The pyramid of aluminum shown in the photograph figures greatly in our nation’s history. This once rare metal was so prized that it was placed into a national monument by a grateful nation. Can you guess where? Now, aluminum is so common, thanks to an electrical refining process and plentiful, cheap electricity, that we throw it away in soda cans.
Two seemingly unrelated events on opposite sides of the globe occurred this past week.
One was the closure of an aluminum plant in Montana, and the other is the president of a European metals association threatened to move production overseas citing environmental rules and energy costs escalating due to emissions trading schemes.
Both stories are presented below. At the end, is the story of our “Aluminum Pyramid”, now in a national monument.
Google Map of above is here
First, Montana.
How They Are Turning Off the Lights in America
On October 31, 2009, the once largest aluminum plant in the world will shut down. With it goes another American industry and more American jobs. The Columbia Falls Aluminum Company in Montana will shut down its aluminum production because it cannot purchase the necessary electrical power to continue its operations.
How did this happen in America? America was once the envy of the world in its industrial capability. America’s industrial capacity built America into the most productive nation the world had ever known. Its standard of living rose to levels never before accomplished. Its currency became valuable and powerful, allowing Americans to purchase imported goods at relatively cheap prices.
America grew because of innovation and hard work by the pioneers of the industrial revolution, and because America has vast natural resources. A great economy, as America once was, is founded on the ability to produce electrical energy at low cost. This ability has been extinguished. Why?
Columbia Falls Aluminum negotiated a contract with Bonneville Power Administration in 2006 for Bonneville to supply electrical power until September 30, 2011. But, responding to lawsuits, the 9th US Circuit Court ruled the contract was invalid because it was incompatible with the Northwest Power Act. Therefore, the combination of the Northwest Power Act and a US Circuit Court were the final villains that caused the shutdown of Columbia Falls Aluminum.
But the real reasons are much more complicated. Why was it not possible for Columbia Falls Aluminum to find sources of electricity other than Bonneville?
We need to look no further than the many environmental groups like the Sierra Club and to America’s elected officials who turned their backs on American citizens and in essence themselves, for they too are citizens of this country. These officials bought into the green agenda promoted by the heavily funded environmental groups. Caving to pressure, they passed laws and the environmental groups filed lawsuits that began turning off the lights in America. The dominos stated to fall.
They began stopping nuclear power plants in the 1970’s. They locked up much of our coal and oil resources with land laws. They passed tax credits, which forces taxpayers foot the bill for billionaire investors to save taxes by investing in less productive wind and solar energy projects.
In 1988, the Environmental Protection Agency called a meeting of atmospheric scientists and others with environmental interests. I remember well the meeting I attended in the San Francisco Bay Area. The meeting was in a theater-like lecture room with the seating curved to face the center stage and rising rapidly toward the back of the room. Attending were many atmospheric scientists whom I knew from Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Stanford Research Institute and some local colleges.
The room became silent when a man walked up to the lectern. He told us that the next big national problem was global warming. He explained how human carbon dioxide emissions were trapping the earth’s radiation like a greenhouse and causing the atmosphere to heat beyond its normal temperature. He said this will lead to environmental disasters. He finished by saying the EPA will now concentrate its research funding toward quantifying the disasters that would be caused by our carbon dioxide.
The room was silent. I was the first to raise my hand to ask a question, “How can you defend your global warming hypothesis when you have omitted the effects of clouds which affect heat balance far more than carbon dioxide, and when your hypothesis contradicts the paper by Lee in the Journal of Applied Meteorology in 1972 that shows the atmosphere does not behave like a greenhouse?”
He answered me by saying, “You do not know what you are talking about. I know more about how the atmosphere works than you do.”
Not being one to drop out of a fight, I responded, “I know many of the atmospheric scientists in this room, and many others who are not present but I do not know you. What is your background and what makes you know so much more than me?”
He answered, “I know more than you because I am a lawyer and I work for the EPA.”
After the meeting, many of my atmospheric science friends who worked for public agencies thanked me for what I said, saying they would have liked to say the same thing but they feared for their jobs.
