MANUFACTURING Renewables push puts aluminium smelters at risk

High prices of electricity coupled with unreliability of supply have cast doubt on the future of two of Australia’s largest aluminium smelters, Portland and Tomago (Newcastle), which convert alumina into the high-value metal aluminium. Aluminium smelters require vast quantities of electricity to reduce aluminium oxide to molten aluminium metal by electrolysis. Alcoa’s Portland smelter was opened in 1986 as a showcase of downstream processing of minerals in Australia. To guarantee both price and continuity of supply, the then Victorian government established the Loy Yang A power station in the Latrobe Valley. When the Victorian power industry was privatised in the…