Middle East Aluminum and the Environment: Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Beyond

Monday, 27 February 2023

Nitin Konde

Demand from industries like transportation, building, packaging, and energy has contributed greatly to the industry's meteoric rise in recent years. Lightweight, malleable, corrosion-resistant, electrically and thermally conductive, inexpensive, and recyclable, aluminum is one of the most sought-after metals.

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Currently, the Gulf disposes of or exports over 50% of its aluminium scrap production.

Recycling of aluminium can act as a catalyst

How significant the benefits of aluminium recycling can be is illustrated by the fact that twenty new cans can be produced from recovered material with the same amount of energy required to produce one new can. This is why we want to construct the biggest recycling facility in the UAE, with an annual capacity of 150,000 tonnes.

The majority of the waste aluminium used in the factory's creation of a low-carbon, high-quality recycled aluminium billet will come from the United Arab Emirates and the Middle East and North Africa.

More than half of the aluminium scrap produced in the GCC is currently disposed of or exported, so recycled aluminium will have an instant and positive effect. In addition, we are updating our aluminium production process.

Along with the shipping and aircraft industries and the cement industry, the aluminium industry is among those that are "harder to abate." Additionally, a lot of energy is used up in the making of aluminium. Around 60% of the 1.1 billion tonnes of annual carbon dioxide emissions from the global aluminium industry are attributable to electricity production.

For this reason, EGA has spent the better part of the last three decades developing and implementing cutting-edge methods for processing aluminium more effectively.

Since the 1990s, when we first began expanding our smelter, we have used only our own proprietary technology, and we have retrofitted all of our earlier production lines as well.

In addition, thanks to our efforts, EGA was able to reduce its carbon dioxide output by 35% compared to the sector average for the year 2021.

Low carbon aluminium (Hydro-powered aluminium and inert anode technology)

Direct and indirect pollution during electrolysis is central to the idea of low carbon aluminium. There is no universally accepted standard or meaning of "low carbon aluminium" in the marketplace. The direct and indirect CO2eq emissions of all currently available green aluminium products are less than 4 tonnes. Aluminum electrolysis, anode manufacturing, and aluminium casting are all included in this standard because they are all processes that contribute to emissions. Hydroelectricity and neutral anode and cathode technology work together to reduce CO2eq emissions.

'Low carbon primary aluminium' has already been released by a number of metal manufacturers. Rio Tinto's RenewAl, Rusal's Allow, Hydro's CIRCAL 75R and REDUXA 4.0, and Alcoa's Ecolum are just a few of the most important low carbon aluminium goods on the market today. In a major step forward, in December 2019 the Canadian government and aluminium giants Alcoa and Rio Tinto launched the joint venture Elysis to make the first commercial batch of low carbon aluminium. Apple and the American brewing firm Anheuser-Busch InBev NV have both signed contracts with Elysis to be supplied with low carbon aluminium.

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Unless drastic measures are taken, increasing aluminium production presents a threat of dangerously high CO2 levels

Better fuel economy and lower CO2 benefits

Premium original equipment manufacturers are increasingly turning to aluminium, despite the material's high cost and the fact that its raw state production (smelting) is extremely energy demanding and could therefore pose a problem for CO2 calculations.

For its Landshut foundry, BMW is increasing its use of solar electricity from an aluminium supplier in the United Arab Emirates.

Earlier, BMW announced that it would begin sourcing aluminium made with solar energy immediately.

The business also noted that this is a significant step towards its goal of reducing CO2 emissions from its supplier network by 20% by the year 2030.

The long-term use of aluminium made with green power will prevent the release of about 2.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over the next decade, making this a major move forward. This amounts to about 3 percent of the company's CO2 goals for its supply base.

Company aims to be an industry leader in sustainability and to make the methodical adoption of sustainability practices the norm.

Using only renewable energy sources, we can achieve our supply network's CO2 reduction goals by more than 50%.

According to Dr. Andreas Wendt, a member of the Board of Management of BMW AG in charge of Purchasing and Supplier Network, using solar electricity for aluminium production is a significant move in this direction.

Light metal foundry at BMW Group Plant Landshut processes aluminium produced in the UAE using solar electricity to make body and drive train components, including those required for electric drive trains.

Nearly half of the annual needs of the light metal foundry at Plant Landsh will be satisfied by the procurement of 43,000 tonnes of solar aluminium with a value in the three-digit million euro range.

The importance of supply networks in reaching CO2 goals BMW predicts that by 2030, CO2 emissions per vehicle in the BMW Group supply chain will have increased by more than a third if no corrective steps are taken.

