Wolfrick, I believe the plan is to dissolve loadsa soil in hydrofluoric acid, which binds to the aluminium to form (if I remember correctly) aluminium fluoride. Then separate the aluminium fluoride from the solution and free the aluminium from it. 

Wolfrick, this explains the OSE extraction technique: http://vimeo.com/18095549

I don't know much about aluminium but should we not be looking at a recycling system as well as extracting new material?

Sorry, Eric_K, but you can't use normal aqueous electrolysis to purify aluminum in a water solution. Alumina is purified by electrolysis in a bath of molten cryolite at high temperature, requiring vast amounts of energy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall-Héroult
This approach does not eliminate the need for high-energy, high-temperature aluminum refining via the Hall process. What it does do is allow extraction of alumina from normal, non-strategic clays rather than rare, strategic bauxite ore.

Use of alternative energy sources may make this a green(er) process, but it is definitely an industrial process, not something I'm going to be able to realistically do in my back yard.
~Rick

Or how should i put it

the only thing that keep you from doing it in your back yard is that : you cannot afford or construct something to do it in your backyard

the post industrial world, shall be see as democratisation of industrial world

Science, technology, and Life (our life, our way of life) is empirical

A spiritual step forward, one step after an other

Electrolysis... I don't think that this is within the scope of what you're doing immediately as far as large scale production of materials goes. I do however believe, that through chemical and other means, ores can indeed be processed, refined, smelted into different alloys and used by even an amateur. I can appreciate the Metal_Refining page of the wiki, but the focus doesn't seem quite there to achieve results over gathering information that may be useful in the future. I believe that some of the process material listed there is dangerous and would not be useful to be included in this project. I mean, the goal is to create good, viable, easy to use and assemble technologies, not methane atmosphere chambers or obscure reagent grade materials. However, these are processes slightly more complicated than just dumping clay into an electrolysis machine. That makes it seem quite easy. I've seen the electrolysis type processes done with gold and silver bearing ore and it works, however it isn't exactly cost effective for things that are cheaper like aluminum. As you can see by my example, hobbyists are mainly doing this for rare and valuable metals and minerals.

Now, processing gold or something of the like is something quite different entirely and could be done by just adding an electrolysis machine to the mix, because if you're after gold you're likely to go out of the way to get the materials as you'll be paid back anyway. I think if you're aiming for iron it could be done easier with magnets to gather "black sand" type materials if you're not going after oxide ore. Either way, for now at least people are likely better off bartering for the aluminum. That goes for other materials as well, though I'm sure someone will come up with a good guide to separate elements and create various chemicals for the use of the project.

I'm sure there's someone in any community who would be willing to trade scrap aluminum for enough dirt bricks to build a storage shed or even the labor, bricks and energy required to do it. You could probably also get cans quite easily and bartering / buying from a scrap dealer isn't out of the question if you network. Hell, you could open up a scrap buying business for your community to get what you're after and it'd be more cost effect than some ideas. Unless you want to go out of your way to buy an x-ray machine that tells you exactly what type of metals you're looking at (if you have the $20,000 to spend). I think that's one of the reasons that the earthship makers went after not only natural substances in their environment, but also things that had been cast off like tires, tin cans and aluminum cans. Taking that to the next level and melting them down for applications other than wall materials wouldn't be that hard and I agree that should definitely be considered, just not through a route that is more complicated or dangerous than safe, simple and effective "in spirit".

Sorry, hydrofluoric acid just isn't safe at all in my opinion, definitely not so for a hackerspace, OpenFarm or individual to have around in the quantities needed to refine metal. It's very dangerous and if you get your arm covered you're going straight to the hospital, probably staying there and perhaps pushing up daisies. I'm not exaggerating about it, it has disasterous effects on the body and it reacts with Calcium and Magnesium which the body is chock full of. I'm definitely adamant that something else should be looked at, even if it has lower production values or takes longer. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10680492 details it, here's a part of the abstract:

RESULTS:
It was found that twenty percent of HF was enough to cause a skin damage, and might bring about fatal hypocalcemia after a prolonged contact. High concentration of HF (40%) could cause deep tissue necrosis within a short time, and result in a fatal hypocalcemia within 24 hour even in the case of a small area injury.
CONCLUSION:
It is important to treat the patient with HF injury as early as possible. Sufficient calcium must be applied guided by laboratory study in order to prevent the fatal hypocalcemia.

Melting down metal into rough stock, fullering it out into sheets and then using it isn't so hard you can't master it for general use very quickly. Propane gas, burners (forge) and the like could be used, but a blast, induction, solar or carbon furnace would work.
You could probably even manage a rough product with a machine designed to do it that doesn't use high temperatures, as cans tend to flatten. Or you could do it in a small scale with just a forge, but that would be messy and hard to handle in my opinion, though crucibles and flux use in forges would work for something that melts at low temperatures like aluminium. However, from my experiences aluminum can burn easily just as well as vaporize, just as other metals can so be careful and do your own due diligence before melting anything. Copper can be melted with solar power using a large-scale (several feet) magnifying lens fairly easily, if only in small scale.

A note on clay... some blue-ish clays are silver bearing, if you ever come across them, that type of clay and others might be more valuable if set aside for refining, but would probably make some kick ass bricks too. =)

I am new to all this but very
interested in the viability of small scale materials production. I have a
couple of questions:<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

• 
  
  Is there any roadmap to next steps with
  these projects? I would like to get involved in this as well as some others but
  I am not sure where to begin. I have watched the video and looked at the wiki
  articles but next steps remain unclear to me.
• 
  
  Is there a notion of dependencies or
  order of these projects or is it based on the interests of the group members? I
  noticed that the wiki page lists dependencies on the solar and steam engine
  projects for power, but that obviously could be plugged in later.
• 
  
  For this project the video leads me
  to believe that a ton of work has already been done on this by the interviewee
  (sorry forgot the name). Are the results of this available anywhere? Was the
  work open source or are there potential patent issues?

Sorry for the list of questions,
just trying to get a handle on how I can help.