And that, my dear readers, is my recollection of that great day when a lawyer, acting as a scientist, working for the federal government, announced global warming.
Fast forward to today. The federal government is spending 1000 times more money to promote the global-warming charade than is available to those scientists who are arguing against it. Never before in history has it taken a massive publicity campaign to convince the public of a scientific truth. The only reason half the public thinks global warming may be true is the massive amount of money put into global-warming propaganda. The green eco-groups have their umbilical cords in the government’s tax funds. Aside from a few honest but duped scientists living on government money, the majority of the alarms about global warming – now called “climate change” because it’s no longer warming – come from those who have no professional training in atmospheric science. They are the environmentalists, the ecologists, the lawyers and the politicians. They are not the reliable atmospheric scientists whom I know.
Nevertheless, our politicians have passed laws stating that carbon dioxide is bad. See California’s AB32 which is based upon science fiction. (For readers who take issue with me, I will be happy to destroy your arguments in another place. In this paper, we focus on the damage to America that is being caused by those promoting the global-warming fraud.)
In the year 2000, America planned 150 new coal-electric power plants. These power plants would have been “clean” by real standards but the Greens managed to have carbon dioxide defined legally as “dirty” and this new definition makes all emitters of carbon dioxide, including you, a threat to the planet. Therefore, using legal illogic, the Sierra Club stopped 82 of these planned power plants under Bush II and they expect it will be a slam-dunk to stop the rest under Obama.
And now you know the real reason the Columbia Falls Aluminum Company had to shut down. America stopped building new power plants a long time ago. There is now no other source where the company can buy energy. Our energy-producing capability is in a decline and it is taking America with it.
I used to belong to the Sierra Club in the 1960’s. It used to be a nice hiking club. In the late 1960’s the Sierra Club began turning its attention toward stopping nuclear power. Then I quit the Sierra Club. It continues to prosper from the many subscribers who think they are supporting a good cause. What they are really supporting is the destruction of America brick by brick. The Sierra Club and similar organizations are like watermelons – green on the outside, red on the inside. They are telling us we have no right to our own natural resources, and in doing so they are sinking America.
Inherent in ecology are three assumptions: “natural” conditions are optimal, climate is fragile, and human influences are bad. Physics makes no such assumptions. By assuming climate is fragile, the global warming supporters have assumed their conclusion. In fact, the climate is not fragile. It is stable. The non-adherence to physical logic in the global-warming camp is what makes many physical scientists say that global warming is a religion.
So we have a new age religion promoted by environmentalists, incorporated into our laws and brainwashed into our people that is now destroying America from the inside.
Like a vast ship, America is taking a long time to sink but each day it sinks a little further. The fearsome day awaits, when America, if not quickly recovered by its real citizens, will tilt its nose into the water to begin a rapid and final descent into oblivion … her many resources saved for whom?
Edwin X Berry, PhD [send him mail] is an atmospheric physicist and certified consulting meteorologist with Climate Physics, LLC in Montana. Visit his website.
Now, Europe
From Heliogenic Climate Change:
Economic death march in Europe
“European non-ferrous metals producers may move to countries where environmental legislation is less strict unless the impact of forthcoming measures is reduced, an industry spokesman said on Thursday.
Javier Targhetta, president of Eurometaux, said the industry was concerned over high and unpredictable power costs [and] the added cost of a new emissions trading scheme (ETS) in 2013 …
Targhetta was particularly concerned over what he said was the reluctance of utilities to sell power for terms of three years or more following deregulation for heavy users in Spain last year.
“This increases long-term insecurity and leads to a halt in investment. If we carry on like this, the industry is destined to disappear,” he said.
Eurometaux estimates a new phase of the ETS could hike its power costs by an unsustainable 150-200 million euros ($221.1-294.8 million), and may prompt “carbon leakage,” or relocation to countries where emission costs are low or nil.
“Carbon will still be produced, it will still be producing the greenhouse effect, but a European plant will have been lost,” Targhetta said.”
…
Electricity accounts for an average of 35 percent of production costs for non-ferrous metals — 60 percent for aluminum — and producers say big differences in policy between European countries and lack of interconnection make power more expensive.
