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Energy—Approach
As climate change legislation emerges around the world at an accelerated rate, Alcoa has led industry efforts to enact policy that promotes a market-based incentive to deliver an adequate supply of low to no carbon-emitting energy sources, without unduly burdening industry and affecting global competitiveness.
In addition to being actively engaged in national and regional policy development where we operate, we are modeling the emission footprint and energy cost implications of various policy scenarios. This modeling will guide strategic planning around investments in growth opportunities, factoring short- and long-term carbon risk into the business valuation process.
We have emphasized energy efficiency since the early days of the company. In 1900, the electrical energy requirements to make a kilogram of aluminum from alumina were more than 55 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity. By 2000, our electrical energy requirement was reduced to 15 kWh per kilogram. Today, our best smelters can produce primary metal using only 13.3 kWh per kilogram.
In our downstream businesses, we are actively pursuing alternative energy applications and moving to capture waste heat for secondary uses, such as building heat and wastewater treatment. We also continue to utilize our partnership with India's Council of Scientific & Industrial Research to identify other opportunities to improve energy efficiency.
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