The Alcan Lynemouth Aluminium Smelter was an industrial facility near

Ashington Ashington is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, with a population of 27,864 at the 2011 Census. It was once a centre of the coal mining industry. The town is north of Newcastle upon Tyne, west of the A189 and bordered to the ...

Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...

, on the coast of

North East England North East England, commonly referred to simply as the North East within England, is one of nine official regions of England. It consists of County DurhamNorthumberland, , Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and part of northern North Yorkshire. ...

, south of the village of

Lynemouth Lynemouth is a village in Northumberland, England, northeast of Ashington, close to the village of Ellington, Northumberland, Ellington to the north west. It was built close to coal mines, including Lynemouth Colliery. Lynemouth and the surr ...

. The smelter was owned by the Canadian

aluminium Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...

company

Alcan Alcan was a Canadian mining company and aluminum manufacturer. It was founded in 1902 as the Northern Aluminum Company, renamed Aluminum Company of Canada in 1925, and Alcan Aluminum in 1966. It took the name Alcan Incorporated in 2001. During ...

, which is part of Rio Tinto. The smelter was opened in 1974 at a cost, which exceeded its budgeted estimate of £54 million, of $156 million. The plant ceased production in March 2012, and demolition of the facility was completed in March 2018.

Factors determining the smelter's site

A variety of factors determined the smelter's position: *The first was a source of

electric power Electric power is the rate of transfer of electrical energy within a electric circuit, circuit. Its SI unit is the watt, the general unit of power (physics), power, defined as one joule per second. Standard prefixes apply to watts as with oth ...

to smelt the

. One tonne of aluminium requires the same amount of electricity that an average family uses in 20 years, so cheap power was needed. In 1972, Alcan commissioned Lynemouth Power Station, less than from the smelter's site, to fulfil its power needs. The station's site was convenient for access to the Ellington and Lynemouth

coal mine Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

s nearby, which were also the fundamental reason for the nearby village's creation. The power station has a 420

megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

(MW) capacity, more than enough to meet the load requirements of the smelter. The spare electricity is sold to the National Grid. *Another factor was finding a

labour force In macroeconomics, the workforce or labour force is the sum of people either working (i.e., the employed) or looking for work (i.e., the unemployed): \text = \text + \text Those neither working in the marketplace nor looking for work are out ...

. Many coal mines in the area had shut down, leaving thousands of people there unemployed.

Aluminium smelting Aluminium smelting is the process of extracting aluminium from its oxide, alumina, generally by the Hall-Héroult process. Alumina is extracted from the ore bauxite by means of the Bayer process at an alumina refinery. This is an electroly ...

is very labour-intensive, but the workforce in the local area was used to heavy work because of working in the mines. The British government also granted £28 million to the company to help reduce unemployment in the area. *

Transport Transport (in British English) or transportation (in American English) is the intentional Motion, movement of humans, animals, and cargo, goods from one location to another. Mode of transport, Modes of transport include aviation, air, land tr ...

was another major factor as

bauxite Bauxite () is a sedimentary rock with a relatively high aluminium content. It is the world's main source of aluminium and gallium. Bauxite consists mostly of the aluminium minerals gibbsite (), boehmite (γ-AlO(OH)), and diaspore (α-AlO(OH) ...

could not be found in the United Kingdom, only in places such as Jamaica and Australia. The smelter's location had to be near a port with good transport links to the site. The town of Blyth, which is south of the smelter, already had a deep sea port. There was also a

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

link from the port going directly to the power station, which was connected to the Alcan facility. The site also has good road links.

Facts

* The smelter had two of the most efficient ring burners in the world, costing around £17 million each. * The smelter was the only aluminium smelting site in Europe which rebuilt the smelter whilst still in production. It was a 100-day process which took place every seven years. * The smelter was provided with

alumina Aluminium oxide (or aluminium(III) oxide) is a chemical compound of aluminium and oxygen with the chemical formula . It is the most commonly occurring of several aluminium oxides, and specifically identified as aluminium oxide. It is commonly ...

by two trains a day from Blyth, each consisting of 21 wagons. The alumina was shipped to Blyth from

Limerick Limerick ( ; ) is a city in western Ireland, in County Limerick. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and is in the Mid-West Region, Ireland, Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. W ...

in the

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland, with a population of about 5.4 million. ...

. * Coke was shipped to Blyth from

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

in the U.S. and was transported to the smelter by

heavy goods vehicle A large goods vehicle (LGV), or heavy goods vehicle (HGV), in the European Union (EU) is any lorry with a gross combination mass (GCM) of over . Sub-category N2 is used for vehicles between 3,500 kg and and N3 for all goods vehicles over ...

Worries

When work started on the site, local farmers were worried that pollution from the smelter would ruin their crops and harm their livestock. To address their concerns, Alcan decided to buy the land from them. Alcan now owns over of land in the local area and employs a farming director. The land is still used to grow crops and raise livestock. In early 2005, residents of nearby villages were worried about the fate of the smelter when the only remaining local coal mine, situated at Ellington, closed. However, the smelter did not close and imports its coal from overseas or from mines in other parts of the country. The emissions of the power plant connected to the smelter were another concern for the environment. In April 2010, the

European Court of Justice The European Court of Justice (ECJ), officially the Court of Justice (), is the supreme court of the European Union in matters of European Union law. As a part of the Court of Justice of the European Union, it is tasked with interpreting ...

decided that, contrary to the claim of the

UK government His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central government, central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

, the power plant was subject to the emission limit values laid down in the 2001

Large Combustion Plant Directive The Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD, 2001/80/EC) is a European Union directive which required member states of the European Union to legislatively limit flue gas emissions from combustion plant having thermal capacity of 50 MW or grea ...

. As a consequence, emissions of air polluting substances of the plant had to be reduced.

Closure

Production at the Lynemouth Smelter ended at 14:00 on 29 March 2012, following a 90-day consultation period. It closed in May 2012 putting 515 people out of work and causing a knock-on effect in its local supply chain. Alcan cited rising energy costs due to emerging European environmental legislation as the reason. The 420MW coal power station continues to operate under new ownership. In 2015, the site was sold by Rio Tinto to Harworth Estates who plan to turn the site into an 'employment park.' In June 2016, all eight chimneys at the site were demolished and the site had been decommissioned. Demolition of the former smelter was completed in March 2018. The rest of the buildings are now rented to other businesses. It has now been repurposed as a biomass power plant. The area is now a wind farm site.

References

External links