Source: Reuters, “Europe metals producers warn of relocation”
Read the Eurometaux press release here (PDF)
About the “Aluminum Pyramid”, here it is being set:
From Wikipedia:
The building of the monument proceeded quickly after Congress had provided sufficient funding. In four years, it was finally completed, with the 100 ounce (2.85 kg) aluminum tip/lightning-rod being put in place on December 6, 1884. It was the largest single piece of aluminum cast at the time. In 1884 aluminum was as expensive as silver, both $1 per ounce.
Over time, however, the price of the metal dropped; the invention of the Hall-Héroult electric refining process in 1886 caused the high price of aluminum to permanently collapse. The monument opened to the public on October 9, 1888.
Still confused? It is the Washington monument.
Read the history of the aluminum cap here:
The Point of a Monument: A History of the Aluminum Cap of the Washington Monument
Right. So it was competition for cheap electricity that killed the deal Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. had for at-cost (and later subsidized) electricity from Bonneville.
But that is just the proximate cause of the plant’s closing. It misses the point of Dr. Berry’s article, which is encapsulated in this question:
Demand for electricity is increasing steadily. But the supply is not. Why not? Why are we not building new power plants to meet the greater demand? The fault lies squarely at the feet of the enviros.
It was in 1988, over 20 years ago, that the EPA lawyer smugly declared he “knew more” than the atmospheric scientists gathered in that room. That’s because he knew the agenda, and the scientists did not. James Hansen did; Al Gore did; and so did a small clique of global power brokers. They are now on the verge of fulfilling that agenda, of which the closure of manufacturing plants for want of cheap energy is the harbinger. The aim is the de-industrialization and the defeat of the Western world and Western democracy.
It is way past time to fight back.
/Mr Lynn
We once had the “Age of Reason”, the “Industrial Revolution”, the “Gay (ancient def.) ’90s”, the “Roaring ’20s”, now we have: “The Age of Stupidity”. Ages come and go. Empires rise and fall. Take a long look at who today’s idols, stars, heros, teachers, professors, clergy, managers and leaders are and you’ll see where the country is going. Stupidity is contagious. Worse than H1N1 (the Spanish Flu version 90 years ago). The Utopians are in the majority and aren’t smart enough to know the damage they’re doing; the stupid masses stand in a daze with their eyes blankly looking at nothing. It must be the fluorine we’ve been adding to the water supply during the past several decades. No? Maybe it’s the hike in sunspot activity since 1909?
The references to Dr. Berry’s article were omitted; here they are:
Any chance of getting and posting a legit copy of R. Lee’s paper?
/Mr Lynn
Does anyone here think we’ll use less aluminum and save CO2 from this?
The leftists rejoice at this kind of horror.
I see people offering solutions to cleaner electricity here too. While I’ve got no problem with less pollution, there have been no demonstrated problems from our current electric generation. In addition our cutting back 20% on CO2 does not one bit toward CO2 levels globally. The problem is not solved.
Why do we look for solutions to a problem which may not exist? Unnecessary cost is unnecessary cost and we will suffer from the destruction of heavy industry in the future. Currently the propogation of the American way of life is under attack from all over the earth. They are wrong, we are right.
It seems like the public has lost sight of the reality of America. That aluminum plant is a big reason why we were world leaders, Not overvalued E-businesses.
Let’s take a look at some of the so-call environmentalists. They like to cry over dead trees. We can’t let our country be run by irrational people like this.
http://biggovernment.com/2009/11/08/sunday-open-thread-gaia-worship-edition/
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imapopulist (06:24:09) :
If one believes in free markets then yes this plant should close. Its cheap electricity was essentially being subsidized by other users whose costs will now go down as a result.
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You are dreaming if you think we execute business in a free market in the US. If the markets were truly free, we would have those 150 coal plants and a whole slew of nuclear plants besides. We don’t because of irrational environmentalists. They and the politicians who kowtow to them have become adept at taking a reasonable-looking desire, e.g. the desire for clean water, air, and food; and twisting it to their other unstated goals – like taking us back to the 16th century when man was more “integrated” with the environment.
