Sep 15 2007

Alcoa and Elkem finish Reydarfjordur’s anode plant

September 11th, 2007

News from the blog of Satan. The repetition of Alcoa’s constant claims at being environmentally friendly only empower our hatred of them. We know that if they didn’t have so much guilt to hide they wouldn’t need to regurgitate their practically messianic image in every single text they vomit. Would you believe a man stalking you at night when he keeps shouting “I’M NOT GOING TO HURT YOU!” or would you take that as further reason to get the hell away or beat him up until the monster’s out for the count?

Alcoa’s greed makes the world bleed.

Alcoa Opens New Anode Plant in Norway to Serve Fjardaal and Mosjoen Smelters

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Alcoa (NYSE:AA) announced that it has opened a new 280,000 metric ton per year anode plant in Mosjoen, Norway. The facility will produce anodes for Alcoa’s Fjardaal aluminum smelter in Iceland [ie: Alcoa’s Reydarfjordur smelter] and the Mosjoen aluminum smelter in Norway. Alcoa built the facility with managing partner Elkem Aluminium ANS, which has a 36% share in the Mosjoen anode plant. Alcoa owns 50% of the partnership Elkem Aluminium ANS, which operates aluminum smelters in Mosjoen and Lista, Norway.

Anodes are the electrodes toward which current flows during the smelting process of making aluminum. Anodes from the new plant have already been delivered to the Mosjoen smelter and the first shipments to Fjardaal are expected to start this month.

“This new plant was completed on time and safely and it is one of the world’s largest and most environmentally friendly facilities of its type,” said Bernt Reitan, Executive Vice President of Alcoa and Group President, Global Primary Products, who attended the event. “This facility will enable us to continue to reduce production costs and maintain our competitiveness in the marketplace.”

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg participated in an inauguration ceremony held on August 30.

Alcoa in Norway

Alcoa established a presence in Norway through a 1962 partnership with Elkem ASA. Today, Elkem Aluminium NS, the partnership owned 50/50 by Orkla and Alcoa, operates smelters in Mosjøen and Lista and supply the European aluminum market. Alcoa’s automotive casting operation in Lista, established in 1995, produces wheel suspension components for leading European automakers.

About Alcoa

Alcoa is the world’s leading producer and manager of primary aluminum, fabricated aluminum and alumina facilities, and is active in all major aspects of the industry. Alcoa serves the aerospace, automotive, packaging, building and construction, commercial transportation and industrial markets, bringing design, engineering, production and other capabilities of Alcoa’s businesses to customers. In addition to aluminum products and components including flat-rolled products, hard alloy extrusions, and forgings, Alcoa also markets Alcoa® wheels, fastening systems, precision and investment castings, structures and building systems. The company has 116,000 employees in 44 countries and has been named one of the top most sustainable corporations in the world at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. More information can be found at www.alcoa.com

Sep 14 2007

Orissa Update

Mines and Communities Vedanta update

Vedanta Update

7th September 2007

It’s one of the longest-enduring conflicts over a mine project in recent times. Three years ago, the Indian Supreme Court’s Central Empowered Committee (CEC) on forestry issues, condemned in no uncertain terms plans by UK-based Vedanta Resources plc to mine the Nyamgiri Hills in Orissa for bauxite. It also found that Vedanta’s alumina refinery – deliberately located at Lanjigarh, next to the hills – was being constructed in violation of forest protection legislation, and that the company had lied on several occasions in its defence of the huge project. Read More

Sep 14 2007

Saving Iceland Forum about Trinidad and Tobago

Iceland Trinidad flyer
Click the image to download this flyer in full size

Sep 14 2007
2 Comments

Global Actions Against Heavy Industry!

Trinidad protestOn the 12th of September 2007, the Global Day of Action Against Heavy Industry, people in South Africa, Iceland, Trinidad, Denmark, New York, Holland and the UK protested against the heavy industrialisation of our planet. This marked the first coordinated event of a new and growing global movement that began at the 2007 Saving Iceland protest camp in Ölfus, Iceland. The common target of these protests against heavy industry was the aluminium industry, in particular the corporations Alcan/Rio-Tinto and Alcoa. Read More

Sep 07 2007

‘Glacial Rivers Reduce Pollution on Earth’ by Gudmundur Páll Ólafsson

Glacial rivers are not only the lifeblood of Iceland, but also of the whole planet.

