[PRCo] Burning Leaves--and Coal

[Dwight Long]

Dennis 

Obviously Victor Posner did not get that message!

BTW, Sharon Steel had a byproduct coke oven at Fairmont, W. Va.  It apparently never received pollution control devices (considering ownership, is that at all surprising?) and was known as the worst environmental problem in the area. It closed in 1979.

Dwight
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Dennis Lamont 
  To: Dwight Long ; Western PA Trolley discussion 
  Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2013 7:38 AM
  Subject: Re: [PRCo] Burning Leaves--and Coal


  beehive coke ovens went out with oil lamps.  



  Attached is a postcard of Lorain Works proudly sitting under the mushroom cloud of its coke works.  I think it was around the first world war that the Germans developed coar tar chemistry and it million byproducts.  Under the clean air act it made sense to consolidate coke making at one huge facilitry because of the huge cost of emission control.  One of the reasons that Clairton was chosen was because of it's large gas contracts in "da Valley", the other of course was it's proximity to the coal fields.  Not too many folk missed the coke plant or the Open Hearth when they shut down at Lorain and the skys turned blue.
  Dennis


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  I went by Clairton on a train in July and did not notice any smoke at all, just some condensed water vapor.  I think the coking processes are so contained these days that very little emissions emanate from it.  Besides environmental concerns, the steelmakers have learned that the effluents from the coke making process are valuable by products that need to be trapped and sold.  The days of the beehive coke ovens that spewed all the byproducts into the atmosphere are long gone.





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