As a native Montanan I have watched this plant since the 50’s. You can see it clearly from the top of Big Mountain if you ski. It has been a symbol of American “can” do attitude and industry. Hungry Horse dam has been it’s power source. In recent years Columbia River salmon have taken priority over the dammed waters over power generation. What comes next is underwhelming. Between Cut Bank and Shelby Montana is a large new wind farm. Recently in high winds some of the blades snapped. Not exactly reliable and “sustainable” as the Hungry Horse power. Now they plan to build another wind farm monstrosity to the north on the ancient rim rock that served as “buffalo jumps” for the Blackfeet before they had horses.
Yes, aluminum is cheap enough to throw away, but we don’t generally do so. Most aluminum is recycled, as is most (98%) lead.
Now in regard to the topic of this thread, when and if we have a large fraction of our power supplied by solar and wind (a big if) then our energy costs will be at least twice as high as they are now, maybe higher. Wind, which is the cheaper of the two renewables, takes around 900 tons of concrete and 500 tones of steel to build a 1Mwatt plant, concrete and steel are both voracious users of energy and have a big carbon “footprint”. The latest large wind project (in Texas) will cost about $2,500 per kW of installed capacity–coal costs around $200 per Kw.
Once our energy costs are high, those countries still using cheap sources of power such as coal, will take energy intensive manufacturing away from us. It happened to Spain already, a country that very foolishly embraced renewables without thinking of the economic consequences. Of course, we can “wall ourselves off” and then in addition to paying a lot for energy, we will be poor. Cap’n’trade, renewables–it all has a lot to offer.
E.M.Smith (05:58:57)
your artcle is typical America-think.
1. Nuclear stations consume “radiation” that will not be recovered.
2. Are there a never ending source of trees in a forest unless you replant. Are they replanting in the rainforests?
3. Fish is there an infinite resource of fish. Cod is on quota. Whales are not slaughtered because of declining numbers.
4. At some point the energy used to extract, clean, separate, etc. oil/gas will equal the energy derived from its use. Is this not an end point?
5. you can predict 250 years into the future ? Did you predict Chernobyl, wars in Iraq / Iran / Eastern Europe / Africa? Did you not warn the Aluminium smelters that the subsidy of their electricity would be removed.
6. Have you done an energy budget for extraction of oil from shale/semi depleted wells that you can post please.
One hockey stick creates another.
Fabricated global temperature trend = Real unemployment trend
Someone been reading Dan Brown recently?
According to DB it says “Praise God” on it (in Latin), but the photo shows that it says a great deal more.
Full translation?
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Oh man! This is getting heavy!
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
“When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called a Religion.”
“Is it hard? Not if you have the right attitudes. Its having the right attitudes that is hard!”
“You look at where you’re going and where you are and it never makes sense, but then you look back at where you’ve been and a pattern seems to emerge. ”
“Of course, the laws of science contain no matter and have no energy either and therefore do not exist except in people’s minds. It’s best to be completely scientific about the whole thing and refuse to believe in either ghosts or the laws of science. That way you’re safe. That doesn’t leave you very much to believe in, but that’s scientific too.”
Robert M. Pirsig
I can’t take seriously anyone who cites G&T as a valid reference. G&T are apparently reputable physicists, but that paper is utter tripe, fit only to line a bird cage. The governing equations for the atmosphere are the MHD equations? Pull the other one. It’s almost as bad as the one by the doctor who insists that we’ll all die if the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere exceeds 426 ppm.
bill (04:38:27):
“Sustainability:
A major question should be are we living in a sustainable society.”
Nah. That’s not a ‘major question’. It’s not even a question. Our society easily sustains itself. The enviros’ use of a completely inappropriate word confirms their typically fuzzy thinking.
“Sustainability” is used as a code word for: “Let’s destroy the technology that brought about long life spans, healthy inhabitants, and which ended the drudgery of doing laundry by hand and cutting wheat with a scythe.” But I notice that no eco-wingnut hypocrite ever does their laundry on river rocks.
