I did some contracting work recently for an aluminium recycling plant where they wanted to take recycling one step further. The idea was to use LIBS (Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy) to determine the alloy of recycled material and thus be able to sort it in-line. The added value is that it can then be sold to smelters as a single alloy instead of a mixture. The technique was sound. Unfortunately for other non-technical reasons the project has never become operational.

Awesome video. Simply stating that it can be done in a way that voters understand is half the job. Suddenly the polluters are obliged to stop polluting or lose their community status. Your move Tomago.

PERFECT timing! Just what I needed for some renewables sceptics claiming "renewables can't mine or smelt for more renewables." A recent episode of Fully Charged took care of the mining - you're taking care of the aluminium side of smelting. Awesome work! I've popped it on my blog.

Thanks, Rosie. I'm probably a freak, but these type of videos, your original style of content, are by far my favourite. You're an excellent communicator of a concept, idea or technology.

This is great. These are the areas that we need to target. The knock on effects are enormous. Security of supply and then the price stability that follows would a great benefit to all. It would perhaps be a guide to other industries on how to tackle these problems and get into a proper circular economy.

I love these topics. We use the variability in power demand in Quebec pretty extensively: if there’s a short demand spike we can ask the smelters to turn down the heat for a few hours; if there’s a cold snap in the forecast they can just take a few pots out of production for the week. One thing I’d like to hear is what other industries (beyond Al smelters) can have this kind of variable demand, to use very cheap power. That seems to be the grid we’re headed for: lots of excess power most of the time, with some months a bit more lean and some days or hours very tight. Variable demand seems like a great alternative to batteries for those leaner periods.

I love how in open defiance of Ms. Barnes's clear and explicit instructions, a good 20% of this thread concerns the "correct" spelling and pronunciation of element 13.

Thanks. I really didn't understand how the energy use was divided up among the different steps of production. Aluminum is so common and so useful it's taken for granted. It's good that there are so many people working on improving the production process. I'm glad we have someone like you to help us keep up with all this stuff.

Great video as usual, thanks for expanding on the lesser known sources of emissions.

One other important point is that products need to be required to be made to last as long as possible. No more low quality garbage that gets tossed out. Recycling may be better than refining new aluminum, but keeping the original piece of equipment made of aluminum instead of throwing it away at the scrapper’s is infinitely more efficient.

Amazing video. I'm familiar with this stuff and I'm very impressed with how clear and complete you manage to present it, in such a short time!

I really admire how you keep a straight face when you show O2 bubbling off a 920C pot of molten aluminum :)

Great and systematic overview. In wonder if the heat for the alumina refining could not come from mirror-concentrated solar as well.

Hi Rosie. Great channel. In the bayer process, bauxite digestion temp is between about 150 and 200C(depending on the type of bauxite) and the Al2O3.3H2O precipitation circuit runs at about 75C.

The shot transition with the aluminium stamp was a nice touch

Great job. I hadn't heard about the tunable smelters before, that's a tremendous help.

Concentrated solar power could be useful for two parts of the purification process; 1) Electrical energy generation and/or 2) Elevated temperatures that could be supplied to the first stage of purification. Maybe?

As an Aussie this continues my enthusiasm for high energy manufacturing in Australia.

Replacing aluminum or steel with basalt or wood fiber in composites can be a good way to cut fossil trade emissions. Both materials increase direct air drawdown, too: wood fiber sequesters carbon drawn down by trees; byproduct basalt fines absorb CO2 by weathering.

Great video Rosie. You may be interested to look at the CF4 emissions from Aluminium and Rare Earth smelting. CF4, to state the obvious, has a huge GWP, so you don't need to make much for it to be an issue. Fluoride impurities in the ores react with the carbon electrodes to form CF4.

Your enthusiasm for future technology is infectious. I hope I live long enough to see these go online. Though, I do have doubts about one thing... China, ok two, India...

I am french and found your prononciation very good 👍. Thanks for your video. I learnt a lot again

This is why it is vital to recycle it. Governments need to encourage more

I think I've remembered correctly that high voltage transmission lines are made out of aluminium too. So, aluminium is needed to deliver the electricity to the smelter to make aluminium to make the cables to deliver the electricity to make the aluminium.........

I believe that there are chloro fluoro carbons linked emissions at the electrodes. How significant are they as compared to the overall emissions?

Excellent update, good to have background on the whole aluminium process.

Great vid. Would love to hear about the new Anorthosite processes for Aluminum.

Carbon capture is a scam, but it will make some people very rich.

Wonderful! 100% content, no filler. YT the way it should be done! Thank you from Quebec!

I remember before beer came in cans in Europe and you would get 10c per can in the US. Recycling is the most ecological way

Another very informative video! Thanks. I'm wondering what recycling aluminum entails in terms of equipment and energy use. It would be great if a wind or solar project could completely decouple from the grid and make aluminum ingots at a profit, and not have to deal with utilities.

