The impact of Century’s new smelter would ripple far beyond this rural stretch of verdant peaks and meandering creeks.
The planned facility is set to nearly double the amount of primary aluminum that the United States produces — helping to revitalize a domestic industry that has been steadily shrinking for decades owing to spiking power prices and increased competition from China. In 2000, U.S. companies operated 23 aluminum smelters. Today, only four plants are operating, while another two have been indefinitely curtailed. That includes Century’s 55-year-old plant in Hawesville, Kentucky, which has been idle since June 2022.
The decline in U.S. production has complicated the country’s efforts to both make and procure lower-carbon aluminum for its supply chains, experts say.
Globally, the aluminum sector contributes around 2 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions every year. Nearly 70 percent of those emissions come from generating high volumes of electricity — often derived from fossil fuels — to power smelters almost around the clock.
As U.S. primary production dwindles, the country is importing more aluminum made in overseas smelters that are powered by dirtier, less efficient electrical grids. Ironically, an increasing share of that aluminum is being used to make solar panels, electric cars, heat pumps, power cables, and many other clean energy components. The metal is lightweight and inexpensive, and it’s a key ingredient in global efforts to electrify and decarbonize the wider economy.
But aluminum is also mind-bogglingly ubiquitous outside the energy sector. The versatile material is found in everything from pots and pans, deodorant, and smartphones to car doors, bridges, and skyscrapers. It’s the second-most-used metal in the world after steel.
Last year, the U.S. produced around 750,000 metric tons of primary aluminum while importing 4.8 million metric tons of it, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Meanwhile, the country produced 3.3 million metric tons of “secondary” aluminum in 2023. Boosting recycling rates is seen as a necessary step for addressing aluminum’s emissions problem, because the recycling process requires about 95 percent less energy than making aluminum from scratch. But even secondary producers need primary aluminum to “sweeten” their batches and achieve the right strength and durability, said Annie Sartor, the aluminum campaign director for Industrious Labs, an advocacy organization.
“Primary aluminum is essential, and we have a primary industry that’s been in decline, is very polluting, and is very high-emitting,” Sartor said. Century’s proposed new smelter “could be a turning point for this industry,” she added. “We all would like to see it get built and thrive.”
A new green smelter wouldn’t just boost supplies of primary aluminum for making clean energy technologies. The facility, with its voracious electricity appetite, is also expected to accelerate the region’s buildout of clean energy capacity, which has lagged behind that of many other states.
Century expects its planned smelter to produce about 600,000 metric tons of aluminum a year. That means it could need at least a gigawatt’s worth of power to operate annually at full tilt, equal to the yearly demand of roughly 750,000 U.S. homes. By way of comparison, Louisville, Kentucky’s largest city, is home to some 625,000 people.
But Kentucky has very little carbon-free capacity available today.
About 0.2 percent of the state’s electricity generation came from solar in 2022, while 6 percent was supplied by hydroelectric dams, mainly in the western part of the state. Coal and gas plants produced most of the rest. Still, after decades of clinging tightly to its coal-rich history, Kentucky is seeing a raft of new utility-scale solar installations under development, including atop former coal mines.
And manufacturers in Kentucky can access the renewable energy being generated in neighboring states as well as regional grid networks like PJM. Swaths of eastern Kentucky are covered by a robust array of high-voltage, long-distance transmission lines operated by Kentucky Power, a subsidiary of the utility giant American Electric Power.
Lane Boldman, executive director of the Kentucky Conservation Committee, said that investing in clean energy and upgrading grid infrastructure would offer a chance to employ more of Kentucky’s skilled workers.
“It’s exciting, because it actually modernizes our industry and leverages a local workforce that has a great expertise with energy already,” she said when we met in Lexington, near the rolling green hills and long white fences of the area’s horse farms. “There are ways you can create economic development that are not so extractive, that just leave the community bare.”
Northeastern Kentucky isn’t the only location that Century is considering for the smelter. The company is also evaluating sites in the Ohio and Mississippi river basins. The final decision will depend on where there’s a steady supply of affordable power, a Century executive told The Wall Street Journal in early July. (A spokesperson didn’t respond to Canary’s repeated requests for comment.)
Century is aiming to secure a power-supply deal to meet a decade’s worth of electricity demand from the new smelter, according to the Journal. The goal is to finalize plans in the next two years and then begin construction, which could take around three years. In the meantime, the U.S. will continue to see a rapid buildout of solar, wind, and other carbon-free power supplies connecting to the grid.
Governor Beshear has participated in discussions about the smelter’s power supply, in the hopes of landing Century’s megaproject and all of its “good-paying jobs.” His administration “continues to work with multiple experts to determine a location in northeastern Kentucky that includes a river port and can support workforce training as well as provide the cleanest, most reliable electric service capacity needed,” Crystal Staley, a spokesperson for the governor’s office, said by email.
Environmental advocates say the aluminum plant represents a chance to reimagine what a major industrial facility can look like: powered by clean energy, equipped with modern pollution controls, and built with local community input from the beginning. Starting sometime this fall, the Sierra Club is planning to host public meetings and distribute flyers in northeastern Kentucky to let residents know about the giant smelter that could potentially be built in their backyards.
“It’s an opportunity for us to engage people who might shy away from other aspects of being an environmental activist and say, ‘Hey, this is something that we can embrace, because it’s going to help us create jobs so that people can stay in their region,’” said Julia Finch, the director of Sierra Club’s Kentucky chapter. “This is a chance for us to lead on what a green transition looks like for industry.”