Optics and Exposure

Clairton Coke Works in the midst of a "quench," where they use water to cool down the coke as it leaves a 2,000C oven.

A few weeks back, a friend of mine told me that the Coke Battery in Monessen, PA had been shut down and was going to be gutted for parts within the month. A coke battery is a facility that takes in raw coal and processes it into an intermediate product that is used as a fuel in the steel production process. This was a rare opportunity to be able to get into a plant that hadn’t yet been stripped, and we were told the time table was short, so we took the unusual step of exploring during the week (thank God for flexible work schedules). Three of us made the trip down, found the plant pretty quickly, and immediately knew that something was wrong. We expected the place to be mostly abandoned, but the parking lot was more than half full. Obviously the workers were still there. Was it possible that our intel was a little premature? Continue reading