Replies to post #222136 on Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[choad]

Yes, that is true. They sold there power allocations and ,I believe either temp. shut down or went to reduced shifting,however, remember this was when demand was much different than today so I think the smelters thought this was a gift from the gods. I know some smelters are no longer in existence due to rising power costs and unrelenting labor demands even in times of no leverage,at least, that happened in Tacoma as I recall. The pnwest was a low cost power nirvana for these smelters in the past but that is most likely part of out west nostalgia. I don't profess to be an authority on this topic but isn't it interesting that smelters cannot make money even though it seems there output has increased in value tremendously as of late. In fact, a buddy of mine just called me tonight to boast about how he got .60+ for scrap aluminum TODAY.

[Elroy Jetson]

I would think that the aluminum smelters who sold their electricity allocations would have been in Washington state.

Almost all of the primary aluminum smelters are in the Pacific Northwest and the Ohio Valley to take advantage of cheap hydro-power.

The secondary aluminum smelters in Southern California and the Great Lakes region re-melt aluminum scrap which uses a small fraction of the energy required by primary smelters.