I Didn’t Even Know What a Nuclear Panner Plant Was

No, this isn’t a nuclear power plant, but that is a really funny line from the classic The Simpsons episode “Homer’s Enemy” featuring Frank ‘Grimey’ Grimes.  What this photograph actually depicts is a power plant located in the River Market District of downtown Kansas City where I used to live.  I was never exactly sure what this plant was, what kind of fuel it burned (I guess I knew it burned coal, since there’s a huge coal pile attached to the facility), and what exactly it powered.  There was no way I was just going to go around all willy-nilly posting pictures featuring buildings I didn’t fully understand.

I set out on trying to figure out what this power plant was all about with a single name I had gotten from a sign hanging on the building.  It wasn’t easy, but I eventually tracked down the parent company and the official name of this generating station, and found an obscure article that made a reference to this power plant.  It’s called the Grand Boulevard Generating Station, and it turns out it burns both coal and natural gas to create super heated steam, which is piped under the city to various buildings downtown for heating.  I didn’t even know that was a thing until I read that article.

This is a hand held 5 shot HDR, with a some sweet post-processing work done after I did the HDR.