The country should immediately end subsidies for “alternate” forms of energy production. If someone wants to use solar panels, fine. But the rest of us should not have to pay to subsidize eco-stupidity:
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=2469
” Craig Moore (07:58:45) :
As a native Montanan I have watched this plant since the 50’s. You can see it clearly from the top of Big Mountain if you ski. It has been a symbol of American “can” do attitude and industry. Hungry Horse dam has been it’s power source. In recent years Columbia River salmon have taken priority over the dammed waters over power generation. What comes next is underwhelming. Between Cut Bank and Shelby Montana is a large new wind farm. Recently in high winds some of the blades snapped. Not exactly reliable and “sustainable” as the Hungry Horse power. Now they plan to build another wind farm monstrosity to the north on the ancient rim rock that served as “buffalo jumps” for the Blackfeet before they had horses”
As a native Eastern Oregonian-I concur.We are infested with those infernal
Wind Turbines.Can’t wait for the next big winter storm to have it’s way with
them.I was at a local meeting for the local(Union Co. Oregon)wind project
someone had the temerity to ask:”What about Ice storms?” the reply from the
windpower drone:”Can’t happen here.” Ok…
“Split Atoms not Birds.”
Well, I know with certainty that electric power right now is a hot commodity. It is THE limiting factor right now in large data center builds. Large facilities are moving to places out in the middle of nowhere that have power to spare. Companies such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft will pay a premium over other industry for electricity. When the power company wanted to raise electricity rates for the aluminum plant from $35/mWh to $50/mWh, it put the plant out of business but that utility can now sell that power to computer data center operations.
It will get to the point where Facebook and Youtube are sucking up our electric power but we won’t be able to build the computers with which we use those services.
Douglas DC, the power from the present wind farm is being sold to San Diego. That’s the key, keep the economic benefits locally and sell the expensive power somewhere else. The power from the proposed second wind farm, I believe, will be sold to Alberta. As to the first wind farm, the little town of Ethridge in US 2 is directly in the path of ice bombs that may be launched from the spinning blades. Time will tell.
Here is an example of Google displacing aluminum manufacturers for power. What Google seems to be doing lately is going directly to hydroelectric operators and contracting directly for power and bypassing the local utilities. They will buy 10 years of power production directly from the dam operators. This prevents others from moving in.
Here is one of Apple building a huge facility in North Carolina. Again, power plays a huge factor. They have contracted for 100 kilowatts at an estimated $40/mWh from Duke Energy. Why would Duke want to sell to someone at $35/mWh when they can get $40/mWh for it?
But what has baffled me over the years is the amount of power wasted in data center operations. Imagine the power consumed by literally millions of fans running to blow air around. And these fans become less efficient over time as heat sinks coat with dust and the fans wear. You might have a half a dozen fans per server. Fans in the rack. Fans in the air chiller units. The heat from the CPU must be ejected from the case into the rack. The heat from the rack must be ejected into the room. The heat from the room must be exchanged to chilled water and piped out of the building where another fan exchanges the heat to atmosphere. It doesn’t have to be that way.
An operator like Google buys enough stuff that they can dictate manufacturing. There should be a reliable liquid cooling designed where the servers have liquid cooled sinks rather than air cooled. Chilled liquid pulls the heat directly from the heatsink to a manifold where it is sent directly out of the building and the heat dumped to atmosphere. One or two pumps instead of millions of fans. The data center doesn’t need to be so cold and it will be SILENT. No fans.
The military (Navy) has been using water cooled electronics for at least a half a century.
A lot of energy is wasted in data center design running these fans and it also makes the data center environment uncomfortable and possibly hazardous (hearing loss hazard) to work in over the long term.
There is a better way possible and I can’t see why nobody has done it on a large scale.
Smokey (09:32:17) :
Nah. That’s not a ‘major question’. It’s not even a question. Our society easily sustains itself. The enviros’ use of a completely inappropriate word confirms their typically fuzzy thinking.
