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The battery's "only waste product is aluminum hydroxide..."

Producing Al(OH)3 is an intermediate step in the Bayer process (used worldwide) to convert bauxite to Al2O3 - a process which requires a lot of energy and produces a lot of (dangerous) waste.

So there may be potential there for this battery's 'waste' to actually save -more- energy.

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No, the step that converts the aluminium hydroxide into aluminium metal is an extremely energy intensive step. You won't be saving energy unless you use solar thermal to heat the kiln. And you'd have to do this if you wanted to use the batteries again as the batteries are single use.

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