Alcoa Warrick Operations

In the background of many of the pictures of the Newburg Dam and Tow postings (#1, #2, #3 and #4) are several smokestacks. For example:

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These are part of the Alcoa and Vectren Energy plants. My Dad explained that it was built during World War 2 to smelt ore shipped up the river from South America. I see from their web site that they now recycle cans and also create sheet/plate. According to Wikipeida, it is the largest Alcoa smelting plant in the USA (309 kilotons/year). This surprises me because I would have thought the plants in Tennessee (215) and Washington (184) would be larger since they should have access to cheap hydroelectric power. (The Hall-Heroult process that is used to smelt aluminum oxide uses a lot of electricity for electrolysis.)  I took a side trip east of the Newburgh Dam to grab some pictures. Even with a wide angle lens (18 mm) and a farm field between the plant and the State Road 66, I had to take two pictures to get the whole plant.

And I got a closeup of the center part since it was more interesting.

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I'm taking these pictures from the road near the top of this satellite picture just west of the clump of trees. So you can see that I'm looking at just a small part of the total plant complex.

Satellite

Michael Davis posted
AGC Warrick Generating Station in Warrick County, Indiana
Michael Matisko: Note that below the blue-ringed coal silos, you can just barely see two of the machines, under the Quanset Hut-like weather shields on the outdoor T/G floor.

 

David Robinson posted, cropped
Warrick plant, Newburgh IN.
Scott Shively: 3 out of 4 units running. Not bad.
Phillip Aaron Palmer: Scott Shively Spring unit 1 outage!

David Reherman posted
Tim Sullivan: That would be Alcoa Warrick Power Plant and Vectren FB Culley Station in southern Indiana
Bob Ciminel: They used to send me out into the switchyard in this crap. “Oh, the lightning rods will protect you.” I had more confidence in my plastic hardhat and rubber soles!

Scott Shively posted

Anonymous member posted
Alcoa/AGC Warrick Power Plant, with Centerpoint F.B. Culley in the background.

The railroad service is a branch line that goes south from Boonville, IN. In Boonville, the branch joined the Southern Railway route that went from Evansville to Huntingburg. In Huntingburg it connected with a Southern route from Louisville to St. Louis. Today, these routes are part of the Norfolk Southern System.

KIPC

Update: Smelting operations in America are hurting. I assume the price of aluminum is going down because countries that have bauxite mines are building their own smelters. Cheaper aluminum would help Ford's switch to aluminum for truck bed bodies.

Alcoa to restart Newburgh plant.

Alcoa is trying to expand Liberty Mine to support its three potlines.

Michael Matisko commented on a post in the context of the Mesta Machine Co.:

I worked as an engineer for THE Aluminum Company, as did a lot of my relatives and near-relatives. Alcoa had an eclectic group of mills at Warrick Operations - United 66” reversing and 6-stand 60” hot mill, Blaw-Knox 5 stand x 44”, 5 stand x 60”, and 1 stand x 60” cold mills, plus a Mesta 6 stand x 60” cold mill.

At Davenport we had the United 220”, Mesta 160”, Mesta 144”, and Mesta 96” hot mills.

They sure did cast a lot of rolling mill stands around Pittsburgh between Mesta, United, and Blaw-Knox.

Richard Allison: Michael Matisko I seen those Mesta stands at the main Alcoa plant in Alcoa, TN.

Brian Olson: Michael Matisko Correction, The Blaw-knox foundry was in East Chicago, Indiana not the Pittsburgh area.