Aluminum Product Of Frontiers
A GIANT consuming unbelievable quantities of food day after day hour after hourthat well describes an aluminum smelter. Its meat is the primary ore of aluminum bauxite or its byproduct alumina. Whichever one there must be a constant supply flowing through and at the same time vast quantities of electric power must be available. To establish a smelter area then there must be a major source of electric power and also a good port close by.
Would a location with these facilities be suitable near some large city? No because other consumers would be making large demands on the power source. An aluminum smelter must have practically exclusive use of the power supply. This is why the aluminum industry is usually a pioneer of frontier country.
To a large extent the determining factors for choosing a smelter site are geography and a climate with sufficient precipitation to ensure a steady volume of water. Norways only aluminum smelter takes advantage of power generated by water dropping 2735 feet from the surrounding mountains.
In Ghana the Volta River has been dammed by a hydroelectric generating station to supply an aluminum smelter and a plant for processing one of the worlds largest deposits of bauxite into alumina. The mountainous region of Minas Gerais state in Brazil at Curo Preto has three modern hydroelectric plants supplying a smelter that obtains its bauxite only one kilometer distant from the operation.
Fifty years ago at Shawinigan Falls Quebec the industry installed a large generating plant and smelter in the back country of the St. Maurice River valley one hundred miles west of Quebec city. A few years later north of that city a power plant and smelter were constructed on the Saguenay River at Isle Maligne. Shortly afterward Arvida a few miles east on the same river saw the beginnings of the worlds largest aluminum smelterone that opened to industry the onceclosed country of the Saguenay. Now on Canadas west coast part of the hinterland of British Columbia has been opened up by the Kitimat smelter installations of the Aluminum Company of Canada.
Opening New Frontiers
In Guyana country of the fabled El Dorado immense deposits of aluminarich mineral have been developed. For fiftyfour years the reddishbrown ore has been blasted out of beds averaging fifteen to fortyfive feet in thickness. By 1958 the area around the community of Mackenzie was producing 300000 tons of bauxite annually. Today the storage bins at its modern docks load almost three million tons yearly into vessels bound for Quebecs Saguenay smelters.
Ten years ago few people had ever heard of Weipa on the farnorthern coast of Queensland Australia. In 1955 an Australian geologist discovered in this isolated area what has turned out to be the worlds largest deposit of bauxite. Seventythree square miles were already blocked out by 1968 with 516 million tons of proven ore reserves. Scout drilling over another 160 square miles revealed a potential of 1200 million tons. Suddenly Australia was in the bauxite business to an extent that made the aluminum industry around the world sit up and take notice.
The Weipa mining operation is very simple. When the layer of ore is reached at times 30 feet thick no blasting is needed. Loaders simply lift it out of its bed and onto 50ton aluminumbody dump trucks. It is taken to the beneficiation plant where the ore grade is improved by sizing and washing. Conveyor belts then take the washed treated ore to an open stockpile from where a conveyor loading system transfers it to ore ships.
Already over 40000000 had been spent on this development by last year. In addition to the modern plant and harbor works there is a new community housing over 350 people with airconditioned homes a school stores a theater police and hospital services. From being a wilderness in 1957 Weipa is now one of the top bulkmaterial shipping ports of Australia. Maximum capacity of the installation in 1963 was half a million tons annually. This figure rose to four million tons in 1968 and is contemplated to reach seven million tons annually by early in the seventies.
Thus in Guyana and Australia new frontiers have been opened up. But in these as with other countries the spread of industry to frontier areas has not been an unmixed blessing. Trees and vegetation are knocked down and openpit mines replace the wilderness beauty. Of course the Creator put into the earth minerals for man to use and how rich indeed this earth is in mineral wealth! It is also Gods purpose that this earth be a Paradise. But man in his exploitation of the mineral resources of the earth often leaves unsightly scars and makes portions of the land a desolate waste. He has not solved the problem of using earths resources without marring the beauty of his earthly home.
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