Inco Superstack | Hacker News Reader

Inco Superstack

en.wikipedia.org

27 pointsluu13 comments

If you are wondering, as I was, why a chimney would need to be so tall:

> The Superstack was built to disperse sulphur gases and other byproducts of the smelting process away from the city of Sudbury. It did this by placing the gases high in the air, where they normally blew right past the city on the prevailing winds.

Amazing what industry is permitted to do in the name of progress (or profit). You have a highly polluting process with byproducts you don't want to deal with, so you just spread them out into the atmosphere for everyone else to suffer from. Oceans, ponds, atmosphere, groundwater, damn it all.

This is in my home town and my first job out of high school was giving tours of the various mining sites for tourists.

I can tell you the official story was at the time it was believed that if you send the pollution high enough, it wouldn’t lead to so much damage.

For context, prior to the super stack, ore was refined by burning huge fields (the size of football fields) of crushed ore to separate the metals. The result is why Sudbury is known for barren black rock. We later won international awards for our regreening efforts.

Does that mean I think the stack was a good idea or fair to the world? No. But I do think it was understandable.

Today, something like 99% of the “smoke” is actually steam, because they’ve done such a good job of filtering the smoke that they needed to pump steam in to get it to reach the top of the stack. They’ve also been talking about decommissioning and tearing it down for years, but it’s somewhat beloved as a major landmark.

>Amazing what industry is permitted to do in the name of progress (or profit).

Was permitted to do. Did you read this part:

"In addition to further reducing sulphur dioxide emissions by 85 per cent, the decommissioning of the stack is expected to cut the complex's natural gas consumption in half."

We need to stop judging the past by today's standards, and focus on the progress we actually make.

Today's standard? How about vast, deep destruction threatening land and people. Among the most climate-polluting sources of oil. Output expected to climb into the 2030s.

"“It’s just the most completely ludicrous approach to industrial and energy development that is possible, given everything we know about the impact on ecosystems, the impact on climate,” said Dale Marshall, national program manager with Environmental Defence, a Canadian advocacy group.""

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21112021/tar-sands-canada...

Today's standard is the same as yesterday's standard. Profit and exploitation first. Downplay and externalize unpleasant impact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Ok, dumb question but how much taller does it need to be to use for geo-engineering? Releasing sulfur into the atmosphere is supposed to deflect sunlight or something right?

This stack is neat, but what is even cooler is that all that nickel they mine is from a meteorite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_Basin

This is my favourite Sudbury landmark. It’s grander than the big nickel. It’s visible from any point of the city. Even though it’s not in use any more I’ll be very sad to see it go.

Interestingly I'm in Sudbury right now and didn't know the history of the stack. Definitely an opportunity for photos. Anyone know the closest point of access?

1250ft doesn't seem that big, I don't get why concrete with steel liner cost $25m either despite the height.

Canada’s tallest free-standing structure, the CN Tower, is 1,815.3 ft tall. 1250 ft is impressive.

Two World Trade Center was only 110ft taller than this chimney.

Massive. When driving north to Sudbury you could see it from 30 to 40 kilometres away poking out of the tree line. It had a beacon on top to prevent planes from running into it.

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