April 05, 2007

Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, the chimneys pump out a toxic cocktail of pollutants... Welcome to Norilsk: Home to the world's biggest nickel and palladium producer, and producer of one seventh of all the factory pollution in Russia.

In pictures: Acid rain factory Norilsk web cam [refreshes every 60 seconds] Flickr images tagged Norilsk And my personal favorite... Norilsk Nickle illustrations to boost morale! Apologies for the heavy linkage, but I figured with no posts as-of-yet for today, I could get away with it!

posted by sugarmilktea 17 years ago
  • My boss just got back from a tour of Chile, where about 40% of the world's copper comes from. He showed us pictures of whole mountains that have been defoliated from the processing fumes.
  • Love the posters - very inspirational!
  • Well, Tick, I'll admit they're different. However, can someone tell me, in the second poster, why the little guy is yelling up the big guy's butt? *is sad for the earth and sky
  • I don't think he's yelling. I think he's huffing.
  • Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, prior to the closing of its many steel mills in the 1970s, had an air pollution problem so extreme that residents had to regularly wash curtains and scrape dirt off windowsills just to keep from being buried in airborne particulates. Street lights were frequently left on all day when the sun was blocked completely. The skies at night glowed red from slag being poured down hillsides and Bessemer furnaces belching smoke and flames far into the sky during iron conversions, all within city limits. Folks accepted this reality because it meant employment. I'm guessing the folks in Norilsk employ the same rationale. BTW Pittsburgh is fortunately much cleaner now, although it has seen a drop in its "working class" population due to the dearth of manufacturing jobs. Norilsk is sad, but it is nothing new, and so long as humans seek to exploit the earth's resources in harsh ways, will not be unique. How very sad for our planet--and for us by extension--that such things continue.
  • The primary use of palladium is in catalytic converters for automobile gasoline engines (but not diesel -- the sulfur apparently whacks it). Also, according to the unimpeachable Nickel Magazine ("THE MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO NICKEL AND ITS APPLICATIONS!" Subscribe now and get up to 3,240% off of newstand price), precious nickel is helping clean up after dirty, filthy Canadians. Remember, there is no "iron" in irony. Only Ni and Pd.
  • dirty, filthy Canadians Dirty, filthy Nova Scotians, at that! Nice photos, those. Can't quite see my house, alas. *poops in harbour again*
  • Folks accepted this reality because it meant employment. .
  • Irony
  • Thanks for that link, doublesix. .
  • Yeah but . . Toyota factory turns landscape to arid wilderness . . Toyota gets the metal from a Canadian company whose smelting facility at Sudbury has spewed sulphur dioxide into the air for more than a century. So is it Toyota's factory or is it "a Canadian company"'s factory? Unless Toyota is Canadian and didn't tell anyone, it's not Toyota's factory. just sayin' is all