“Sustainability” is used as a code word for: “Let’s destroy the technology that brought about long life spans, healthy inhabitants, and which ended the drudgery of doing laundry by hand and cutting wheat with a scythe.” But I notice that no eco-wingnut hypocrite ever does their laundry on river rocks.
Are you being serious?
As just one example Cod (and other species) can be fished at a greater rate than it reproduces
It is not sustainable.
technology has given us much, including the ability to destroy the environment, reduce species diversity and kill ourselves.
No environmentalist I know suggests give up the good parts just limiting/eliminating the bad parts.
If energy is cheap – why insulate your house – an enviro would say insulate to conserve.
If energy is cheap why not use a 4×4 to travel metalled roads to work – an enviro would use a smart car / public transport and use half the fuel.
etc.
It is interesting that you agree that the subsidised power to your aluminium smelter should have been cut. You should also remember there are massive subsidies given to nuclear concerns. Perhaps these should die also.
What are the subsidies given to coal mines in the US?
Perhaps these should be closed. China can supply much cheaper.
Inconsistant use of logic; inability to comprehenfd the facts or reading comprehension problem (don’t know which); lack of how things work in the real world (power generation, transmission, distribution both commercial and residential, commercial and residential billing and collecting etc.)
Or, typical liberal?
Shame that a BIG consumer of a resource should be able to buy it at cost, without added ‘overhead’ to ‘help’ subsidize the other consumers of electricity that require a LOT more molly-coddling in the way of construction and maintaining of the required neighborhood distribution network, the bill collection (‘meter reading’) and customer service operations (meter hook up/disconnect).
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China is a net importer of coal. Build nukes, recycle the fuel. Modern power plants are MUCH safer, simpler, cheaper, and faster to build than the 1960’s/1970’s designs currently in operation.
Part of our problem is that much of our environmental regulations were put into place due to recovery practices in use in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Techniques have advanced since then. We can drill several oil wells in several different directions from one central location now which greatly reduces the environmental impact.
Our laws do not take technological advance into consideration. An activity that might have been damaging in 1975 might not be nearly so damaging today with modern practices and technology. So a law enacted 30 years ago to stop a practice that was state of the art at that time might have no real bearing today. The laws are used to simply prevent an industry to operate at all, they are not used for environmental protection. Environmental protection is the “hook” used to prevent these industries from operating.
The American Chestnut Foundation is working with the coal mining industry, for example, to return a blight resistant strain of the American Chestnut to Appalachia on land reclaimed from strip mining. I would, by the way, urge people to support the ACF as their program of producing a blight resistant tree and returning them to their natural range makes news every month. The American Chestnut might be described as Appalachia’s redwood and dominated forests there until the turn of the century.
But anyway, the real problem is that we need to constantly look at the current state of various technologies and apply them where they can be applied with impact that is greatly reduced from the practices that spawned the original regulation.
<blockquote
bill (11:12:40) :
technology has given us much, including the ability to destroy the environment,
Was Claire Wolfe clairvoyant/could she see into the future?
(Mike, make a note, Waco happened in 1993, with the investigation beginning in 1992 under Bush I)
Was what Claire wrote in “Backwoods Magazine” or in an issue of “Outlaw Living”?
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I fail to understand how closure of non-ferrous metal smelters in the US benefits the planet. The production will simply shift to other countries, most of whom have no regard for environmental protection. The net effect upon the environment is probably negative. The net effect upon the US from harm to our strategic and economic interests is extensive and can become irreparable.
There are several energy wild cards at the research level. The Peswiki website offers a “top 100” technologies list —
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Congress:Top_100_Technologies_–_RD
Some of the proposals may not be economic, etc. Still, this shows that the oil price surge of recent years has stimulated a lot of activity, and a baseload fusion system, for example, might be possible. There appears to be three non-governmental hot fusion schemes looking for funding.
The list is actually conservative — there are some omitted concepts, such as Carlo Rubbia’s accelerator driven Thorium reactor proposal, which can, in theory, be engineered to eliminate all the objections to conventional fission plants.
If any of the radical ideas work, the implications would be extensive, and the alarmists-socialists would find it hard to stop the revolution.