Is aluminum running out? Why is there a deficit? The article doesn't explain that.
A $5B hoard of aluminum
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Re: A $5B hoard of aluminum
#42What form is the aluminum in these stockpiles? Bars? Giant cubes? Boullion? I have no idea how unprocessed aluminum is kept around.
Beer and soda cans, duh. Just dig in a random landfill and you'll find the stockpiles right there.
Vietnam does consume a large amount of 333 and Larue
Re: A $5B hoard of aluminum
#43If people are upset by so called "dumping" - can't they just let China charge more than they would have for this aluminum? Aluminum has well known fixed costs in smelters, it's one of those products they use as an example where it may make economic sense to keep a smelter going (even if incurring losses / ) because the cost of shutdown. Ie, a potline may take up to a week just to "turn off" and a huge amount of effor…
Now I wonder how this is related... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3784270/Chinese-bil... https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/a-chinese-billionaire-...
Seems very possible that there was a similar approach here in Vietnam where a goal might have been to get the stuff to the US.
I'm a bit confused by the seizure. Ie, if US doesn't want the cheap aluminum -> let another country have it cheap?
That said, Biden does seem to be going big on tariffs.
"The decision is one of Mr. Biden’s first significant moves on trade and suggests that his administration may be inclined to maintain the type of hefty tariffs Mr. Trump imposed on foreign metals to protect domestic industry. That position found favor with unions, but disappointed industries and businesses that have argued the tariffs raise costs." - NY Times - Biden Reinstates Aluminum Tariffs in One of His First Trade Moves
So this story does seem to be continuing with efforts by Biden to keep imported prices higher and there may be an element of politics in some of this all.
Re: A $5B hoard of aluminum
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a 1983 Honda and the aluminum shines like a mirror. It didn’t always. When I got it the metal looked dull and weather possible damaged. It is amazing what buffing it can do. From garbage to mirror finish. Very satisfying to watch aluminum being polished. The aluminum did loses some of the outer layer that had oxidizes but looks brand new once cleaned up. Looks new and has the structural integrity to be used in…
Old Airstream trailers (1950s-1990s at least) can be buffed to a mirror-like finish. Oddly, new Airstreams seem to come pre-oxidized. Not sure if this is a design choice, or if they don't use aluminum any more.
Mirror finished anything on the road seems like a really bad hazard.
Re: A $5B hoard of aluminum
#45Is aluminum running out? Why is there a deficit? The article doesn't explain that.
The article even has a graph that shows that stockpiles are very high. The doom seems to come entirely from projections due to China reducing production. The article doesn't explain why other countries cannot step up production to meet demand.
The article's quality is poor. It wasn't worth my time to read.
Re: A $5B hoard of aluminum
#46Only as a side note/curiosity, possibly one of the most valued sets of cutlery Napoleon III owned was an aluminium one: https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/51115/did-napole... Anyway until the late second half of the 1800's, it was considered as valuable as gold, if not more (article in French): https://journals.openedition.org/archeosciences/560
In the same vein, the Washington Monument is topped with an aluminum pyramid. This material was selected because at the time of construction aluminum was still considered nifty and new.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Monument#Aluminum_a...
Re: A $5B hoard of aluminum
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
It keeps increasing (exponentially slower, thus with a finite total depth) even without any other chemical. Anyway, out on the world there are many chemicals that can make it deeper, can peel it from the metal so another layer forms, or can mix with it and make it less insulating. I would be surprised if loses are as low as 1% as people point on this thread, but shouldn't be very large either.
Oxidation is technically a fire, albeit very slow
really? citation?
Re: A $5B hoard of aluminum
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
My recollection was that the Washington Monument has an aluminum cap on account of the material's status as a precious material at the time. What I found at the below link is a story of "fake it until you make it" pushing of materials science and self-promotion worthy of an HN read. https://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/9511/binczewski-9511.h...
Yeah, until the Bayer process was discovered to pull aluminum out of bauxite in the late 1880s, it was worth more than gold. Tutankhamen had an aluminum ankh very close to his body for that reason. And even for a long time after that, before we had a critical mass of aluminum for recycling, it was still extremely expensive because of how capital and energy intensive the Bayer process is. For that fifty or so years it…
> Tutankhamen had an aluminum ankh
The ability to make Aluminium would be alien technology to the ancient Egyptian culture. There’s a good reason it’s production was only discovered in modern times.
My guess is that you were thinking of Tutankhamun's meteoric iron dagger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun%27s_meteoric_iron_... “Nineteen iron objects were discovered in the tomb of Tutankhamun, including a set of blades which appear very similar to those used in the Egyptian opening of the mouth ceremony (a ritual performed for the benefit of the deceased to enable an afterlife). These blades are also intricately linked to iron and stars, being described in temple inventories as composed of iron and were themselves frequently referred to as the stars. The other iron objects were wrapped with Tutankhamun's mummy; these include a miniature headrest contained inside the golden death mask, an amulet attached to a golden bracelet and a dagger blade with gold haft. All were made by relatively crude methods with the exception of the dagger blade which is clearly expertly produced. This suggests that the dagger was probably imported to Egypt perhaps as a royal gift from a neighboring territory, indicating that at this time Egypt's knowledge and skills of iron production were relatively limited. Only further analytical testing can confirm if all of these artifacts are made from meteorite iron but they do appear to suggest that iron was a material used to indicate high status at the time of Tutankhamun's death in approximately 1327 BC.”.
Re: A $5B hoard of aluminum
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oxidation is technically a fire, albeit very slow
really? citation?
Fire is a phenomena whereby a fuel is combined with an oxidizer to make a new product in a manner that releases heat (ie: an exothermic redox reaction).
Rusting of metals fits that bill since heat is in fact released (just a super tiny amount and rather slowly), so it's _technically fire_ - although fire more commonly implies the rapid release of copious amounts of energy as part of the process.
Re: A $5B hoard of aluminum
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oxidation is technically a fire, albeit very slow
really? citation?
"Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire