The Element of Surprise

You might associate it with the foil that wraps leftover pizza and the shiny craft beer cans sold in breweries, but aluminum is literally everywhere. Scoop up a handful of soil or gravel anywhere on Earth, and you’ll find atoms of bonded aluminum hidden inside. Over the past 150 years, that abundance has led production of the silvery metal to skyrocket (pun intended) and created an industry responsible for 2-3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. 

But even before it was used in everything from airplanes to deodorant, the trade of aluminum minerals helped color the world, finance the Vatican, and led to the mass collection of human urine.

In this episode, we’re piloting a new segment called “The Element of Surprise.” It’s all about the hidden histories behind the periodic table’s most unassuming atoms, isotopes, and molecules. And we’re kicking things off with aluminum.

Editor's note: A previous version of this episode misstated the number of  Allied casualties during a 1943 bombing campaign against a German cryolite factory, claiming all but one of 180 bombers were destroyed. In actuality, all but one of 180 bombers returned home safely.  The episode has been corrected. 

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LINKS

The World Economic Forum has published a number of studies and articles on the need to decarbonize the aluminum industry and the promising technologies that might help us get there. 

A few years ago, Alcoa announced plans to build a new aluminum smelting plant in Maniitsoq, Greenland. PBS’s POV released a documentary about how people there reckoned with the island’s colonial past as the project progressed, stalled, and eventually collapsed. 

The National Park Service has a fun little read about the Washington Monument’s aluminum tip. 

Sean Adams, at the University of Florida, wrote an excellent recap of the U.S. government’s antitrust case against aluminum giant Alcoa. 

Here’s another one from Foreign Policy about how industrial cartels and monopolies helped Hitler gain power. 

Check out Charlie Halloran’s “The Alcoa Sessions,” to imagine what kind of music might have been played during Alcoa’s cruise voyages between New Orleans and Jamaica between 1949 and 1959. 

 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported, mixed, and produced by Taylor Quimby

Mixed by Taylor Quimby

Editing by Rebecca Lavoie, with help from Nate Hegyi and Felix Poon

Our staff includes Justine Paradis 

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio

Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Ryan James Carr, and L.M. Styles

Outside/In is a production of New