Great Britain Richborough Power Station - Kent - June 2011

[Nelly]

Richborough Power Station was built in the late 50's and from 1962 - 1971 Richborough burned over 3 million tonnes of coal, most of which came from the nearby kent coalfields.

Then in 1971 the station was converted to run on oil, but usage of the site became costly as the price of oil prices rose during the 1973 Oil crisis.

So 1989 the plant underwent a major refurbishment and in 1990 trials were started on an experimental new fuel called Orimulsion.

Orimulsion is a cheap heavy oil and water based emulsion produced form natural bitumen in Venezuela, initial results suggested it would make a cheap clean fuel alternative to oil...

The "Orimulsion" bubble was burst when a local farmer claimed damages against the plants owners powergen for the loss of his crops.

Around the same time local people began to notice damage to the paintwork of their cars - linked to acid rain coming form sulphur emissions form the plant.

The power station can be seen in several scenes of the 2008 film Son of Rambow, and was the location for the 2003 Channel 4 television series Full Metal Challenge.

It ceased generating in 1996 and is in the process of being demolished

Visited with Skeleton Key

Thanks for looking

 

[Wevsky]

Drained cooling tower envy!!

 

[he who must rome]

very nice ste there m8.....shame it looked no way of getting up the towers ! all 50 mtrs of em !.......cheers for posting

 

[Ramsgatonion]

Now that the bottom of that cooling tower has been drained I may have to go back just to look up it! Great post!