NEW TECHNOLOGY — Pictured, from left, Constellium CEO Jean-Marc Germain, U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, and Constellium Ravenswood Vice President Brian McCallie listen as Casting Operations Manager Steve Tabor explains where a new SmartMelt furnace and other equipment will go in Constellium’s casthouse. -- Steven Allen Adams

RAVENSWOOD – U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin was on hand to announce more than $100 million for Constellium Ravenswood, including potential funding for a demonstration project to build a cleaner-burning SmartMelt furnace for manufacturing aluminum products.

Manchin, U.S. Department of Energy Under Secretary for Infrastructure Senior Advisor Brian Anderson, and state Department of Economic Development Cabinet Secretary Mitch Carmichael joined Constellium company officials Monday morning to announced that Constellium Ravenswood was selected begin negotiations for up to $75 million for the federal Industrial Demonstrations Program.

“We’re talking close to a hundred million dollars that will be coming to this wonderful plant to basically show how to make and do what they do in the aluminum area, if you will, much cleaner and much better than anywhere in the world,” said Manchin, D-W.Va.

The $75 million – made possible through the $1.2 billion infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the $737 billion Inflation Reduction Act – will be used by Constellium to build a SmartMelt furnace in its casthouse that will emit little-to-no carbon emissions and use cleaner sources of fuel for melting aluminum, including hydrogen.

The new SmartMelt facility is meant to lower the amount of greenhouse gas emissions the facility generates and decarbonize the casthouse – the place where molten aluminum is poured into furnaces and mixed with other metals to create different strengths of aluminum products. Constellium’s SmartMelt furnaces will make use of computers, sensors, and artificial intelligence to monitor the furnace to create its products while using the least amount of energy consumption.

“We’re leading the charge to keep manufacturing in America,” Manchin said. “We’re producing the building blocks that we need every day for our country, for our defense of our nation, and for also the products that we rely on a daily basis, but doing it better than anywhere else, rather than relying on other parts of the world to do it for us. We’re bringing manufacturing back.”

Constellium CEO Jean-Marc Germain believes their SmartMelt furnaces will help their Ravenswood Facility be more efficient, emit less greenhouse gases, make better use of recycled scrap aluminum, and improve the safety of the workplace by using a hands-free casting process. The company began testing SmartMelt furnaces nearly four years ago, with trials in using hydrogen beginning in 2022.

“The casthouse of the future is here,” Germain said. “The SmartMelt technology is a way for us to automate our processes, better control our processes, and use artificial intelligence as well to be able to get to the products we need in a faster, more productive and safer ways, whilst consuming less energy. So, this is really paving the way for a plant that is going to have a competitive advantage for many, many years.”

The company also plans to use the $75 million to build a training and wellness center for its employees and their families, including on-site childcare, as well as reinvesting in the local Ravenswood/Jackson County community.

Constellium’s 200-page application was submitted to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations for its Industrial Demonstrations Program. Anderson – who is also the executive director of the Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization – is a Ripley High School graduate whose first job was at Constellium. He said he was proud to be announcing the projects on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy.

“It’s really exciting to see Constellium partnering with the Department of Energy and investing in this site to move it forward as the first SmartMelt furnace in the United States,” Anderson said. “Anchor facilities, anchor plants, anchor manufacturing – like here at Constellium – not only affects the very local region, but it is an anchor to the economy of the entire region.”

Manchin said Constellium will also receive $23 million through the fiscal year 2024 bipartisan appropriations package passed by Congress Saturday morning to renovate and re-open closed casting units at Constellium.

Carmichael, a Jackson County native whose father worked at the plant, praised Manchin and the U.S. Department of Energy for seeing the potential in the area. Just down the road, BHE Renewables and Precision Castparts Corp. – both owned by Berkshire Hathaway – are building a new titanium melt facility powered by solar energy. The project – considered to be a first-of-its-kind renewable energy microgrid-powered industrial site – will manufacture parts for the aerospace industry.

“This area now will be the world’s low carbon, green energy, aerospace hub,” Carmichael said. “It just feels so good to be a part of this and to look out and see you workers and know you’ll make us so proud … You will make this plant shine and it will be such a great testament to the workers and the workforce and what’s occurring in our county and our state and our nation.”

Following Monday’s announcement, Manchin, Anderson, and Carmichael were taken on a tour of Constellium’s casthouse and shown where the future SmartMelt furnace and equipment will be located.