I ran into a fascinating paper published in the 1950's by a Norwegian group who ran a pilot plant to electrowin iron from iron-sulfide waste from a copper mine. They claimed something like 4-5 kwh per kg. Unlike electrowining aluminum it's a room temp aqueous process. My thought is, it's probably economic if you have access to intermittent sources of really cheap electricity.

What type of energy can they develop? Iceland is well known for their geothermal energy I wouldn’t have thought that would have a huge impact on the landscape more than any other low rise industrial buildings.

70% of electricity is hydro, most of the rest is geothermal. On the consumption side about 70% is used for aluminum.

Aluminum is called congealed electricity due to the energy intensive manufacturing process and recycling is very economical.