True, but if this is going to be a large-scale replacement for petroleum products, there's going to have to be a HUGE initial influx of aluminum into the supply stream, which means intense mining. And our Green "friends" aren't going to like that, even if it means reducing vehicle emissions to nearly nothing, so best to consider how to neutralize them now, before this goes large-scale.
Of course, given the weight issue, I'm sure there will be some applications where weight is a critical factor that will still use some kind of petrochemical, but a combination of hydrogen power and biodiesel would reduce our dependency on petroleum to near nil.
The weight issue isn’t that big a differential compared to gasoline. Gasoline weighs 7 lbs per gallon, so a full tank of gas is adding 100 lbs to a vehicle’s dry weight. And the tank adds only another 40 lbs. To drive that same distance would require oxidizing only 60 lbs of aluminum, but the water and apparatus adds another 300 lbs.
Not a major factor when most vehicles are over 3,000 lbs to begin with.
The other source for this article gave more detailed numbers.