The USA authorities’s choice to impose a 25 per cent tariff on aluminum imports from Canada has raised severe issues about potential job losses in the aluminum industry.
With greater than 90 per cent of Canada’s aluminum exports going to the U.S. — a market of $16.7 billion — the brand new tariff threatens to disrupt a vital commerce relationship.
Nearly 30 per cent of Canadian aluminum finally ends up getting used as a sturdy, light-weight materials within the automotive and transportation sector, which is itself beneath pressure on account of shifting U.S. commerce insurance policies.
Within the face of this commerce insecurity and a rising demand for inexperienced vitality, a latest Canadian innovation that makes use of aluminum as a fuel might present new alternatives for progress and diversification.
A brand new position for aluminum
Canada could appear an unlikely chief in aluminum manufacturing, on condition that it has no reserves of bauxite, the uncooked mineral that yields completed aluminum. Nevertheless, the nation’s enormous provide of renewable hydroelectric energy makes it the world’s fourth-largest producer of aluminum.
A brand new Canadian-developed course of is reimagining aluminum’s position not simply as a producing materials, however as a clear vitality storage medium and gasoline.
As a substitute of utilizing aluminum to make items like automobile components, beer cans and foil wrap, the method makes use of aluminum as a vessel for storing vitality till it’s wanted. This new course of has the potential to considerably lower carbon emissions, open up new markets and improve vitality safety.
(AP Picture/Lauren Petracca)
It really works by triggering a response between aluminum and water that generates warmth, hydrogen and aluminum oxide. On this response, only one litre of aluminum produces the identical quantity of warmth as burning a litre of diesel gasoline, whereas yielding the equal of 4 litres of liquid hydrogen, one other helpful gasoline.
The method is round — as soon as the vitality has been extracted from the aluminum, the leftover aluminum oxide could be turned again into aluminum using another clean process, which additionally occurs to be Canadian.
Clear vitality potential
Aluminum manufacturing is energy-intensive, requiring large-scale smelters that devour enormous quantities of electrical energy. This has earned aluminum the nickname “strong electrical energy.” The flexibility to reanimate this saved vitality might assist Canada extra successfully make the most of its considerable clear vitality sources which have, till now, been difficult to seize and retailer.
In contrast to fossil fuels, which could be shipped globally, vitality from renewable sources is far more durable to move over lengthy distances. Renewable vitality is usually within the type of electrical energy, and sending electrical energy by energy traces over lengthy distances ends in significant line losses.
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Aluminum is secure, secure and Canada already has a sturdy infrastructure for making and transporting it. This positions the nation to each meet its personal vitality wants with hydro, photo voltaic and geothermal energy and export surplus vitality.
As an example, Canada might use aluminum to export clear vitality to Europe, which is actively in search of reliable energy partners to cut back its reliance on Russian natural gas.
What makes this potential particularly engaging is a breakthrough course of developed by the Canadian consortium Elysis that takes many of the carbon emissions out of the method of creating aluminum.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot
The main contributor to carbon emissions in traditional aluminum production are carbon anodes. On this course of, carbon binds with oxygen launched through the smelting course of to provide carbon dioxide, a significant contributor to local weather change.
Elysis’ carbon-free anodes remove carbon dioxide emissions from the smelting course of, leaving solely aluminum and oxygen, successfully making aluminum a clear vitality storage medium. This implies Canada can now produce aluminum with near-zero carbon emissions.
A path to renewable vitality management
This new aluminum vitality cycle is especially thrilling as a result of it combines two of Canada’s best strengths: its huge renewable vitality potential and its well-established aluminum trade.
These developments open up the chance for Canada’s aluminum sector to maneuver past conventional markets and enter the worldwide vitality commerce.
This innovation might create new demand for Canadian aluminum, diversify the trade’s buyer base and scale back the uncertainty and danger of worldwide commerce. In the end, it might lead to higher progress and stability for aluminum producers by lowering their reliance on U.S. commerce insurance policies.
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Canada might develop its aluminum trade with out the necessity for extra mining, because the aluminum could be reused indefinitely.
Utilizing aluminum as a gasoline supply additionally has the potential to usher in a brand new period of energy security at home and overseas. Clear vitality saved in aluminum might be stockpiled to be used in distant areas or main centres throughout instances of peak vitality demand.
Turning this imaginative and prescient into actuality would require investments in analysis and improvement to commercialize this nascent type of renewable vitality know-how. With the proper assist, Canada might unlock a brand new period of vitality independence and turn out to be a renewable vitality superpower in a post-fossil gasoline world.
