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Last year I saw a presentation by the head of Technology Development of Hydro, which has aluminium electrolysis as one of their core businesses. He proposed the same thing you do, using aluminium as an energy carrier: make aluminium (primary production though, not recycling) where you have power, then transport aluminium instead of setting up expensive DC subsea cables.

Since I work in renewables and hydrogen, I asked him if this could be done for wind power; it could not, because aluminium factories require an enormous amount of steady power. If power is interrupted, not only production stops, but the electrolysis cells solidify and cannot be restarted: this is a damage that requires hundreds of millions of dollars and months of lost production to fix. For example, this happened when the Qatalum, Qatar plant went offline.

So, intermittent renewables such as solar and wind are not a good match for aluminium, because it requires constant power. Hydro power is a better match.

Unfortunately that article is bogus.

The voltage of a grid can not go down for a "millisecond".

I don't know what the actual reason was that the plant had a malfunction, but "breaking" is most certainly caused by a malfunction in the plant itself.

E.g. if there was indeed a drop in voltage, some computer ran into a "wrong decision" and shut down a "vital part" of the plant while the rest of the plant kept going on.

Why can't there be a "drop" in voltage as short as a millisecond is easy to explain: in Europe we have 60Hz grid. That means every generator turns 60 times per second, 3600 times per minute.
A millisecond is equivalent to 60/1000 turns, that is perhaps a centimeter, depending on how big the generator is. So: how should it be possible that a generator turns a fraction of a degree, the voltage in the grid drops, and a fraction of a degree later the voltage is back?

The first thing that is happening if there are production/consumption problems in the grid is: the frequency changes, not the voltage.

So and here: http://www.hydro.com/de/Deutsc...

The company itself makes clear that the power was gone for "several milliseconds" and that the computers controlling the production "crashed".

So they have no backup power for their computers and then make an "unexplainable fluke" responsible and claim it was solar/wind power? On what basis? Likely to get compensation from their insurance and not be held reliable for being unable to operate a computer properly, rofl.

I don't know any bank that has no "own" backup power for their data center ... but a aluminium production plant, where not only property but also live is at risk, has none?

I just read their pdf based documentation http://www.hydro.com/library/attachments/en/press_ room/floating_windmills2_en.pdf but it appears they will use a 120 meter long concrete submerged cylinder. This thing will weigh the hundreds of tons you are talking about. But you are right, there is an issue they have not solved yet because they say Quote

"For the concept to work, it is crucial that the wind turbines be light, requiring further technological development to realize the goal of establishing offshore wind farms at greater sea depths."

So it seems they too are concerned about the weight at the top. I reckon that might be fixable by placing the generator in the base of the concrete tube or tower and run a shaft or transmission belt up to the rotor.

I suppose lowering the rotor is out of the question because the blades might hit ships.

Some cities, such as Reykjavik, already use hydrogen to power buses. But Iceland gets some electricity and over 80% of its heating and hot water from geothermal energy sources, and can produce the hydrogen emission-free. Other countries need to find ways to produce the hydrogen sustainably.

Note the bright white flash, and light colored smoke. That is not a battery fire (don't ask how I know) The metal is magnesium http://www.hydro.com/en/about/history/1946_1977/19 50.html International challenges Despite Hydro's leading role in developing magnesium technology, the company decided in 2002 to close its production plant at Porsgrunn and instead concentrate on further developments of its facility in Becancour, Canada, built in the early 1990s. It also established access to metal in China. http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/chem03/chem0 3547.htm www.cabrillo.edu/~rroland//CHEM1A/JoshLabManual/11 -HeatofCombustion(Magnesium).doc Bet it was nearly this model: http://laptopmag.com/Review/Dell-Latitude-D620.htm Magnesium, a silvery white metal of atomic weight 24.32, ignites at 632C and burns at 1982C, with magnesium oxide (MgO) as its combustion product. In an exothermic reaction, metallic magnesium can ignite to produce magnesium dihydroxide (ie, Mg(OH)2) and hydrogen. Magnesium is used in either powdered or solid form as an incendiary agent for both illumination and antipersonnel purposes. Various alloys of magnesium (eg, aluminum/zinc/magnesium alloy found in US M126 round) are mechanically sturdier but also can be ignited easily. Thermite is a mixture of powdered or granular aluminum and powdered iron oxide. When combined with other substances, such as binders, the material is termed a "thermate." All such materials react vigorously when heated to the combustion temperature of aluminum. This reaction produces aluminum oxide, elemental iron, and sufficient heat to melt the iron. The reaction temperature is approximately 2200C.

I don't know what level of effort is being put into refining magnesium from sea water or sea salt, but this is likely to be very energy-intensive also.

That is a well-known technique that was developed before WWII. Here's an abandoned American plant from that time.

In my home town of Porsgrunn, Norway, the production of magnesium from sea water and dolomite was discontinued a few years ago, mostly because of Chinese competition. The reason for building this factory in Norway in the first place was of course our vast amounts of relatively cheap hydroelectric power. In spite of that, several aluminum smelting plants beside the magnesium plant has been put out of business in the last decade because of the soaring wages and general cost level of our country.

"Hush must have started with solid billets of aluminium of almost five and a half centimetres thick to create the side panels. Those solid blocks of aluminium have then been machined into vertical fins, then each one of the fins has again been machined with ridges for ultimate heat dissipation."

The part is not machined, it is made by exstrusion
This is a very common way of manufacturing heatsinks.

Norsk Hydro is the same company who supplied Timothy McVeigh with fertiziler for the Oklahoma city bombing.

Now, they are making hydrogen fuel stations, undermining the oil based economy. I'm not a sucker for conspiracy theory, but it makes you wonder.

Take a look at Iceland's initiative to go to all hydrogen powered vehicles. Do a search for "Iceland's Hydrogen Economy" to find all sorts of info on how hydrogen is working for them and their bid to convert their country completely by 2030-40. They'll open their first hydrogen filling station in April of this year, starting with some of their bus lines using it, and eventually plan to convert their fishing fleet, etc. Some amazing stuff really.

Some other good links are:
American Hydrogen Association
and
Fuel Cells Explained

Basically, they landed by parachute in Norway, infiltrated one of the most highly defended places in Nazi-controlled Europe, and set of some charges. The charges were placed next to some fat cables deep in a long tunnel. The cables were carrying enough current (many tens of thousands of amps) that the electromagnetic effects when they shorted blew a kilometer of tunnel to bits.

Elsewhere in this thread, I mentioned Dan Kurzman's book Blood and Water - it goes into great detail about the sabotage of the Norsk Hydro heavy-water plant, and the workings of the Nazi A-bomb effort. It's a riveting read, that makes James Bond look like a piker.

Aside from the German program, there was also a British program; rivalries with the Americans hampered both the US and British efforts.

Not mentioned in Blood and Water, Japan also had an A-bomb program of its own, and circumstantial evidence suggests that the Japanese managed to explode a test weapon. This is discussed in Robert K. Wilcox's work, Japan's Secret War (ISBN 1-56924-815-X). Much of this work was carried out in what is now North Korea. A giant industrial complex near Hungnam was dismantled by the Soviets and shipped to Russia after the war ended.