Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Lafarge Cement Plant in Exshaw, Alberta

Both cement plants in Oglesby, IL (Buzzi and Lehigh Portland) have closed, so it is nice to see a cement plant that not only is growing, but is reducing its environmental impact. Cement may be a "go big or go home" type of industry. Below are satellite views of the Lafarge and Buzzi plants at the same scale.

Satellite of Lafarge

Satellite of Buzzi
A few hours later, I came across more information concerning LaFarge:
  • Lake Calumet was once the center of a large wetland system that covered the area, but it has been so deeply dredged that freighters can chug up the Calumet River and into its waters. While most of the big boats are hauling petcoke these days, some of them still visit LaFarge and St. Mary's Cement on a regular basis on the edge of Lake Calumet. Consider that journey for a second— giant 600-foot long boats going for miles down the Calumet River backwards to reach the lake (the river is too narrow for the freighters to turn around and the boats are not nimble enough to make the journey backwards fully loaded). [Chicagoist]

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