Energy-hungry aluminum plant is swept up in Oklahoma governor’s race

A power-hungry aluminum smelter planned in Oklahoma is facing a new legal challenge that aims to stop the massive project in its tracks.

Last week, Oklahoma’s attorney general sued to block Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) and Century Aluminum from building the $4 billion facility, which is slated to more than double the nation’s capacity for producing aluminum from scratch.

Gentner Drummond, the state’s attorney general, said he took action to protect Oklahomans from the ​“anticipated public nuisance” he claims the smelter represents. Drummond is running to be the Republican candidate for Oklahoma governor, and the lawsuit has intensified debate about the project in what is becoming an increasingly heated primary race.

Drummond raised concerns that the facility would pollute the air and water and harm cattle and crops in Inola, the rural town in northeastern Oklahoma that is set to host the plant. Residents in Inola share those environmental worries, and local opposition to the smelter — which would be America’s largest if built — is mounting as developers get closer to starting construction this year.

The lawsuit also flagged the smelter’s enormous electricity appetite. The new facility is expected to require over 1 gigawatt of continuous electricity to operate — enough to power a city the size of Boston or Nashville annually. The attorney general claimed that this level of consumption will place ​“extraordinary strain on the regional grid” and threaten ​“the reliability and affordability of electricity for Oklahoma ratepayers.”

The developers are currently pushing to finalize a crucial long-term power contract for the smelter, which could draw from Oklahoma’s abundant natural gas and wind energy resources and solar energy potential.

Drummond further objected to the foreign involvement in the project: EGA, a state-owned enterprise of the United Arab Emirates, has a 60% stake in the smelter, while Chicago-based Century owns 40%.

However, the timing of Drummond’s June 2 filing has raised questions about his motivations, and it’s unclear how big a threat the legal action poses to the smelter’s prospects.

Drummond filed his lawsuit four days after President Donald Trump — who has championed the smelter — endorsed Drummond’s rival, former state Sen. Mike Mazzei, for the June 16 gubernatorial primary election.

Mazzei himself had strongly opposed the aluminum plant until very recently, criticizing the hundreds of millions of dollars in tax incentives the project is expected to receive from the state of Oklahoma, including power discounts. The project has also been awarded a $500 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

On May 29, just hours before Trump endorsed him, Mazzei publicly reversed course. He announced on social media that he would strongly support the smelter as governor and would ​“work with the Trump administration to bring more projects like it to Oklahoma.”

Oklahoma’s outgoing Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, accused Drummond of ​“weaponizing” the attorney general’s office to retaliate against Trump. In a video message on Facebook, he framed the smelter as key to protecting America’s national security interests, given that China accounts for about 60% of the world’s annual output. Aluminum is used to make not only household products and construction materials but also fighter jets, warships, helicopters, and ammunition.

Drummond, for his part, has denied any ulterior motives. He said he filed his lawsuit in response to the developers’ air-quality permit application, which they submitted on May 19, the news site Oklahoma Watch reported.

“A primary aluminum smelter does not belong in a community’s backyard, and its emissions do not respect property lines,” Drummond said in his initial statement, adding that winds could carry pollutants into the surrounding northeastern Oklahoma communities.

What the new smelter might mean for Oklahoma

Putting aside the messy governor’s race, the aluminum smelter will undoubtedly change the landscape in Inola, which hails itself as the world’s ​“hay capital” and is home to many thousands of heads of cattle. The industrial facility is set to span 350 acres along the Verdigris River, where every year it will convert raw materials into 750,000 metric tons of aluminum, not far from schools, homes, and farms.

Last fall, the climate advocacy group Industrious Labs conducted a statewide survey to gauge Oklahomans’ views on the proposed smelter. Some 62% of respondents said they supported the project. But proponents, opponents, and skeptics all said they had at least some environmental worries about bringing heavy industry like aluminum smelting to the state.

“We’ve seen bipartisan support for reshoring domestic manufacturing, and specifically aluminum — both the Biden and Trump administrations are prioritizing this,” said Annie Sartor, senior campaigns director at Industrious Labs. ​“But concern around local air and water pollution is also bipartisan. People are concerned about dirty industry coming into their neighborhoods.”

Traditionally, America’s smelters have spewed significant amounts of pollution, including fluoride and mercury, which can damage crops and livestock. They also release perfluorochemicals — potent and long-lasting greenhouse gases — and emit sulfur dioxide, which can harm people’s respiratory systems and damage vegetation. Smelters have discharged wastewater into rivers and streams, and they generate toxic waste as the lining in the smelting tanks breaks down.

EGA and Century claim the Inola facility will be significantly cleaner than existing U.S. smelters — the last of which was built in 1980. The companies are building the project through a joint venture named Oklahoma Primary Aluminum, which will use the latest version of technologies that EGA has been developing over decades.

“This facility is designed to be the most modern aluminum plant in the world,” Oklahoma Primary Aluminum said in a statement to Canary Media. On their website, the developers say the smelter will be ​“highly controlled, with multiple environmental safeguards in place,” including for filtering and monitoring pollution and reducing emissions and energy use.

Oklahoma Primary Aluminum also nodded to questions about the smelter’s enormous draw on the region’s grid. Developers have been negotiating a power agreement for more than a year with Public Service Company of Oklahoma, a subsidiary of the utility giant AEP. Any deal will need to be reviewed through a regulatory process overseen by Oklahoma’s public utilities commission.

“A key purpose of that process is to assess and minimize potential impacts on residential and commercial customers,” the developers said in response to the lawsuit. They added that EGA’s modern smelting technology can reduce electricity use by about a third for every ton of aluminum produced, compared with America’s remaining fleet of aging smelters.