UFO EXPERT LOU ELIZONDO, CAN’T
WATCH THE SHOW? KENNETH DEBBIE ARE.
Can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn?
#MOUTHTRUMPETMONDAY. K BY. They call it aluminium,
and they tell me that my chronic mispronunciation
is just one more example of America’s ongoing efforts
to needlessly simplify the English language.
I don’t know about that.
According to Google,
it was a British chemist named Humphry Davy
who first called the stuff alumium
because it occurred in a substance called alum.
He then wrote a pretty famous book called,
"Elements of Chemical Philosophy,"
in which he changed both the spelling
and the pronunciation to aluminum.
That’s the word that wound up in Webster’s Dictionary
and that’s the way everybody around the world
would be saying it today
but for another group of scientists,
British scientists who came along years later
and added an I.
Why?
In their words,
because they wanted it to sound more classical.
Far be it for me
to needlessly simplify the English language,
but tonight, we are not taking you
to the Logan Aluminium Plant in Russellville, Kentucky
to learn more about the most important metal in the world
because this is not another episode
of how things work in jolly old England.
This is How America Works.
And over here, it’s aluminum.
Of all the metals that reinforce our nation,
aluminum comes in a class all its own.
It doesn’t rust, it’s lightweight,
and in spite of that, it is incredibly strong,
which might explain why, these days,
it’s also in such high demand.
So much so,
the United States uses more than 10,000 metric tons of it
each and every day.
More than enough to build four Boeing 747s an hour,
but it doesn’t just go into aeronautics.
There’s also the automotive industry, power lines,
sky rises, appliances, ships, trains, foils, cans,
and countless other applications
that would be crippled without this almighty element.
And with recent supply chain issues
threatening to do just that,
the aluminum manufacturers of these United States
simply cannot crank out their product fast enough.
Take Logan Aluminum in Russellville, Kentucky, for instance.
Not so long ago,
this facility was churning out
about five million pounds of aluminum every day.
But now, that number has soared
to a near uncanny six million,
which has to be melted down,
cast, and rolled out by quitting time.
And getting all that started
are guys like operating technician, Matt Turley.
- I work at the aluminum recycle process for Logan Aluminum
where we get in baled aluminum cans,
and we shred ’em down,
and we process them for melting.
- [Mike] Across the country,
there are dozens of plants
devoted to turning scrap aluminum into fresh new metal.
And once processed,
these particular cans will be transformed into,
well, more cans
because we Americans go through about
200 million of those every day.
Happily though,
that leaves Matt with plenty of raw material to work with.
- So much cheaper to reuse scrap aluminum.
It’s also better for the environment, right?
It’s something that we can take,
and bring back to our facility,
and shred up and melt down with little to no loss.
- [Mike] Typically, Matt will bring
about 50 bales of aluminum into the plant at a time.
And with the latest of those now feeding
onto one of Logan’s resident shredders
known as the Zato,
he heads for the control room
to keep an eye on their progress.
- This camera right here shows the inside of the Zato.
And what this is doing is when that bale falls in,
you have what we call a pusher arm.
And that arm will push the material into these teeth.
So these teeth are coming together
and it’s shredding those bales up into bigger chunks.
- [Mike] But even a machine as ravenous as the Zato
will bite off more than it can chew,
something Matt is noticing just now.
But hey, that’s why he’s here.
- We got two bales that fell in there.
The machines jammed up.
I’m gonna have to put the machine in manual
and try to unjam this thing.
So I’ve got this remote right here.
There’s a pusher arm inside of that Zato.
It moves the bales back and forth into the teeth.
Before we do anything,
we need to try and do this manually
with this remote right here.
- [Mike] But this particular jam
seems to be beyond the remote’s reach.
- Gosh, man, this is not working at all.
It’s not gonna happen for us.
- When he is not dealing with jams,
Matt also keeps an eye on the aluminum scrap
as it’s further shredded, cleaned,
and ultimately melted down.
