This episode was originally aired on March 16, 2021.
Norway doesn't seem like a natural place for the aluminium industry to blossom. But somehow, it did – due in part to the unlikely combination of WWII Germany, a modest English engineer who created a worker’s paradise, an ambitious industrialist prosecuted as a traitor and a hardworking PhD. All of these factors and personalities helped build modern Norway, one aluminium ingot at a time.
Today's guests are Hans Otto Frøland, Svein Richard Brandtzæg and Randi Holmestad. Frøland is one of the researchers working in the Fate of Nations project, which is based at NTNU and focused on the global history and political economy of natural resources. To see archival photographs related to the episode, check out this companion article in Norwegian SciTech News.
You can read more about the history of aluminium in Norway here:
From Warfare to Welfare: Business-Government Relations in the Aluminium Industry (2012) Frøland, Hans Otto; Ingulstad, Mats
Akademika Forlag
Frøland, Hans Otto; Kobberrød, Jan Thomas. (2009) The Norwegian Contribution to Göring's Megalomania. Norway's Aluminium Industry during World War II. Cahiers d'histoire de l'aluminium. vol. 42-43.
Frøland, Hans Otto. (2007) The Norwegian Aluminium Expansion Program in the Context of European integration, 1955-1975. Cahiers d'histoire de l'aluminium.
Gendron, Robin S.; Ingulstad, Mats; Storli, Espen. (2013) Aluminum Ore: The Political Economy of the Global Bauxite Industry. University of British Columbia Press. 2013. ISBN 978-0-7748-2533-7.
Like the show? Have questions? Contact me, Nancy Bazilchuk, at nancy.bazilchuk@ntnu.no
You can find the transcript for the show here.