Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee

   On December 22, 2008, just north of these smokestacks at the Kingston Clinch River Fossil Plant, a coal fly ash dam of theirs broke. Over a billion gallons of coal fly ash slurry broke free, wiping out houses and flooding the Emory and Clinch Rivers.

   The Kingston Fossil Plant is located near Kingston, Tennessee, on the Clinch River and beside Interstate 40. It was built in the early 1950's to supply the nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory with power, and was the largest coal-fired power plant at that time. The row of smaller towers are the old chimney stacks. They were taken from service in 1976 when replaced with the pair of 1,000 ft tall towers. 

Quick Trip down the Bristol-Memphis Highway

  A week or so ago, we took a "quick" trip to Sevierville to pick up Mom for something-er-other. I put "quick" in quotation marks because "quick" would mean the 3 hour ride along Interstate 40. But we actually had most of Sunday so we took Highway 70, the old Bristol-Memphis Highway, roughly from