Hello.
First off i just want to say the reason i looked into this was i saw the natural resources map mode for a couple of seconds in the Hungary campaign and i saw that there was 10 aluminium in Jutland, Denmark.
Now since this is country which i was born and live in i wanted to know what Denmark actually exported during WW2 and i found alot of about this thing called Cryolite.
I don't know if this is in the game already as i have not seen a resource map mode of Greenland.
*text written like this is directly copied as i don't know how to make some symbols or i feel this explains it better than i could or it is about stuff that i just don't know enough about.
Now what is Cryolite? Cryolite, also known as sodium hexafluoroaluminate, is a colourless compound forming cube-like crystals consisting of aluminium 3+ cations binding six fluoride F- anions, forming octahedral like AlF63-, with smaller sodium + ions to balance the charge. It is also a very rare mineral that in the only large quantity have been found on Greenland in the Iviguut mine.
More importantly for us to know is that Cryolite is used to create aluminium, it itself actually contains aluminium, but not very much only around 10-15% where as the much more commonly used mineral used to create aluminium Bauxite contains around 50% and is very common around the world, the whole reason this mineral was so sort after was that to lure the metal out of the Bauxite on an industrial scale. Three electrons need to be added to the Al3+ ions to make them neutral and metallic, and although it was recognised early on that the way to do this was to pass an electric current through a solution of the ions - what we call electrolysis - it took some 50 years of experimenting until this was achieved.
The problem is that you cannot electrolyse aluminium in water, as the electrons would combine with H+ ions, producing hydrogen gas. If we circumvent the problem by melting aluminium oxide directly, the very high melting point, 2072°C, turns out to be prohibitively expensive. This is where Cryolite comes in. In 1886, both Charles Hall in Ohio, US, and Paul Héroult in Normandy, France, discovered that molten cryolite, with the moderate melting temperature of only 1012°C, easily dissolves aluminium oxide.
This made mass production of aluminium immensly cheaper than it had been previously and when the war broke out it become even more valuble resource in the construction of airplanes for the war effort. Now when Denmark was occupied in 1940 by Germany, it was a scary moment for Britain and Canada as to what would happen the the vital Cryolite, especially since that the Canadian aluminium manufacturer Alcan imported 3500 tons alone anually, not even mentioning what the US imported.
There was even planned a smaller invasion from Canada's side to secure the mine which was backed up by Britain since Denmark was occupied by Germany it was technically enemy territoy, but when the US finally joined the war a protectorate was established over Greenland by them.
When the mine had been emptied in 1987 where it had been replaced by a synthetic substitute, there had been mined over 4 million tons through out the mine's lifetime.
And finally to the actual suggestion, i think that how important this resource is should be represented in game on Greenland with a sizable deposit of the Aluminum resource, i know it wasn't processed there but it was where it was mined and exported from, it would also give Greenland alot of the strategic importance it had during WW2 and since it will be under Denmark it can actualy represent the US', Canada's, Britain's etc.valuable importing of the aluminium and also put them in the question of when Denmark most likely will fall to Germany, what to do to retain the resource and the fear of having it fall into enemy hands.
That is all i had to say, i hope it isn't too much reading and i am sorry for any grammatical or spelling mistakes
First off i just want to say the reason i looked into this was i saw the natural resources map mode for a couple of seconds in the Hungary campaign and i saw that there was 10 aluminium in Jutland, Denmark.
Now since this is country which i was born and live in i wanted to know what Denmark actually exported during WW2 and i found alot of about this thing called Cryolite.
I don't know if this is in the game already as i have not seen a resource map mode of Greenland.
*text written like this is directly copied as i don't know how to make some symbols or i feel this explains it better than i could or it is about stuff that i just don't know enough about.
Now what is Cryolite? Cryolite, also known as sodium hexafluoroaluminate, is a colourless compound forming cube-like crystals consisting of aluminium 3+ cations binding six fluoride F- anions, forming octahedral like AlF63-, with smaller sodium + ions to balance the charge. It is also a very rare mineral that in the only large quantity have been found on Greenland in the Iviguut mine.
More importantly for us to know is that Cryolite is used to create aluminium, it itself actually contains aluminium, but not very much only around 10-15% where as the much more commonly used mineral used to create aluminium Bauxite contains around 50% and is very common around the world, the whole reason this mineral was so sort after was that to lure the metal out of the Bauxite on an industrial scale. Three electrons need to be added to the Al3+ ions to make them neutral and metallic, and although it was recognised early on that the way to do this was to pass an electric current through a solution of the ions - what we call electrolysis - it took some 50 years of experimenting until this was achieved.
The problem is that you cannot electrolyse aluminium in water, as the electrons would combine with H+ ions, producing hydrogen gas. If we circumvent the problem by melting aluminium oxide directly, the very high melting point, 2072°C, turns out to be prohibitively expensive. This is where Cryolite comes in. In 1886, both Charles Hall in Ohio, US, and Paul Héroult in Normandy, France, discovered that molten cryolite, with the moderate melting temperature of only 1012°C, easily dissolves aluminium oxide.
This made mass production of aluminium immensly cheaper than it had been previously and when the war broke out it become even more valuble resource in the construction of airplanes for the war effort. Now when Denmark was occupied in 1940 by Germany, it was a scary moment for Britain and Canada as to what would happen the the vital Cryolite, especially since that the Canadian aluminium manufacturer Alcan imported 3500 tons alone anually, not even mentioning what the US imported.
There was even planned a smaller invasion from Canada's side to secure the mine which was backed up by Britain since Denmark was occupied by Germany it was technically enemy territoy, but when the US finally joined the war a protectorate was established over Greenland by them.
When the mine had been emptied in 1987 where it had been replaced by a synthetic substitute, there had been mined over 4 million tons through out the mine's lifetime.
And finally to the actual suggestion, i think that how important this resource is should be represented in game on Greenland with a sizable deposit of the Aluminum resource, i know it wasn't processed there but it was where it was mined and exported from, it would also give Greenland alot of the strategic importance it had during WW2 and since it will be under Denmark it can actualy represent the US', Canada's, Britain's etc.valuable importing of the aluminium and also put them in the question of when Denmark most likely will fall to Germany, what to do to retain the resource and the fear of having it fall into enemy hands.
That is all i had to say, i hope it isn't too much reading and i am sorry for any grammatical or spelling mistakes
Last edited:
- 12
- 3
