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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

Read the full whitepaper and our specific policy recommendations here: thebreakthrough.org/issues/energ...

thebreakthrough.org

A Crossroads for Aluminum and Electrified Heavy Industry

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

The path forward: >> Secure supply chains for aluminum precursors >> Develop mechanisms to aid electricity-intensive industry >> Settle large load interconnection, permitting, and transmission hurdles >> Support domestic recycling capabilities and workforce development

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

Such benefits are only marginal, including any improvements from AI or industrial automation This holds even in China, where many claim low-cost manufacturing stems from fully automated "dark factories." Chinese smelters are likely *more* labor intensive than Western smelters

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

There is some potential to lower prices with new technologies. Higher amperage cells are more energy efficient, and computer simulations and digital process controls can dynamically keep operations closer to the optimum

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

But capturing this process knowledge won't be easy. Electricity alone makes up 30% of aluminum production costs And no amount of market magic will make U.S. smelters competitive with aluminum made from cheap Canadian hydropower or subsidized Chinese coal power

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

Industrial electrolysis used in aluminum smelters parallels existing and emerging processing techniques Experience with aluminum smelting translates naturally into refining rare earths, magnesium, and copper. In the future, this could include gallium and green steel, too

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

Aluminum is everywhere: in transmission lines, car chassis, phone casings, solar frames, and (of course) in cans Light weight + high strength = a staple material in modern engineering But aluminum's end uses are just part of its strategic value...

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

Aluminum smelting could hold the secrets to industrial decarbonization and advanced manufacturing. But to rebuild its aluminum sector, the U.S. needs to learn how and why China seized control. Learn more in a new whitepaper from colleagues and myself thebreakthrough.org/issues/energ...

thebreakthrough.org

A Crossroads for Aluminum and Electrified Heavy Industry

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

China just lifted export bans on Ga, Sb, and Ge to the US GaSbGe sounds kinda like Gatsby F Scott Fitzgerald’s Gatsby was obsessed with a green light The green light represented wealth & the American dream Green also = environmental Ga Sb Ge = the American dream = clean energy

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

3 of the 5 PSC commissioners have stayed in power since 2022 after the 2022 election was cancelled GA's PSC has voted to raise rates 6 times since the cancelled election Monthly electric bills for residents served by Georgia Power are $43 more than they were 2 years ago

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

Georgia PSC elections show voters ARE responding to high electric bills Dems Alicia Johnson and Peter Hubbard beat incumbent Republicans Tim Echols and Fitz Johnson Utilities funded 87% of F. Johnson's & 61% Echols' campaigns They spent 12x as much as A. Johnson and Hubbard

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

Rare earths actually enable lasers of all kinds used in: - LiDAR - Self-driving cars - LASIK - Breaking up kidney stones - Photolithography & chip-making

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

Few know that we owe our global Internet infrastructure to Erbium (Er), a rare earth element But it's not NdPr used in permanent magnets so nobody cares!

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Dems forget that hydrogen and CO2 pipelines will stay pipe dreams without permitting reform

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

FTC oversees cell tower siting STB oversees railroad construction FERC oversees pipeline siting Transmission lines enable interstate commerce just as much…law needs to treat them like it!

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

As a 23 y/o who will be having my mid-life crisis in 2050, I feel uniquely justified in saying: “screw the 2050 deadline”

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

I’d prefer an apolitical climate transition that reaches net-zero by 2100 but is based on technological merit alone over what we’re doing now

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

DOE is officially moving forward with plans to site and build private data centers at Idaho National Lab DOE also identified Oak Ridge, Savannah River, and the deactivated Paducah uranium enrichment plant as DOE-owned lands that can house data centers www.energy.gov/ne/articles/...

energy.gov

Energy Department Seeks Proposals for AI Data Centers, Energy Projects at Idaho National Laboratory

Solicitation to scale-up reliable power technologies and cement U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

Many picture carbon capture as just a filter or sieve that you just put in a smokestack. It’s actually more like building a chemical plant next door Note that carbon capture uses so much energy that it needs its own source of electricity (the cogeneration plant)

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

I'm very interested in hearing more about the rationale behind designating REE investments as uneconomical...

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

An interesting note: "A former U.S. official said the Biden administration considered using CHIPS Act grants for rare earths but decided it was uneconomical, required many environmental exemptions and was best left for the Department of Energy to handle."

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

They mention earlier "Other countries, most notably China, offer massive industrial subsidies, overproduce exports, and disregard labor rules and environmental concerns." These factors (among many others) underpin the Chinese manufacturing behemoth. Not autonomous robot arms & Boston robotics dogs

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

Great article. Hurts to see it spread the false narrative: "Much of China’s formidable manufacturing advantage stems from robotics, automation, and the early adoption of AI. To compete with China, American factories will also need to be highly automated" www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

foreignaffairs.com

The World Economy Was Already Broken

But there is a better way to fix it.

