433 Comments for Franklin Power Plant

Right you are! Absorption referigeration isn't new... anybody remember the Servel gas referigerators? It remains an economical method of cooling large buildings or complexes, such as Disney World, where they circulate chilled water to do the actual cooling, as is typical of large systems. Also... the gas/electric RV 'fridges work on this system, too.

Kewl - thanks!

Hey Lynne -
It's possible that the A/C in your building is provided by a liquid absorption machine, or "absorber." It's difficult to explain how they work in a short paragraph, but an absorber basically uses steam or hot water to create a pressure differential - it's this differential which creates the refrigerating effect (accomplished in a normal A/C unit by the mechanical pumping action of a compressor). Absorbers tend to be used in large buildings where there is a high amount of steam generated which would otherwise go to waste.

Hope that made some sort of sense. =)

Looks similar to the human heart and blood vessels. The hot goes through the system, and returns cold, only to be heated again and head back out.
Not unlike oxygenated blood leaves the heart and returns oxygen depleted only to go round again.
Figure that blood moves at roughly 300 MPH in a single heartbeat. This must have been an awesome system to watch work.

Well, I have two guesses: First, when steam condenses it actually raises the temperature of the surrounding air. By the same method, when water vaporizes it cools the temperature of the air. This could be the method to cool an area, although I don't know how it would work on a large scale.

The other option is that steam is used to run the engines that actually do the cooling. Anyone else know?

They were lost because of smoking? Seriously, though, I would imagine that they were needed somewhere else after this closed down, so they were taken off and moved. Anyone?

One can only hope! Oops! That sounded kind of bad! I don't want all of those jobs to be lost, but we really don't have anywhere to explore here!

In a few years, they'll be shutting down our GM and Ford plants in Atlanta. Maybe we'll get some good Urban Exploration sites then.......

Season, What's up with the old Gates Tire and Rubber building. I saw it on an explorer t.v. show. It's an urban explorer's dream.

I went to look at a loft at the Ford Factory Lofts here and the lady took me around and showed me some OLD offices (complete with file cabinets full of papers, old furniture, etc) and semi-secret passageways! Pretty cool!

Yeah, ditto for Atlanta, all the old factories are now loft apartments for yuppies. Everyone wants to move back into the cities, they're tired of the long commutes.

Man, in LoDo Denver, all these kick ass old buildings are retrofitted to be cool and ecclectic loft housing or office space. I'd love to get my hands on one of these old buildings with the amazing masonry and all to donate the contents and turn them into something that can be used for many more years.

"I'm Tim the toolman and this is my assistant, Al 'Mr. Air Compressor' Boorland...."

indeed

Ja VlaMoes - HL2 ik denk! Zorg goed voor jezelf! Het spijt me, mijn Nederlandse heel slecht is!

... in other words, I think it looks a bit like Half-Life2, and I apologise for my very rusty Dutch :-)