FOSSIL FUELS

St. Louis' oldest power plant is a bit north of the Arch. It opened in 1904 and lit all the bulbs in the World's Fair that year. It remained the main source for electricity to downtown for decades, converting in turn from coal to oil to natural gas. It still operates in a limited capacity. It feeds a steam loop throughout downtown so buildings don't need their own boilers. Um, do buildings still need boilers? 

Don't see it from the river very often.              

Power House And Moonrise 2

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Same power plant, same moonrise as yesterday's photo but a completely difference approach. The previous pic was taken from some distance away with a 24-105mm lens at 55mm and f 16. (The latter really wasn't necessary.) Today's was shot from closer in with a 100-400mm bazooka at 160mm and f 4.8. Both are HDRs.

You can see this smokestack and flag on the far right of the building in yesterday's photo. By the way, this plant is right on the Mississippi (I think they bring fuel deliveries by water) and within view of the Arch. And, of course, tomorrow being Thursday we've got the Big A itself.

Power House And Moonrise 1

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This, ladies and gentlemen, was St. Louis' first major source of electricity, the Ashley Street Power House. It was built between 1902 and 1904 and is still in use today. It provided the juice for the 1904 World's Fair. (Did you know we had the Olympics the same year?) It's a wonderful piece of Edwardian architecture and strange enough that you might expect to see it in a Terry Gilliam movie. The rising moon looks like it was burped out of one of the smokestacks.

Another but very different view of the same objects tomorrow.