Qualla: Anglesey Aluminium

Anglesey Aluminium: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

At its peak, the Anglesey Aluminium smelter on the western edge of Holyhead burned through 255 megawatts of electricity around the clock -- making it the single largest electrical load in the United Kingdom. Most of that power came down a transmission line from Wylfa nuclear power station, fifteen miles away on the north Anglesey coast. The smelter and the reactor had been built together, in the early 1970s, as a single industrial-energy system. They worked beautifully as long as both were running. In 2009 the power contract ended, no new one was signed, and the smelter shut down. Five hundred and forty people lost their jobs in a town of about thirteen thousand. The chimney came down in March 2024. Most of the rest of the plant is gone.

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Anglesey Aluminium: Built for the Reactor

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Anglesey Aluminium Metal Ltd was a joint venture between the British-Australian mining company Rio Tinto and the American firm Kaiser Aluminum. The smelter was built on the Penrhos Estate -- 500 acres sold by the Stanley family of Penrhos Hall for the project -- and began produci...

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Anglesey Aluminium: The Contract That Ended

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Wylfa contract was due to expire in 2009. By the mid-2000s, with Wylfa itself approaching the end of its design life, no replacement supply could be secured at a price that would keep the smelter competitive against producers in Iceland and the Gulf. Rio Tinto announced the c...

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Anglesey Aluminium: The Chimney Comes Down

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

For more than a decade the empty plant sat above the western edge of the town, the 450-foot chimney visible from Holyhead Mountain and from the Stena Line ferries pulling into the harbour. The chimney had been a navigation landmark. Sailors approaching the port could pick it out ...

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Anglesey Aluminium: What Remains

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Adjacent to the cleared site is Penrhos Country Park, a public-access space on what was once part of the Stanley estate. The Aluminium Powder Company, ALPOCO, still operates near the former smelter, producing aluminium powder for industrial customers in chemicals, metallurgy, pyr...

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