Stacks at Nanticoke plant come down
It took just 23 seconds to drop the two giants, marking the end of the coal-fired era
NANTICOKE — It was over in less than 30 seconds.
After months of planning, site remediation and engineering, combined with hundreds of hours of preparation, it took just 23 seconds to drop a pair of 198-metre-tall smokestacks Wednesday at the Nanticoke Generating Station.
The stacks, which have towered over the Lake Erie shoreline and defined a generation of coal power in Ontario, were removed as part of the ongoing process of tearing down the facility.
Constructed between 1967 and 1978, the Nanticoke Generating Station was once the biggest coal-fired plant in the world.
At its peak, it produced 4,000 megawatts of power; by comparison, this represents 1,000 megawatts more than the current output at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station. Six-hundred and fifty people were employed at Nanticoke.
The plant burned its last piece of coal at the end of December 2013, and was decommissioned as Ontario turned to cleaner sources of energy.
Paulo Monteiro, health and safety manager for Delsan Aim, the environmental services company tasked with the demolition, outlined the steps involved to drop the two stacks.
Structures have to be demolished in the area around and between the stacks to allow room for them to fall.
The stacks are cleaned.
A mouth is created at the base; a weakening of the structure, to ensure it falls in the proper direction.
At the same time, crews are careful not to weaken it to the point it becomes a hazard to workers. Holes are cut for the dynamite.
Each massive spire, made of concrete, contains four concrete flues.
Each of these has to be readied in a manner similar to the outer tube, to guarantee the entire stack falls properly.Despite seeming ridiculously complicated, these tasks are less stressful than dealing with Mother Nature.
For all this work, there is a host of factors outside of the engineers’ control that ultimately determines if the demolition goes ahead.
For Wednesday’s demolition, a beautiful sunny morning, the original time was pushed back two-and-a-half hours while the wind gradually switched to a more favourable direction.
At 11 a.m., with no low cloud ceiling, and the wind co-operating, the signal was made.
The east stack fell first, followed six to seven seconds later by the west stack.
Seventeen seconds, give or take, for one to drop. Several loud booms, then a massive brown plume drifting away.
Next summer, the massive powerhouse, the size of nearly nine football fields, will fall.
Eventually, there will be nothing left of the coal plant; plans for the area include a 44-megawatt solar project and 200,000 solar panels will join the wind turbines that dot the surrounding lands.
Minister of Environment and Climate Change Chris Ballard called the demolition “symbolic” of the province having eliminated coal-fired electricity four years ago.
Ballard says ending the use of coal for power generation was equivalent to taking seven million cars off Ontario roads.