Comment by specialist
2 days ago
> ships full of iron
At first I thought you meant "embodied energy" or some such.
Iceland "exports" geothermal energy by converting bauxite ore into aluminum.
Australian could "export" renewable energy by domestically converting iron ore into steel.
Yes, but remove the scare quotes; I'm talking about exporting those materials to people who burn them for energy, in most cases in batteries. The round-trip efficiency of that process is not great, but I think should be around 70% for aluminum, and better for iron and magnesium; and the specific energy (MJ/kg) for those metals is significantly better than for conventional hydrocarbon fuels.