Ravenswood Power Station ("Big Allis"), Queens, NYC, 2024.
All the pixels with none of the respiratory ailments or climate impact at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/53732990785
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this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2024
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This is a composite of two side-by-side images, each captured with the Rodenstock 50mm/4.0 HR Digaron-W lens (@ f/5.6), shifted left and right +/- 12mm to produce a 205MP 2:1 aspect ratio final image.
The Ravenswood plant, along the East River in Long Island City/Astoria Queens, was built by Con Ed in stages during the early- and mid- 1960's. When opened, it had capacity for about 20% of the city's electricity demand, as well as producing co-generated steam for the city's steam loop.
For industrial subjects especially, I usually end up preferring the most straightforward and boring perspective I can find that just lets the subject speak for itself. The masters of this approach were Bernd and Hilla Becher, whose "Basic Forms" work richly repays your attention if you like this kind of stuff. https://www.sfmoma.org/artist/Bernd_and_Hilla_Becher/
(They would have undoubtedly waited for an overcast day to shoot Big Allis, but I liked the clouds.)
Known locally as "Big Allis" (after Allis-Chalmers, the manufacturer of the largest of the four generators in the plant), Ravenswood is fired by both natural gas (now the primary fuel) and oil, and also has the capability (never used, as far as I know) to burn coal.
Ravenswood has been linked to a spike in asthma and other respiratory disorders among local residents. There is pressure to decommission the generators and replace them with battery banks to store renewable energy from upstate.
@mattblaze@federate.social And yet they chose to shutter Indian Point Nuclear Plant instead of this...
@mattblaze@federate.social Though I was small at the time, I'm pretty sure I remember seeing coal barges there in the 80s.
@rbellinger@mastodon.social It was apparently never actually coal fired, though it was built with that capability. Oil is delivered by barge, though. (And there's a lot of other barge traffic in the East River).
@mattblaze@federate.social Perhaps my child self confused it with the Domino Sugar plant, which received bulk barges of sugar into the 2000s. Big Alice has such extensive coal handling infrastructure -- including a giant clamshell bucket out front -- for a plant that never burned any.