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

Pic of a pressure vessel getting forged, likely for a nuclear reactor

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

So yeah, that's how rare earth magnets get made. It's niche, advanced metallurgy that needs well-trained technicians to operate equipment Also materials/mechanical/chemical engineers to do rigorous quality tests and certify the product as industrial grade

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

From there, the magnets get shaped, coated to protect against oxidation and then magnetized in a 3~5 Tesla field to "lock in" the magnetic properties

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

The last big step is annealing. Basically, slowly cooling the 1000°C metal in stages (still like 600°C). This "massages" out tension in the microstructure, giving the magnet even MORE magnetic power

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Sintering lets us control the atomic/crystal structure of the material Crystal structure matters for the same reason why diamond and graphite/pencil led are both carbon but have such different properties

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

"Why not just melt the alloy and put it into a mold then let it solidify?" This whole arduous process of powdering and sintering is what makes rare earth magnets their strong magnetic properties.

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Also in inert atmosphere, the sandcastle that’s just a *bit* more compact than before finally gets some structure in a process called sintering. Heating to ~1000°C, just below the melting point, fuses the powder particles while keeping the bulk shape.

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Powder gets shaped in a mold or “die" kinda like making a sandcastle. This also happens under vacuum/inert atmosphere. Gas compresses the powder equally on all sides while a magnetic field of 1~2 Tesla (100~200x stronger than a kitchen magnet) which makes the metal more magnetic

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Now we can mechanically powder the embrittled metal. First, a big crushing machine called a mill grinds the metal into mm-sized bits. Then, also under inert gas to not react with oxygen, you shoot pulses of super compressed gas at the coarse powder to get finer, µm-sized bits.

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Now we get into the steps that ppl omit. First, we need NdFeB alloy powder. But you can’t just file/crush a solid block of metal into powder. By carefully adding H2, the alloy gets brittled. Kinda like how water can crack rock from the inside when it freezes and expands.

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Making NdFeB alloy is what you’d expect: melting and mixing metals Except rare earth magnets need *extremely* high purities. Oxygen in the atmosphere is very reactive with metals (think rust), so melting happens under inert gas in a vacuum induction furnace

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Most talks about manufacturing rare earth magnets end with the NdFeB alloy. Of course, if that was the end I wouldn’t be posting this.

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

I'll cover rare earth NdFeB magnets used in EVs and wind turbines here. Might make more posts like this in a sort of "manufacturing 101" series if ppl like it

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Critical mineral processing and revitalizing American manufacturing are all the rage right now. But a big part of the supply chain gets left out: How do we actually make the solar cells, rare earth magnets, and high-strength alloys used in next-gen tech?

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

Ah, I see. For chemicals like aviation fuels, we use almost only CO2 from fossil fuels. But EOR does use natural CO2, you're right.

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

Ur instincts are right. All the CO2 we use today is from fossil fuels. Less than 1% comes from captured CO2

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

Haven’t seen that info for 2025. But IEA says U is only 5% of CCUS in 2030 for NZE scenario. They say 50 Mtpy CCUS capacity in 2025. So 5% of 50 Mtpy = 2.5 Mtpy. Or ~1% of all CO2 used today. So that’s an upper bound I guess using NZE and 2030 numbers as proxy. :) www.iea.org/commentaries...

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

Likely not. SAFs and other fuels are amongst the hardest to make synthetically The U in CCUS will be enhanced oil recovery or urea fertilizer production for the foreseeable future. These make up ~ 85% of CO2 used today per IEA www.iea.org/reports/putt...

iea.org

Putting CO2 to Use – Analysis - IEA

Putting CO2 to Use - Analysis and key findings. A report by the International Energy Agency.

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

Unlike certain other synfuel projects, I appreciate their transparency on the non-petro carbon source

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

Par Pacific (the refinery's current operator) would retrofit the facility w biomass pretreatment tech from Lutros They purify animal fat, vegetable/plant oils, used cooking oils, or algae-derived oils to be blend-able w fossil oil www.parpacific.com/sites/par-pa...

parpacific.com

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Ryan Alimento @ryanalimento.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Our report is designed so you can read about just the mineral(s) that you're interested in So if you need a primer on mineral supply chains for clean energy or want to see our stockpiling recommendations, read more here: thebreakthrough.org/issues/energ...

thebreakthrough.org

Taking Inventory of Critical Mineral Stockpiling

The Breakthrough Institute is an environmental research center based in Berkeley, California. Our research focuses on identifying and promoting…

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