Century Aluminum is selling its idled Hawesville smelter in Western Kentucky to a data center company after choosing Oklahoma as the site for a new smelter, the first built in the U.S. since 1980.
Century Aluminum is selling its idled Hawesville smelter in Western Kentucky to a data center company after choosing Oklahoma as the site for a new smelter, the first built in the U.S. since 1980. (Century Aluminum photo)
This story was originally published by Canary Media.
When I first met John Holbrook at his office in Northeastern Kentucky, the region seemed to be on the cusp of a revival. It was a scorching summer day in 2024, and Century Aluminum was considering building an enormous smelter in this corner of Appalachia — one that would create thousands of jobs in an area where employment was steadily drying up.
Holbrook, who heads the Tri-State Building and Construction Trades Council, called the $5 billion project a “life-changing” opportunity. He’d joined a coalition of labor organizers, environmentalists, and local officials who supported Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s attempt to hammer out an agreement to supply Century’s new smelter with clean electricity.
Two weeks ago, Century finally announced its plans. The Chicago-based manufacturer said it will build an aluminum plant in Oklahoma instead, in partnership with Emirates Global Aluminium. The jointly developed facility will be America’s first new smelter since 1980 — and the largest in the country — if completed as planned by the end of the decade.
“It’s very disappointing for the Kentucky craftspeople that I represent,” Holbrook said recently on a video call from his office in Ashland, which was blanketed in ice from a major winter storm. “It’s tough,” he added. “But we are resilient people.”
The news of Century’s decision had barely sunk in for Kentuckians when the company made another surprising announcement.
Last week, Century said it had sold its idled Hawesville smelter in Western Kentucky to a data center company, squashing any possibility that the aluminum plant would be restarted. The developer, TeraWulf, will now have access to the site’s 480 megawatts of existing grid capacity for bitcoin mining and high-performance computing — tasks that are less sensitive to power prices than smelting aluminum.
When Century shut down production in Hawesville in 2022, cutting more than 600 jobs, the company pointed to “skyrocketing energy costs” as the primary reason.
Energy has always been the Achilles’ heel of smelters.
The facilities consume tremendous amounts of electricity to transform raw materials into a versatile metal that’s used in cars, planes, power cables, solar panels, and beverage cans. Producers must secure long-term contracts with utilities for affordable, reliable power in order to compete in global markets. But those deals are hard to come by, and smelters that rely on fossil fuel–heavy grids are particularly vulnerable to spikes in coal and gas prices.
‘You have to take a 30-to-50-year horizon’
For its new smelter, Century had been scouting locations where it could access not only competitive rates but also ample supplies of carbon-free electricity. In 2024, the company was awarded up to $500 million from the Biden administration’s Department of Energy to build a “modern, low-emission” facility as part of a broader federal effort to demonstrate cleaner manufacturing technologies for domestic industries.
It’s unclear whether the terms of Century’s grant have changed under the Trump administration, which is propping up aging coal plants as it works to block renewable-energy projects. But Century recently pointed to Oklahoma’s abundant wind generation and solar power potential in explaining its decision to partner with Emirates Global Aluminium on a smelter near Tulsa.