Spin Control: Trump’s plan to bring back aluminum might conflict with the power needs of AI

President Donald Trump’s goal of increasing the national production of aluminum through tariffs on imports of that light metal seems destined to butt heads with another much-discussed goal: the push for more electrical generation needed for things like artificial intelligence.

Making aluminum from alumina, the powdery oxide found in bauxite, takes a significant amount of electricity, Northwest residents of a certain age may remember. Why Northwest residents in particular? During and after World War II, aluminum smelters were located in the Northwest because the region had significantly more electricity than its residents could use – and at significantly lower costs – thanks to a series of hydroelectric dams built on the Columbia River system.

Among those was the Mead smelter, originally a U.S. government operation that made skins for Boeing Company bombers. It was sold to Henry Kaiser after the war when the nation’s demand for bombers was declining and its demand for things like foil and beer cans was increasing. The smelter’s eight potlines used electricity to heat the alumina to slightly under 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, turning it into large chunks of aluminum that were rolled flat at the mill in Trentwood.

Kaiser and the other companies that took over other regional smelters got a super good deal on electricity from the Bonneville Power Administration, delivered right to the factory, at a cheaper rate than people who were heating their homes or businesses that were turning on their lights. It was sort of akin to buying wholesale rather than retail.

By the 1960s, however, there were lots more people living in lots more homes and operating lots more businesses in the Northwest. The projections were that the region was going to run short of power in a few years or a few decades, depending on who was projecting. With all the good sites for dams taken, the region turned to nuclear power over the objections of some folks who said it might be smarter to try conservation first.

The tree huggers want us to all shiver in the dark, some nuke proponents said. Well, at least some of them had bumper stickers to that effect.

When the nuclear plants began to experience cost overruns and construction delays – and eventually four of the five going up in Washington were shut down – the BPA started raising the cheap price the smelters paid for electricity. Eventually Kaiser and other companies decided it was smarter to make aluminum in places like Ghana where electricity was cheaper, so the potlines at Mead and most other Northwest smelters shut down.

This is, admittedly, a CliffsNotes version of more than a decade of discussions, negotiations and economic turmoil. But it might help explain why bringing aluminum smelting back to the United States might not be compatible with big tech’s push for more power for its operations.

At least once a month, some major news organization produces a story warning that the nation is in danger of running out of power because of the electrical needs of AI, server farms, bitcoin mining and electric vehicle recharging stations. Last week, Meta announced it might buy its own nuclear power plant in Illinois to power its AI operations. In April, the Department of Energy asked for plans for building nuclear power plants or other generating facilities at sites around the country, including in Central Washington on or near the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

People calling for more electrical generation are careful now to include many sources of power – solar, wind, geothermal and natural gas. But the real push is for reviving nuclear power, which was all but abandoned in the face of high construction costs, questions about waste handling and public concerns over safety. There’s talk of small plants, modular plants, fusion plants.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright is comparing “the global race for AI dominance” to “the next Manhattan Project” as he pushes for more nuclear power. One can only hope that Manhattan Project 2.0 doesn’t have some of the downsides of the original, like the millions of gallons of waste at Hanford or an arms race that brought the Doomsday Clock to less than two minutes to midnight.

But this push for new power for ever-voracious new tech needs seems unlikely to allow a chunk of that electricity to be siphoned off for the older tech of aluminum smelting, even with enhancements that industry has made since the smelters left the Northwest. And if some juice is made available, it almost certainly won’t be at bargain basement prices that supported aluminum in the middle of the last century.