so after some google work i found out kaiser aluminum mead works is officially closed and was sold to a salvager who is now selling anything he can pick off this plant. so i assume its good to explore. i shall be go proing this one for sure.
here the story
link -
http://wikimapia.org/1858389/Kaiser-Aluminum-Mead-Works
Story - Though often referred to as a smelter, this was actually a reduction
plant. The process of converting alumina (aluminum oxide) into aluminum
is known as reduction. It's an electrolytic process requiring large
amounts of electrical current to separate the oxygen atom from the
aluminum allowing it to combine with the carbon of the anode to form
carbon dioxide. This plant had 8 potlines that ran in the neighborhood
of 70,000 amps at 650 to 700 volts DC each.
Built in 1941 by the Defense Plant Corp. and operated by Alcoa. After
WWII this plant was declared surplus and bought at a discount by Henry
Kaiser in 1946 when Alcoa was prohibited from bidding to prevent a
monopoly because Alcoa was already embroiled in an anti-trust action.
This reduction plant ran "pre-bake" rather than Soderberg pot-cells and
was completely self-contained with multiple wells and a sewage treatment
plant. The original electrical buss-work in the potrooms was silver.
This was during the war years when copper was needed more elsewhere.
The plant back then was heavily guarded by armed guards. Rumor was that
when the silver was removed and replaced with copper, there was less
than a pound difference in the amount taken out as compared to how much
went in.
The Mead plant ran more or less for 54 years until the energy market
shenanigans brought about by Enron. It was way more profitable to
shutdown and sell on the market the large allotment of power from the
BPA. Kaiser made somewhere around $500 million for this, but the BPA
wasn't happy and when it came time to negotiate the next power contract,
the BPA demanded market value for the power necessary to run the plant.
Since there's no way to make money at reducing aluminum at market rate
for power, Kaiser shut the plant permanently. It has since been bought
by a salvager who's been selling off, salvaging and scrapping
everything worth any money.
sounds like a half scrapped smelter that was open for more than 50 years would be a perfect place to explore this summer. anyone in spokane, hit me up if u wanna check this place out as well.
