Another Henderson landmark is coming down.
google.com, pub-2427795083793513, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0
Station One is coming down. Built between 1950 and 1951 for Henderson’s growing demand for electricity and due to Government regulations in 1995 was retired. I know to some the old building is an eyesore. It’s no longer in use and just sitting there. I will admit, the area around it is an eyesore. The old conveyor belt systems and coal filled parking lots could be cleaned up and paved and grassed over. But when I look at that building, I think about the architects that drew up the original plans for the building design. Of course I wasn’t there but I picture them sitting around a drafting table thinking of a design that would best fit the interest and use of the new power plant and somehow “hat tip” to the Mighty Ohio River and her majestic banks.
When I look at the building I see a work of art. A practical working place and art all rolled up into one. It’s just not a plan building on the riverbank. When I look at it I see a paddlewheel boat. With it’s pilot’s house out in front of the three smoke stacks that follow. It’s as though she is steaming up river. Steaming her way into the future. Face into the wind. Bow into the current. Pushing water through time. I am sure it was a delight to see her while traveling on the river. Some I am sure when they saw it knew that they were back home safely in Henderson.
It’s a Landmark and well, I understand the building was built and insulated with asbestos at a time when asbestos was “in”. It has stood for sixty plus years and could have easily stood over watch for another sixty years but as it is said. “It is not meant to be”. Like a lot of other Henderson landmarks…Progress to some is more important than the history that is carries. So, she is coming down. She is coming down as I type. Preparations are already in place and she is expected to be gone forever by May 2015. The view of the river will be forever changed. From what I am told it will be a future park at some point. Which to the people that walk and traverse the river walk, that area will have a beautiful new view to look at.
To those like me that are attached to art and landmarks, it will be missed. But as I used to read in the Gleaner as a young kid in the editorials someone used to say all the time… “Progress is wonderful”.
chuck
chuck@kickacts.com
Categories: General Tags: architect, electricity, henderson, history, hmpl, ky, landmark, mighty ohio river, station one, the gleaner
Clean Nuclear Energy? No such thing…
google.com, pub-2427795083793513, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0
(There are interesting links at the bottom)
Here is another perfect example of what once was “preached” as the new 
horizon in energy. A brave new world. Touted once as the way to go for the future of electricity, it has proven once again it can’t be trusted or used safely over time. Does it produce clean and efficient electricity? I guess so but the lightning in the bottle can’t be tamed or remain caged forever. So is it worth it? Our leaders tell it is but the facts are in the pudding. So what if it produces electricity for 30 or 40 years without incidents? It only takes one incident to change the landscape for ever. In the last 30 years we’ve had three nuclear accidents that either lead to calamity or almost lead there. Even small accidents can lead to the poisoning of the land and the people around it.
Let’s go back to March 28, 1979. Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. A stuck valve and the nuclear reactor almost went into meltdown. It also released an unknown amount of radioactive material into air. Was a major disaster averted? Yes but barely. The clean up from the accident took from 1979 until 1993 and cost over a billion dollars…
Fast forward to April 26, 1986. Ukraine.The Chernobyl Nuclear power plant. During a routine system check all hell broke lose. The reactor melted down and exploded and sent radioactive fuel and core materials into the air. Whole cities had to be evacuated. Evacuated as in “Leave now’…”Take nothing with you”so here we are almost 30 years later and Russia has entire cities frozen in time. The people sent in to fight the fires at the reactor were not aware they were exposing themselves to deadly radiation levels. Radioactive rainfall fell on other Countries. The radiation in the clouds traveled around the world…Today the perimeter keeps getting larger and larger. It is said that some places the half life of the radiation is 24,000 years.So to quote the 1968 movie “The Planet of the Apes” we have created a forbidden zone.. So mankind has basically poisoned the land for hundreds of generations to come. Today the reactor is encased in concrete. It’s a temporary fix until someone else in the future can figure out what to do with it…
And last on our list is the Fukushima nuclear plant. March 11, 2011. Rocked by an earthquake and hit directly by a tsunami, This one was a natural disaster but a deadly one too. This thing is of like nothing we have seen before and it continues to dump radioactive water into Japan’s ground water effecting them and dumping contaminated water into the sea effecting “EVERYONE”. The situation is not even under control as of yet and the people in charge are basically trying to balance a pencil on a breath of air. Once slip and its all gone…
All these plants were built by “Modern Men”. “Extremely knowledgeable Men”. “Nuclear “Educated Men” but still things went wrong… And now Iran is making uranium supposedly for power for it’s people…
I realize the genie is out of the bottle but it’s too big to contain. We need to put the monster back in the bottle…There has got to be something out there that is cheaper and not so harmful if “everything goes to hell”
I don’t have the answers but I can clearly see we have a problem…Opinions welcome at submit@kickacts.com
chuck
Here is the first link:
This lady had permission to travel through the vast waste land of Chernobyl’s legacy. She has went back for several years now. Well worth the read and has plenty of photographs too. Read all of it…
http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/chapter1.html
To see the graveyard of all the equipment used to trying to put out the fire at Chernobyl go here. Interesting note though. Despite all the equipment still holding high radiation levels people continue to still equipment and parts from the graveyard.
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?6742-Chernobyl-vehicle-graveyard
Categories: General Tags: chernobyl, disasters, electricity, forbidden zone, Fukushima, nuclear, radiation, radioactive, three mile island
EMMURE’s singer gets Shocked on stage!
google.com, pub-2427795083793513, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0
Just goes to show that even with all the safety stuff we have, musicians still run the risk of getting electrocuted putting on a show…Glad to see he is alright!
