Key aluminum ingredient for energy transition gets US support

By Jason Plautz | 01/13/2025 06:54 AM EST

California-based startup Brimstone is producing alumina as a byproduct of a low-carbon alternative to cement.

 California-based Brimstone is producing alumina, a key ingredient for producing aluminum, from a more common calcium silicate rock used to produce a low-carbon alternative to cement.

California-based Brimstone is producing alumina, a key ingredient for producing aluminum, from a more common calcium silicate rock used to produce a low-carbon alternative to cement. Brimstone

A low-carbon concrete company backed by the Department of Energy says that it will also be able to produce a primary component of aluminum, a metal crucial to the nation’s energy transition.

California-based startup Brimstone announced last week that its process to create low-carbon cement and concrete ingredients could also produce smelter-grade alumina out of common rocks. That would represent the first new domestic supply of the primary input for aluminum in more than a decade.

“This is going to be huge in terms of allowing us to bring aluminum manufacturing back to the U.S. and addressing the national security issues that arise from not having a domestic supply,” said Brimstone co-founder and CEO Cody Finke in an interview. “Right now aluminum is critical … and we can take the key component from a common rock.”

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Aluminum’s relative light weight and low cost has made it valuable for electric vehicles, solar panels and transmission lines. A 2021 report from the International Energy Agency found that expanding the grid to accommodate new demand and clean energy sources would alone increase aluminum demand 40 percent between 2020 and 2040.

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