That was one of my thoughts, I dought I ever mentioned it before though.
"How about using all that current to refine aluminum? "
In my earlier experiments with producing hydrogen with a lye and water mix and aluminum an aluminum oxide is produced. The water gives off the hydrogen to the air but the oxygen oxidizes the aluminum. The oxidized aluminun is basically fine dust that has settled into the bottom of the stainless steel bowls. I figure drain that off, rinse well, you get back a strong lye water solution and lots of clean oxidized aluminum. Ship the oxide to a lightning prone site and pile it high and attract lighting to it.
WHAM, maybe you would release the oxygen from the oxide for cleaner air and have back your aluminum to recast into useable stuff again.
Using junk scrap aluminum for a way to produce hydrogen for a motor feul for cars as needed, maybe also capture the currant stored in the aluminum at the same time for charging batteries. This could provide dual feul for a hybrid electric hydrogen powered vehicle. On a large scale collect the oxides and recycle those. Maybe a few lighting strikes??
Course we would need millions of sites to recycle it, lighting never strikes in the same place twice 
Anyway, with further thought and research I think a fairly simple and cost effective solution similar to the above could make aluminum a very good renewable resource with other bennifits as well. By renewable resource I mean basically once we have plenty of aluminum for feul, create oxides, refine those oxides back to aluminum for feul again it's just like charging batteries or growing trees, renewable provided we don't just throw away the oxides as a by product!!
Lighting of course would be a renewable or natural resource same as wind or sun. Also free, just need to capture it, we do it with wind and sun, so why not??
And as for the water used, it also is somewhat renewable itself and plentyfull nearly everywhere. Does not have to be drinking quality, filtered swamp water will probably work fine. Hey maybe even reduce the need for water at the same time, pee in your fuel tank, save water by not flushing toilets at rest rooms and reduce the need for fresh drinking water to wash away the pee in the toilets
Ok maybe that last one is a bit silly (maybe not).
Hydrogen is everywhere, the oxygen could be released anywhere, lighting strikes probably everywhere also!
Perhaps this would be a possible solution to help clean CA. air. Ship the oxides to California, hit with a lighting bolt, release good clean oxygen then ship the aluminum back to us elsewhere. Or another thought is under the right conditions use the methode in areas with low rain fall. Try to get the oxygen released to combine back with hydrogen in the process and create rain which is water of course and one of the needed items for the water and lye solution
Also rain would wash the polution from the air some what, and using hydrogen for a feul insead of gasolene we would be producing less polution, eventually perhaps increasing the air quality. Who knows maybe even reverse the greenhouse effect a tiny bit.
As far as the lye itself, it comes from wood ash and is renewable also. Grow more trees (cleans the air, reduces CO2) burn trees for heat (creates ash) make lye, use above methode for feul etc.. Combine the released oxygen with hyrdrogen and the rain washes the polution from the air caused by burning the wood to begin with.
I haven't done anything for a while with the aluminum/lye/water. My experiment has been sitting undisturbed and I looked at it the other day. The water is cyrstal clear and all the aluminun oxides are settled to the bottom. I have a few things to try soon now that it has aged awhile. Also I found a place to buy 50lb aluminum ingots, scrap prices. As the weather is getting better now I will be working towards a hydrogen powered generator and also motor vehicle very soon!
