The Wabamun power plant was built in 1956 as a state of the art coal burning generating station. In 2002, Transalta began shutting it down, with the last burner ceasing operation in March 2010. It is now being demolished, which is a huge undertaking. Most of the materials are being recycled. I got the opportunity to take photos while it was still in the early stages of demolition. It was spectacular in a mad scientist / industrial revolution kind of way. The mass of tubes, wires, and pipes running every which way, combined with all the dials, meters, and switches was crazy. How anyone could make sense of it all is beyond me. On the other hand, there are no black boxes. No computers that you could just replace. If anything was broken, you could just follow the wire or pipe back to the failure point.

Anyway, behold 1950s engineering in all it’s glory.