Dear rehctub,

There are still 4 aluminium smelters in operation in
Australia however, as the following link explains -
Rio Tinto has plans to develop a new carbon-free
aluminium smelting process :

http://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/rio-tinto-to-develop-new-carbon-free-aluminium-smelting-process-20180510-p4zek7.html

Foxy, what is here now in mining has no relevance to the discussion, as its new mines that are of interest. Furthermore, you may of may not be aware that Australia has a R&D tax write off rate of 125%, provided that's still in. This simply means that for every dollar invested in R&D, $1.25 is tax deductable. Now i'm uncertain as to whether or not this new mine fits that criteria so can't really comment any further.

This is one of the anomalies conveniently omitted by those who pay out on big companies who they claim don't pay/enough tax.
Sadly, sometimes the truth is just not juicy enough.

Bring on Flat Tax !

//Rio Tinto has plans to develop a new carbon-free
aluminium smelting process//

With a complete lack of detail about how they hope to achieve this. Not that's impossible, mind you. But even if they can cut the direct emissions from aluminium smelting by getting rid of the carbon electrodes that produce those emissions, aluminium smelting will still require huge amounts of electricity: the Tomago aluminium smelter near Newcastle is the singles largest energy consumer in NSW - a massive 12% of total capacity.

Call me a skeptic, but I don't think solar panels and windfarms are going to cut it when it comes to aluminium smelting. If you want it carbon free, you need hydro or nuclear as well as non-carbon electrodes.