But from there, it enters the domain of this lady,
Holding Furnace Technician, Rosie Miles.
She’s one of the people in charge
of turning all that molten metal
into six million pounds of ingots before days’ end.
- We have a really big day ahead of us.
We’re gonna have to be really, really busy,
and we’re all gonna have to work together,
and work really safe to get this done.
- [Mike] For Rosie’s part,
that means stirring the latest batch of molten aluminum
to bring impurities called dross to the surface
where it can then be removed with the 20 foot skimmer.
- You wanna be careful to get dross and not good metal.
Gonna take my time.
Take it slow.
Gonna bring this metal up to the edge,
the lip of the holder.
It actually looks pretty good.
It looks pretty clean.
You get a good sample and go from there.
- [Mike] There’s not much point
in pouring a 30 ton ingot if it’s not up to spec,
so Rosie relies on an automated computer system
to show her exactly what she’s working with.
- Let’s see, let’s see.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
- [Mike] Nobody said belting out
six million pounds of aluminum per day was easy.
In fact, it’s nigh on impossible
unless everyone and everything at Logan
is working exactly at as it should.
And since everything includes
several hundred finely tuned machines,
big and small,
there’s a guy to keep an eye on those too,
Engineering Site Maintenance Technician, Chad Stone.
- Engineering site maintenance
is all about putting out the fires,
pretty much anything it takes to keep plant running.
The fun part, I think,
is the troubleshooting and corrective maintenance,
you know, the things that happen that you don’t expect.
- [Mike] Lucky for Chad,
there’s more than enough unexpected fun
to keep his days filled out nicely.
But when that’s not happening,
Chad also handles more routine maintenance
like servicing the six automated guided vehicles
or AGVs that move product throughout the mill.
That is, when they aren’t down for a weekly power nap.
- Today, we’re gonna be changing batteries in them.
We have a magnet that grabs onto the end of the tray
and pulls the battery out.
Our batteries here are much larger than a car battery.
- [Mike] The drained batteries are unloaded
onto a charging station about the size of a truck,
which has a pa ones already waiting.
- I will rotate my arm all the way around here
to the other end so I can push the battery in,
restart the vehicle here.
That one’s done.
- [Mike] That’s one order of business down.
(walkie talkie chatter)
- Go ahead.
- [Mike] And just in time
for some of that unexpected fun
Chad seems to like so much.
- 10-4, I’ll be on my way.
- [Mike] Wle Chad heads to
what will presumably be the first of many calls today,
elsewhere at Loganee’s shif
is off to a much smoother start.
Her name is Sarah Whitescarver
and she’s what’s known as a Reversing Mill Operator
because she operates the reversing mill,
the first of many mills
designed to take 30 inch thick aluminum ingots
and press them down to the width of a sheet of paper.
- The reason they call it a reversing mill
is because the ingot,
when the ingot goes in the mill,
it goes forward and reverse.
Every time it goes through another path,
it gets smaller and smaller
until it is down to about an inch thickness.
- [Mike] That’s the point at which the sheet
will move on to the next mill for further rolling.
But if Sarah doesn’t ensure
that her product is up to standards,
it’ll be back to the furnace for remelting,
something she’ll need to avoid at all costs.
- You do have to keep your eyes on everything
that’s going on.
We have so many different screens up here
that we’re always watching.
You wanna make sure that we’re running it through
as fast and safely as we can
because once the ingot gets cold or the slab gets cold,
we will lose the slab.
- [Mike] Not on Sarah’s watch,
at least not if she can help it.
And with this sheet looking ready for the next mill,
all that’s left is a little trim work.
- [Sarah] We trim the heads and the tails off of the slab.
It makes it easier for the finishing mill,
when they get it, to go through their mill.
And then it’ll go through to the other side
and we’ll cut the tail at six inches as well.
- [Mike] One down, 64 to go.
And with no time to lose,
Sarah brings in the next thing for ingot.
- Crap, we got a refusal.
- [Mike] Wait, what?
What’s a refusal?