Final Nail - Last of the Northwest Aluminum Smelters Coming Down

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Alcoa has begun demolishing the last of the big Northwest aluminum smelters. The Intalco plant in Washington State was opened in 1966. It was the last of the region's ten aluminum smelters to open. The industry established itself in the Northwest in the 1940s to take advantage of cheap Columbia River hydro power. As that advantage eroded, these high energy consumption plants became uneconomic. Some of the abandoned sites are being repurposed, or are proposed to be repurposed, as data centers, energy storage facilities, or clean energy production facilities, although environmental cleanup remains a consideration. This article from the Oregon Capital Chronicle discusses the situation in some detail.

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