faces a critical bottleneck: a paradox with aluminum. This lightweight metal forms the backbone of electric vehicles, wind turbines, and solar panels, but its production demands substantial clean energy capacity. In order to reduce our overreliance on carbon intensive imports, we need to establish a clean domestic supply chain. By 2035, the U.S. will require more aluminum for clean energy applications than is currently consumed across all sectors combined. To break free of the paradox, the U.S. needs a robust domestic aluminum industry powered by clean energy — a seemingly impossible task without significant investment in both.
Thanks to recent investments by the Biden administration, we have a shot at bringing billions in economic activity back to America. Right now, U.S. manufacturing giant Century Aluminum is in the process of planning a brand-new aluminum facility projected to double the size of the entire primary aluminum industry in the U.S. The project — highly desired in Kentucky — will be funded in part by a $500 million grant from the Department of Energy, part of the agency’s more than $6 billion investment in industrial decarbonization projects across the country, and it couldn’t have come at a more urgent time for America’s economic and environmental future.
But to build this facility, we’ll need to address a looming problem that the primary aluminum industry has struggled with for decades: access to affordable, renewable energy. It’s a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg conundrum, but if we want to reap the benefits this aluminum plant could have on our clean energy future, we need to generate enough power to run it.
Astounding amounts of electricity are needed to produce primary aluminum — made from fresh ore and not recycled — totaling up to 40% of production costs. Today’s facilities sought out once-cheap coal-fired power to operate. But, the days of cheap coal are long gone, and utilities are slow to provide the clean energy that industrial consumers increasingly demand. A facility like this would make Kentucky the premier location for supplying clean aluminum to renewable energy developers across the U.S. In order for Century to site this new facility, they will need to secure enough clean energy to operate.
In just the last two years, multiple smelters have shut down or idled due to unaffordable fossil energy costs that make it impossible to operate. A decades-long lack of policy support to help domestic producers compete globally has forced the industry into steep decline, like the curtailment of Magnitude 7 Metals earlier this year that put 450 union members in the unemployment line and wiped out nearly 20% of domestic production. To put this into perspective, the U.S. produced 30% of the world’s primary aluminum at nearly 30 smelters in 1980 and was the largest producer in 2000. Today’s remaining smelters often operate at reduced capacities and now produce just 1% of the world’s primary aluminum, forcing us to import about 80% of all the primary aluminum consumed in the U.S. today. Without a clean energy deal, Century Aluminum’s new plant may not even get built, which would be a big blow to our clean energy future.
And it’s not just the green energy transition that would suffer. Losing this plant would mean losing the thousands of jobs it would bring to the region and leaving America dependent on foreign metal imports. The creation of this new facility could make America a global powerhouse for low-carbon aluminum, re-shore domestic manufacturing, meet booming demand for clean technologies, secure and expand good union jobs, and spur economic growth in local communities hurt by decades of job losses, curtailed production, and offshoring. It’s why union leaders across the country have spoken out in favor of its development, calling aluminum “a new American frontier.”
Aluminum has been a cornerstone of America’s infrastructure since the turn of the 19th century and will be a vital part of our future — from repairing bridges and building electric vehicles to developing the clean energy infrastructure we need to remain competitive. Now, for the first time in over 40 years, America will have a brand new aluminum facility — the first to operate entirely on 100% clean energy and produce low-carbon aluminum that will move us toward a zero-carbon future. The U.S. has a shot at once again becoming an industrial titan of aluminum, if we’re willing to supply the facility with sufficient energy to power it.