Feb 11, 2009

steel cathedrals

Nice set of shots of Japanese 'factories' at Bouncing Red Ball. These are actually refineries (presumably oil). As a chemical engineer they are dear to my heart. Most of the tall columns you see are distillation columns which separate the crude into various components like diesel, gasoline, residual, etc. I got to work on a small one as an undergrad. You can also see some heat exhangers; the nuclear power plant looking structures (the actual nuclear power plant structure by the way is also a heat exchanger).

An old friend in high school had a home that looked out onto a refinery. I'm sure it lowered the property value but I always thought it was beautiful. Particularly at night when it was all lit up.

1 comment:

Craig said...

hah! I just added this shot as my desktop image, and now I see your post today.

They are beautiful.