It claims it wants to not only halt the downward trajectory but turn it around and reduce CO2 emissions per vehicle by 20% from 2019 levels.

According to BMW, it has already reached an agreement with vendors to ensure that all fifth-generation battery cells are manufactured using renewable energy.

BMW also claims that aluminium will grow in importance as e-mobility expands because it is a lightweight material that can help compensate for the hefty weight of batteries in electric cars. As a result, it is taking the initiative to purchase aluminium made using renewable energy.

The issue with aluminium (and why it's so much more costly than steel) is that it takes a lot of energy to create. Electricity generation for pure aluminium production, that is, aluminium from a nonrecycled source.

At this time, EGA will supply only the BMW Group with the aluminium it commercially produces using solar energy; this makes it the first business in the world to do so. about 60% of all greenhouse gas emissions from the aluminium industry worldwide come straight from the alumina mineral compound.

BMW argues that solar power is a great way to cut down on the carbon dioxide produced by metal smelting.

A provider of aluminium to the United Arab Emirates, EGA Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), headquartered in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, is a long-standing supplier to the BMW Group of raw aluminium (UAE). The Abu Dhabi government (through Mubadala Development Company) and Dubai government (through Investment Corporation of Dubai) own it jointly.

For those interested in both bauxite/alumina and basic aluminium smelting, EGA is a good choice. The Emirates Aluminium Company (EGA) claims to be the largest producer of "premium aluminium" in the world and is the largest industrial business in the United Arab Emirates outside of the oil and gas industry. Since 1979,

Due to EGA, the UAE has risen from creating zero aluminium to ranking as the world's fifth-largest producer.

EGA runs a bauxite mine in the Republic of Guinea and alumina refineries in the United Arab Emirates. EGA claims to be one of the biggest suppliers of foundry alloys to the global automotive industry, with more than 400 customers in more than 50 countries.

At this time, EGA will supply only the BMW Group with the aluminium it commercially produces using solar energy; this makes it the first business in the world to do so.

The Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, located in the desert outside of Dubai, is nearing completion and will become the world's biggest solar park, from which EGA purchases the electricity used in the production of the aluminium destined for the BMW Group.

The Dubai Electricity and Water Authority runs it, and it receives third-party certification that the energy it generates meets sustainability standards so that it can sell its output to EGA.

The BMW Group is EGA's first client for our low-carbon CelestiAL aluminium, and we couldn't be happier about it."

Aluminum has many desirable properties, including its low weight, high strength, and high recycling potential. That's why it's crucial to the progress of a greener society and the possibility of 21st-century living.

Aluminum production methods that minimise environmental impact are preferred. Solar aluminium is a positive development because it takes advantage of the desert's plentiful natural resources to create an essential element for the planet's continued survival.

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The aluminum industry, however, presents the unusual dichotomy of being both a solution and a contributor to an issue. While iron is the earth's greenest metal, it still contributes to the planet's environmental problems.

Growing aluminum production poses a threat that CO2 levels will rise to an unsafe level unless significant action is done. In addition, the industry contributes to a host of other sustainability concerns, such as the production of vast quantities of trash and scrap, the expansion of landfills, and the devaluation of resources. Aluminum greenhouse gas emissions must be lowered, and issues ranging from production to disposal must be addressed, so this circumstance necessitates swift action on the part of industry leaders and policymakers. This is a problem on multiple fronts, environmental, economic, societal, and technological. It still has a long way to go before the aluminum business is sustainable, but industry leaders and groups are working on it.

The United Arab Emirates is becoming increasingly instrumental in meeting this need. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) may be best known for its energy and gas exports, but it is also the world's fifth-largest producer of aluminium.

Region takes great pride in the fact that its export of aluminium generates billions of dollars in income, helping to diversify its economy. Now, Emirates Global Aluminium is also playing a crucial part in assisting the UAE in realising its net-zero goals.

The contribution it makes to a more healthy society is another factor fueling optimistic predictions of demand growth. Lighter electric cars and aluminium used to construct wind farms are just two examples of how aluminium use promotes economic decarbonization.

There is no degradation in purity or quality during the recycling process, and aluminium can be recovered indefinitely. Over three-quarters of all aluminium ever mined is still in use today. Aluminum foil used for baking in the 1970s is recycled into a window frame in the 1980s, and then into a beverage can in the 1990s, and so on.

sustainability growth | CO2 | hydrogen | carbon emissions | Aluminium recycling