Exploring Australia’s push for green aluminium

Scarlett Evans

Tue, May 13, 2025, 6:04 AM 7 min read

Aluminium is the second most used metal globally after steel, essential in everything from aviation and marine applications to electric vehicles, with usage expected to rise as nations double down on their electrification efforts.

However, its production is one of the most energy intensive, consisting of three steps; mining bauxite, refining to alumina and smelting to make aluminium, each of which requires massive amounts of electricity. According to the Australian Aluminium Council, the country is the world’s sixth-largest producer of aluminium and the largest exporter of alumina, with the industry identified as a key growth opportunity for Australia as global demand rises.

Several government incentives have been introduced to target emissions in this sector; most recently a A$750m ($467.27m) grant in March for green metal technologies, and a new policy launched in January to fund mining companies using renewable energy in the aluminium smelting process

Yet decarbonisation of the aluminium industry is a mammoth task. Technological progress, as well as consistent government support, is required across the supply chain if the industry is to see true transformation.

The Australian Government has identified four main decarbonisation technologies to clean up aluminium and help Australia on its pathway to net-zero emissions by 2050.

When combined, the technologies – mechanical vapour recompression (MVR), electric boilers, electric calcination and hydrogen calcination – are said to have the potential to reduce emissions from Australia’s six alumina refineries by up to 98%.

Despite their potential, development of these tools is in varying stages of technological and commercial maturity, and significant scale in investment and technology adaptation has been highlighted as crucial.

Christopher Hutchinson, professor of material sciences and engineering at Monash University, says decarbonising aluminium can be addressed in two ways. The first option is to keep similar processes to those currently in use but replace fossil fuels with renewables where possible (as seen in the MVR approach). The second option is to change the way aluminium is refined.

The difficulty of both, as Alcoa highlighted in its progress report on a project to integrate MVR, powered by renewable energy at its Pinjarra Alumina Refinery, is the need to overhaul current infrastructure.

The report, published last November, found that the project needs more technological and infrastructure development than previously thought. It also identified a lack of key electrical engineering skills and pointed to the need for greater collaboration with contractors to design new equipment.