An ingenious solution for Century Aluminum?

Here's hoping a special power arrangement makes a difference
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CENTURY Aluminum is precisely the kind of industrial operation West Virginia should fight for. When company officials shut down the Jackson County plant in February 2009, more than 600 people lost their jobs.  

Aluminum is a commodity, and subject to intense competition worldwide. Every nickel matters.

The fact that the company was paying $100 million a year for electric power helped lead to the shutdown of the smelting operation at the Ravenswood works. That puts pressure on Rio Tinto's adjacent fabrication mill.

What can West Virginia do to help? Well, legislators passed a bill that would let the state Public Service Commission set special rates for big industrial buyers.

The company could pay higher prices for power in good times, and use its overpayments to help it pay power bills in bad times.

"It levels out those highs and lows and allows them  . . . to make a long-term investment in West Virginia and in the commodity they are producing," Delegate Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson, told MetroNews.

It's an ingenious approach. Here's hoping it makes a critical difference.

 CENTURY Aluminum is precisely the kind of industrial operation West Virginia should fight for. When company officials shut down the Jackson County plant in February 2009, more than 600 people lost their jobs.  

Aluminum is a commodity, and subject to intense competition worldwide. Every nickel matters.

The fact that the company was paying $100 million a year for electric power helped lead to the shutdown of the smelting operation at the Ravenswood works. That puts pressure on Rio Tinto's adjacent fabrication mill.

What can West Virginia do to help? Well, legislators passed a bill that would let the state Public Service Commission set special rates for big industrial buyers.

The company could pay higher prices for power in good times, and use its overpayments to help it pay power bills in bad times.

"It levels out those highs and lows and allows them  . . . to make a long-term investment in West Virginia and in the commodity they are producing," Delegate Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson, told MetroNews.

It's an ingenious approach. Here's hoping it makes a critical difference.

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