The largest US aluminum producer, Alcoa, is close to selling its idle Massena East smelter in upstate New York to bitcoin company New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG), as it disposes of idle assets and taps into demand for industrial sites ready to generate power.
The company’s CEO, Bill Oplinger, said the company is in advanced talks and expects the deal to close “by the middle of this year,” Bloomberg reports.
The site, located along the St. Lawrence River, has been idle since 2014, when Alcoa closed it due to high operating costs and global competition.
The appeal lies in the power of the site, not the metal itself. Aluminum smelters are built to operate 24 hours a day, extracting large amounts of electricity through dedicated substations and transmission lines. When they close, that infrastructure remains.
For bitcoin miners and data center developers, this can shave years off the time needed to secure network access.
Massena East also has access to hydroelectric power from the New York Power Authority, a draw for businesses seeking low-cost, carbon-free energy.
The agreement reflects a broader change. Earlier this year, Century Aluminum sold a Kentucky foundry to TeraWulf (WULF), which plans to build a digital infrastructure campus supporting high-performance computing and artificial intelligence.
