Coke Mountain, Detroit

[Jimaz]

Thanks Canada. You can have it back now.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/06/07...to-canada.html

Thanks. Informative article.

A Canadian electrical power plant, owned by Nova Scotia Power, is chipping away at the three-story-high, blocklong pile of petroleum coke on Detroit’s waterfront. The company is burning the high-carbon, high-sulfur waste product because it is cheaper than natural gas.

I wonder if they're burning it in Nova Scotia just because there's no downwind population to complain about the pollution.

Its final destination had been something of a mystery. Most petroleum coke, often referred to in the oil industry as petcoke, is used as inexpensive fuel in countries like China, India and Mexico with relatively loose emissions controls. Environmentalists were concerned not only about the impact of the growing pile in Detroit but also about where the material would be burned.

It's allowed to be sold to countries with "loose emissions controls" because why? Because we'll never have to breathe their air? Air is partitioned by country now?

Web sites that track ship movements indicate that one of those ships, the Atlantic Huron has made several trips this year from Detroit to a coal terminal in Sydney, Nova Scotia.

Cool. That's shown in the Star photo I posted above.

Despite the regular visits to Detroit by ships to take away the petcoke, the oil sands bitumen refinery there is producing the material at a rate which means the waterfront pile to continues to grow.

Then where does it end? LOL! The piles that ate Detroit.

[Honky Tonk]

Then where does it end? LOL! The piles that ate Detroit.

Pile it on. We'll use it for the X Games.