steam drillers, page-41

Opaline,
With your understanding of Bauxite to Alumina, do any of the processes involved require heat ?? Just thinking here that the other byproduct of the 50MW units will be some waste low level heat. If this can be used in any industry located there, it's another win-win. Even for the smelting it could pre-heat the pots.

BTW, on your note on the power lines in the Hunter, Tomago Aluminium is the biggest smelter. My understanding is that it was built directly in conjunction with a couple of large coal fired stations, Eraring and later Bayswater to provide the electricity on the doorstep and long term power contracts. Each of these in turn has their own coal source on their doorsteps (though there's a bit more open market for their coal source now).

Point being the smelting capacity was explicitly built at the coal mine location for assured 'fuel' long term. Also interesting to note RIO are about to build a huge smelter in Sarawak based on the parallel development of a huge hydro electric scheme (ie green power). All of these have exact parallels to the potential you are raising...