[dajt]

Where is the upside here? An alu plant probably provided more jobs and produced something of actual utility. This is burning power for no benefit to society.

It's burning less power than before, but it's not producing anything of value.

The world cannot reasonbly run without alu, it got along better without crypto currencies.

[msisk6]

Oh, I agree. I lived nearby (working for ERCOT; the Texas Power Grid operator) when Alcoa was still there and was planning the shutdown. It seems about half the people in Rockdale worked for either Alcoa, the nearby coal power plant, or the nearby coal mine that fed the power plant.

I remember the local press going on about the crypto mining operation and how folks were going get high-tech jobs in this rural area of Texas. Of course it didn't go that way.

Aluminum smelting is an incredibly energy intensive operation. A lot of places in the US that used to host aluminum smelters now host large datacenters, include the Google data center in The Dalles, Oregon on the Columbia river near a hydro dam. It's a shame that Rockdale didn't get something useful like these other places.

As far as Al smelting in the US; I don't know. I'd imagine it produces a lot of air pollution by itself and uses huge amounts of power that is usually generated by cheap methods like burning rocks (coal) or large hydro operations nearby to minimize transmission costs. Then you gotta get ore to the site. The only Al smelter I recall being left in the US is up near Puget Sound in Bellingham, WA and I think it's currently shutdown.

[bigiain]

I've heard of aluminium referred to as "Frozen Electricity". (yes, I know, but that's the .au spelling)

Relatively speaking, bauxite is practically worthless. But mix it in with a few gigawatt hours and you get out a fairly valuable commodity.

[duskwuff]

> I remember the local press going on about the crypto mining operation and how folks were going get high-tech jobs in this rural area of Texas. Of course it didn't go that way.

That's a disappointingly common crypto industry lie. Cryptocurrency mining involves very little labor beyond initial construction; it's certainly not a major source of permanent employment.