General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAmerican Companies Still Make Aluminum. In Iceland.
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM JULY 1, 2017
REYDARFJORDUR, Iceland Where did the United States aluminum smelters go?
More than 30 of the giant factories once dotted the American landscape, sucking down huge amounts of electricity to produce the metal for car parts, beer cans and aluminum foil. Now there are just five smelters all facing an uncertain future.
President Trump blames China for flooding global markets with subsidized aluminum. In April, he ordered the Commerce Department to consider quotas or tariffs to shelter American producers from foreign competition. He promised a revival that would create jobs for lots of wonderful American workers. But the jobs, for the most part, didnt go to China. American aluminum was in decline long before Chinese production began to grow. The more complicated truth is on display here, on Icelands remote eastern shore.
A generation ago, this hamlet was a herring town, a place where almost everyone made a living from the sea. Today, people work on the flats of the spectacular fjord, where Americas largest aluminum company operates its newest smelter.
Alcoa, formerly the Aluminum Company of America, and another American company, Century Aluminum, have opened factories like this in Iceland, and closed factories in the United States, for a simple reason: Electricity is much cheaper here.
This year, tiny Iceland is on pace to make more aluminum than the United States. So are its fellow hydropower superpowers, Canada and Norway.
more
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/us/politics/american-companies-still-make-aluminum-in-iceland.html
Jim Beard
(2,535 posts)the mayor was trying to get a hotel built on a glacier to help the economy.
Jim Beard
(2,535 posts)Jim Beard
(2,535 posts)Fortitude is a fictional community located on Svalbard in Arctic Norway. It is described as an international community, with inhabitants from many parts of the world (population of 713 inhabitants and 4 police officers).[6] The series was filmed in both the UK and in Reyðarfjörður, Iceland.[7][8]
----------------------------------------------------------------------