There seems to be a slight problem : aluminium used in wind turbines is not recycled in the UK: turbines are left abandoned with no plans to recycle once stopped working.

Wonderful information once again Rosie. Thank you.

I work for an international aerospace company; we are allowed either spelling of aluminiumiumium, and can say "turbine" any way we please.

Hi Rosie not quite correct for the Alumina refinery… For a high temp plant you need about 400 deg C plus high pressure to dissolve the alumina into the caustic soda…. I still think SMR would do the job nicely

A huge potential source of cheap hydro power is still untapped: Grand Inga at the Congo river, the potentially largest single hydro power station, twice as powerful as the Three Gorges-dam in China. It could have 35GW and provide 250TWh per year, sufficient to power an insane amount of aluminium smelters.

I live in Quebec, Canada, land of green aluminium.

Whenever I hear about big industry needing really big temperatures for some of the processes, I wonder how much of that heat gets recycled. I assume the end products of each process need to cool down afterwards, and I guess either the heat could de pumped back to the furnaces or used to boil some water to move a turbine.

As a chemist, I ask my self, do inert anodes not use much more power, as no Carbon is "burned" in the process? And second, why is no concentrated solar used as heat source? Hydrogen is soo inefficient as a heat source... As always great video and very interesting.:)

Primary production will always be needed. For structural applications, such as airplane wing spars virgin aluminum is required because the final alloy used must be carefully controlled to ensure the structure is strong enough. You really don't want your airplane wings falling off.

Do you know any other power sinks for renewables. I thought aluminum was already zero carbon and it would be a good power sink, feel dumb now.

Very neat! I was half expecting you to look into the carbochlorination process, but I guess that's a little too niche and not ready for production yet.

Thanks for the video. Maybe do the next one on Magnesium metal as without Mg Aluminium use would be much less.

I was gonna say before watching the video, "just buy it from Norway, problem sorted!". 🙂

Great video, exciting topic! EnPot's active temperature control scheme seems like a game changer for smelters and grid stability. Probably not that useful for very remote smelters that practically have their own grid.

EXCELLENT presentation!

Good video, very clear and precise.

Why do you not mention nuclear power as an option for baseload power that is not location specific? It is after all the most sustainable power source due to the lowest CO2 emissions per kWh, lowest material consumption and lowest environmental impact. Apart from that, really good video.

Calcination probably needs its own video. There is also the HILTCRC work on direct electric calcination of alumina.

Great episode, well research and I like the environmental focus. Has anyone considered using waste heat from nuclear plants?

Awesome detail!

Thank You Rosie for this information presented at a rapid fire pace. You do not waste any time speaking what you have to teach us within KZfaq's imposed video time constraints. While straining my concentration level to the maximum to follow along, to understand more, it comes to mind that I will never get Alzheimer's or Dementia if I listen to your KZfaq channel most often. I am very grateful for this human brain cognitive acuity preserving gift ! Additionally, I thought that you would demand a premium salary as the fastest talking auctioneer in the World ! Maybe try out with the Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest English Speaker on the Planet ! All worthwhile pursuits. ; )

Fascinating. Loads of Information.

All those old EV batteries need to be made into grid storage. 1000 batteries with 60kw of usage is 60 meg of storage. now do that each year. Plus each year it will increase. so in 10 years it would be over 1 billion watts of storage. Sure by then the first ones would be spent so they would have to be recycled. This means as solar grows the grid can backup more power during the day so the cost at night and day would be same price or at least close. also Flow batteries on large scales can even be used. Also solid iron batteries which like heat can be used in the desert.

The absolute best way to settle a Aluminum vs Aluminium debate. 😂

High temperature industrial uses of heat seem like the one sector that might suit next gen (non-light water) nuclear by cutting out the conversation to electricity via steam, which also requires water, so more efficient and suited to arid places away from water which tend to be less desirable for residential use, possibly including old mining or other industrial towns.

Bonjour du Québec... listening intently!

No no, you have it right. Its Aluminium.

Large solar forges can contribute significant heat to offset fuel burning. Titanium production is another similar situation.

Dang! I learned a lot from the first 2 minutes of this video.

Thank you for the encouraging news about aluminium.

Brilliant explainer video ... could be a huge win-win-win and most of the incentives seem to be aligned to get it done 😁

Great coverage. As far as that power plant in the south of NZ goes it would be great to have that on the grid servicing new demand and perhaps enabling NZ to turn off our last fossil-fuel plants. To date Rio-Tinto have been holding the government hostage on threatening to close it unless they get redonculously cheap electricity, but a simple cost-benefit equation on what they do with that subsidy suggests NZ should say no.

It's an oversimplification to say aluminium is 100% recyclable. Some aluminium is lost to oxidation during remelts. Alloys eventually become over combined with other metals such that it must be converted back to alumina to recover it. In both cases, the alumina would need to be re-smeltered to recover it, and it's the alumina that is being recycled. In practice, this is not being done.

Thank you for the very interesting video!

Good use of nuclear power especially high temperature operating systems. Terrapower nuclear reactors good example. Don't need have systems that have to have variable power needs.

Just out of interest, 1m3 of aluminium weights close to the 1m3 of granite. 😊😊😊😊😊😊

So many facts, so well presented.

A lot of information very well and very clearly presented. Good job! Now that I know how well aluminium is recycled, I guess it's time to switched from bottled beer to, gulp, beer in cans.

Great video and such great looks.. You're doin gooood, my friend.. Ha

Many thanks Rosie for your very informative channel and charming presentation. I am happy to subscribe.

As a Canadian I agree with your pronunciation of turbine but not for the metal in question. 😂 Sorry for the comment.

IOW, aluminum production facilities need to to be able to deal more effectively with the intermittency (i.e., unreliability) of their electricity source (when switching away from reliable hydro electricity)

Aluminum companies should invest in floating solar on hydroelectric dam reservoirs to produce their own power, take advantage of existing grid links, and reduce capex costs.

These are some really great advances for such an important metal. Australia has so many value chain opportunities. Cheap, even if variable, energy will be the key to unlock those.

Fantastic video, thanks!

A few people are complaining about the delivery speed in the comments. I like it but it doesn't suit everyone it seems. Time for a second channel with the video speed set to 0.8? Engineering with Slowsie?

It'd be great if you mentioned what the inert electrodes were made of...

It really is a shame that Australia isn't producing aluminium rather than just bauxite. Bauxite sells for around $USD40/tonne. About 4-5 tonnes of bauxite goes into making aluminium which sells for around $USD2000/tonne. Australia has massive reserves of sunlight for solar and massive amounts of coastline where they could easily install wind turbines. At about $USD1800/tonne it's gotta be worth thinking about doing it local. The largest wind turbines are now each capable of supplying enough power to process about 1 tonne of aluminium per hour. 1 tonne per hour isn't much but 5-10 turbines running 24/7 would be 100-200 tonnes per day or in the region of $200-400,000 per day, $70-140B/year.

Rosie, Could you please explain how we convert Spodumene into Lithium Hydroxide? Is it possible to produce Spodumene to lithium carbonate and used in LFP batteries? Thanks heaps

But if we perfect the (two chamber) molten salt reactor, as invented by Alvin Weinberg, then we can have all the electricity (and energy) that we need, with no carbon at all.

Do a video on nuclear alternatives and their environmental advantages.

Thank You Rosie :)

Awesome video!

Great job on this video you answered all my questions especially about recycling of aluminum it looks really hopeful for zero emissions aluminum just hope they follow through

Excellent work. 😊😊😊😊 What was the energy needed in the recycling of aluminium cans? 15MWh, for 1 tonne to smelt the original.

Very interesting, thanks.

4:10 steel cans

Gracias

7:08 New Zealand has fluctuations in the "power of electricity"? Did u mean to say "price of electricity"?

LOL new sub just for the commentary =-D

The future is exciting!

I see that the chart of the biggest aluminium producing countries is supposed to be from 2019, but the numbers are off. Iceland produced than about 850,000 t, and produces today nearly 900,000 t, placing it in 10th place today. The USA has decreased raw aluminium production and was then and is now behind Iceland. Iceland uses 100% renewable energy for aluminium smelting.

CO2 emissions are important, but really are a negligible problem compared to the contaminated red mud waste steps. The industry needs to push to have the iron content of the bauxite coming from the mines reduced by 80%. This can be easily done by partial H2 reduction of the iron oxides to make them magnetic and use the related separation methods. This is a proven solution the wound have a dramatic and rapid impact on one of the world's biggest waste issues.

Thank you.

Wondering if recycling aluminium hydroxide can also be zero CO2 That would make ling-term energy storage in aluminium more viable.

So ironic that a key component of the transition to ‘clean energy’ is responsible for vast amounts of CO2. (Would love to learn the relevance of the Danish dictionary.) 😊

I think a relevant question is: do these various refinements need a carbon price or explicit emissions limits to make them actually happen. Or are they so cheap (or save money anyway) that they can be covered by the value of sticking 'zero carbon aluminium' on the ingots? Seems to me these things are not going to happen at scale unless they actually save money or are at least cost neutral overall (or are forced by emissions legislation).

nice video. I understand you issue with people speaking US english vs British or Australian english ... let alone US's sub englishes like texas... it's a nightmare in the US with English I did not realize how much energy intensive Creation of Aluminum is (yes i am in the US). I do enjoy your videos. Did i miss it in your video.. i was wondering the co2 and cost difference (roughly) of recycling vs new aluminum I would love to see more videos about "hidden" carbon emissions and ways to reduce the carbon emission. I have not noticed it but do you do update videos when there is a major update on one of your past topics?

If we bring together several of our videos one realizes that steel, cement, copper and aluminum production is responsible for more than 20% of emissions. If the media stopped worrying about aircraft emissions (2%) and focused on these 4 materials, the pay off would be 10 times greater.