Photo: NNSANews

The idea of a K Cooling Tower being blown up might sound like an obstacle the hero of a movie may have to overcome, but on May 24, 2010 in the city of Savannah Town, South Carolina this idea became reality. The colossal cooling tower was located at Savannah River Site, a nuclear materials processing centre used to refine materials for nuclear weapons since the 1950s. The movie Sum of All Fears where Ben Affleck served as the protagonist, ironically also dealt with a dramatic explosion relating to the Savannah River Site.

Photo: NNSANews

Savannah River Site was built in the 1950s as a nuclear materials processing centre for the United States’ nuclear weapons. The K Cooling Tower was finished in 1993, only two years after the Cold War ended. Ten years later, the tower was completely vacated and all the control rooms and equipment were removed because of the site’s lack of use. Ironically, the tower took nearly a hundred million dollars and three years to construct, and only a little over three million dollars and a few seconds to destroy.

Photo: NNSANews

The American Demolition and Nuclear Decommissioning Inc. coordinated the “decommissioning” and demolition of the building, funded by the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The ARRA sunk over three million dollars into the project, in the hopes to lower the carbon emissions from the site and to reduce the United States’ carbon footprint.

Photo: NNSANews
Over 1000 lb of explosives were used to demolish the 450-ft tall tower, the second largest cooling tower to meet its demise in a controlled demolition, ever. The tower was drilled with 3,860 holes, keeping the dynamite in the strategically placed holes that spanned the bottom 250 ft of the building. The detonation happened in a sequenced fashion in order for the building to fall into a designated zone. Although the amount of explosives was immense, gravity still did most of the work, forcing the building to collapse into itself, eventually finishing the job.

Photo: NNSANews
The demolition was considered so potentially dangerous that members of the public weren’t allowed on site to witness the massive explosion. Nearby roads were shut down, including South Carolina Highway 125, which was shut down for a half an hour around the time of the event. One’s imagination might get carried away when thinking about the possible effects of an explosion of this size. However, the nearest people to the site said the resulting effects were less than expected. No apocalyptic earthquakes shaking roads or demolishing highways. All in all a truly amazing feat and a job well done.

Check out this breathtaking video of the demolition:

With special thanks to flickr user NNSANews for making his/her photographs available.

Learning how to use gimp can be either a painful experience or a very enjoyable one. This largely depends on whether you are reading through tutorials or learning by watching someone else use gimp.
 

This is where YouTube videos make a huge difference. Recently, I stumbled upon a YouTube gimp tutorial on how to make a cool abstract wallpaper. The YouTube video is shown below.

Within minutes you'll start producing some really cool looking abstract graphics. Here is what I came up with.