Fort Lupton-based Golden Aluminum has won $22.3 million in federal energy grants to decarbonize its mini-mill, incorporate more efficient scrap and use less water, in a competition with hundreds of other heavy industry applicants.
The grants will fund a new process line and job training for aluminum handling that requires less heating and cooling before rolling out the final aluminum coils, and can take advantage of higher scrap content in the metal that saves 95% of the energy used in making primary aluminum from ore.
Golden Aluminum President and CEO Jeff Frim said 33 out of 411 applicants were selected nationwide for a share of $6 billion in clean energy grants from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. Golden Aluminum will openly share its new aluminum rolling process, and Frim believes the demonstrations could help promote onsite mini-mills that can use clean energy as a power source and reduce transportation emissions by locating next to scrap or recycling centers.
“I think we’re the second smallest of the grants, and probably the smallest company that was awarded,” Frim said. Golden Aluminum is privately held, but original founders Bill Coors and Coors Brewing had a long-sought goal of making new aluminum beverage cans and other metal parts from 100% recycled aluminum scrap. A mini-mill traditionally melts scrap and recycled aluminum to make rolls of new sheeting, rather than smelting raw ore from scratch.
“We’re ready to go,” Frim said. With stiff competition for the Department of Energy funding, Frim said, “we’re really, really proud of that accomplishment.”
The new process line will also allow Golden Aluminum to supply electric-vehicle makers and other renewable energy industries with more parts. The grant and new process will not greatly expand employment, Frim said, but will support job-skills training and a highly paid workforce in the Fort Lupton area.
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Golden Aluminum’s new process will also use 86% less water in production than a previous standard called direct-chilling, according to a DOE release listing the national grants.
One goal of the DOE grants is to seek breakthroughs in reducing carbon emissions in the so-called “hard to decarbonize” heavy industries, such as steel and cement-making. Such industrial sites rely on intense heat for mills and kilns that previously could only be provided by heavy fossil fuel burning.
Golden Aluminum will be able to burn less natural gas with the new process, which eliminates some heating and cooling steps and produces a thinner aluminum sheet that requires less energy intensity in rolling into a final thickness. As Colorado’s energy grid moves further away from coal and natural gas toward cleanly generated solar and wind electricity, the state’s manufacturing sector has advantages, Frim said.
“If people are buying products from China, they’re buying from coal plants,” Frim said.