Comment by kragen

1 day ago

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.