This aluminum thing is starting to remind me of the potential LNG glut. I think that I recently read that Saudi Arabia and Alcoa have just signed a contract to construct a huge new aluminum manufacturing complex. I guess someone thinks that China is going to need a LOT of aluminum. We shall see. It sounds like a long term investment to me. Making aluminum is a very energy intensive process, so cheap electricity is the key to profit. Aluminum is one of the most cost effective things to recycle, because remelting scrap only uses 10% of the energy needed to make aluminum by tearing the aluminum atoms from the oxygen atoms, which are tightly bound in aluminum ore. If anyone can find a cheaper way to break that chemical bond, they will become richer than Warren Buffet, because aluminum is quite abundant, making up a lot of the Earth's crust. The most amazing thing about the metal is how it can be friction stir welded with a rotating tool. If I hadn't seen pictures of the process on the excellent NASA website, I would have bet anyone that such a thing was impossible. But the British managed to do it. The love of the aluminum atom for the oxygen atom does have one use which almost everyone enjoys-firecrackers. The explosion of a firecracker results from the recombination of aluminum atoms (in the form of a very fine aluminum powder called 'dark pyro' aluminum,) with the oxygen atoms present in molecules which easily release oxygen in large quantanties, such as potassium perchlorate(KClO4). When the firecracker explodes, some of the electrical energy that was used in breaking the oxygen-aluminum molecular bond is released as heat and light when the stable bond is again formed. The white smoke from a firecracker contains the stable aluminum oxide molecule. Teenage students like that chemistry demonstration as the white-hot fireball and blast are quite impressive. Now that I think about it, there are over a billion Chinese. Maybe they are planning a lot of celebrations.