River water contains sediment in suspension and various substances in solution; glacial rivers, especially, carry a large amount of sediment which increases as the atmosphere grows warmer.

River of Life

Rivers of Life

Glacial rivers carry the sediment out to sea, where it takes on a new and important role in binding the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) with calcium (Ca) and converting it into calcite and other carbonate minerals, immensely important in the ocean ecosystems of the world. Thus glacial rivers reduce pollution on Earth. This effect is greatest in recently formed volcanic territory such as Iceland, and the binding effect increases with rising atmospheric temperature.

Glacial rivers bind this gas which, along with some other gases, causes global warming and threatens the future of life of Earth.

When a glacial river is harnessed to generate electricity, this important function, and the binding of the greenhouse gas CO2, is diminished. What they generate is not GREEN ENERGY, as the advocates of hydro-power plants and heavy industry maintain, but BLACK ENERGY.

Dams and reservoirs hinder the function of glacial sediment in the oceans, and hence hydro-electric power plants that harness glacial rivers are far more harmful than has hitherto been believed. Read More

Sep 05 2007

SI Workshops in New York

Thurs, Sept 6, 8pm.
Environmental Justice vs. Mining: Taking action in Appalachia & Iceland
A two-part evening with two special guests. Read More

Sep 03 2007

Defending the Wild in the Land of Fire and Ice – Saving Iceland Takes Action

Jaap Krater
Earth First Journal
3 August, 2007

Summer of Resistance in Iceland – an overview

This year, Iceland saw its third Summer of direct action against heavy industry and large dams. In a much-disputed master plan, all the glacial rivers and geothermal potential of Europe’s largest wilderness would be harnessed for aluminum production (see EF!J May-June 2006). Activists from around the world have gathered to protect Europe’s largest remaining wilderness and oppose aluminum corporations.
Read More

Sep 02 2007
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‘Aluminium Tyrants’ – The Ecologist

IcelandFTcartoonsml.jpgBy Jaap Krater, Miriam Rose and Mark Anslow, The Ecologist, October 2007.

The gates of a geothermal power station are not where you would expect to find environmental activists. But the morning of 26th July 2007 saw the access road to Hellisheidi power station in Hengill, South-West Iceland, blockaded by a group of protestors from the campaign group ‘Saving Iceland’. After a brief demonstration, nine activists were arrested and several now face legal action.

Geothermal power in Iceland is big business. Just five plants generate 3 TWh a year – more than the annual output from all the UK’s wind turbines combined (Orkustofnun 2005; BERR 2006). Geothermal power also provides at least 85 per cent of Iceland’s homes with heat and hot water. This abundance of cheap, largely CO2-free energy has attracted energy-hungry industries to the country like sharks to a carcass. Of these, by far the most energy intensive is the aluminium industry (Krater 2007; Saving Iceland 2007).
Read More

Sep 01 2007

Kárahnjúkar Reservoir Causes Major Movements of Volcanic Magma

Updated 1 October 2007

Icelandic geologists have now confirmed that the earthquakes at Upptyppingar were caused by the inundation of Halslon at Karahnjukar. Now that the inundation of the Karahnjukar area is completed the earthquakes have subsided, but only for the time being. The water levels of Halslon will be constantly fluctuating while the reservoir is operational.

This proves that the warnings of geologists like Grimur Bjornsson and Gudmundur Sigvaldason were very valid. The Kárahnjúkar dams are situated on a cluster of active geological fissures. The government withheld geological reports from parliament when voting on the dams took place.
The suppression of these reports, the official gagging order placed on Grimur Bjornsson and the general defamation that the concerned scientists experienced from government ministers, power companies and other State institutions was criminal. Those responsible should be made to answer for this.
Read More

Aug 31 2007

ALCOA and Landsvirkjun in Full Swing with Preparations for Húsavik Smelter

kongurloarvefur

ALCOAs web in the northeast. Click for larger.

Just some of the important issues that are missing from the IR report below are for example the large scale destruction of all the geothermal areas in the northeast and the incredible net of electric pylons that the project entails. It should also be noted that once the smelters are built demands for enlargements always surface. The smelter capacity usually aimed for by aluminium companies is around 500.000 tonns. Once ALCOA have exhausted the geothermal energy of the northeast they will be going for the remaining glacial rivers of all of the north of Iceland. For more information see: A letter to ALCOA from Dr. Ragnhildur Sigurdardóttir and Gudmundur Páll Ólafsson
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