The reason that I highlighted alumina is that it would seem to negate your arguement above that iron smelters need to be located adjacent to steel manufacturing and rolling mills (EG: China).
If that is true, then surely we should be converting our alumina into aluminium alloys while in liquid form , casting it and milling it into automotive & other aluminium products because it takes more energy to smelt alumina/aluminium than it does steel & casting/machining is mostly robitised nowadays making labour input arguements redundant.Furthermore we can then export to the USA & our other FTA countries such as Japan, Korea & China directly to the auto manufacturers reducing the carbon footprint and , with an economy of scale, being globally competitive.
Alumina/aluminium production is all about the input cost of electricity ( not labour) and we can generate te cheapest electricity in the world short of hydro.
We have already lost significant domestiv market for aluminium since the big 3 car manufacturers pulled the pin on Aus.
Cheers MM
PS: China is now importing raw bauxite from Australia & using Aussie thermal coal to generate the electricity needed to smelt alumina and refine it to aluminium and alluminium alloys while we gradually boil like a frog in a jar!
