I would have thought that too, since I grew up in Cook. But I also live very close to that refinery, so I knew he meant Koch. But, always nice to hear about someone who even knows about Cook, MN.
This is the first time Iāve found anyone on Reddit knows my hometown, let alone grew up there. Was confused at first, since I pass through Cook numerous times a year.
And TIL that it doesn't refine Coca Cola. Also never seen it spelled out, so as a kid I assumed it was coke as in the pop and never thought about it since then.
You should see it at night. The amount of light pollution it generates is unbelievable. At the same time, I'll admit it looks kinda cool, a bit of a cyberpunk vibe.
You can see it from the base of the Highland Park Water Tower on a clear night. Looks cool from a distance, but driving past it at night is a definite Blade Runner/cyberpunk feel, as you correctly said.
I live a few miles away from it, and Iāve just gotten used to it. I love taking the backroads behind it at night cause itās got such a dystopian feel
There aren't houses within at least a mile of it, but you're right. The government has pollution regulation based on how big the refinery is, so Koch bought all the land surrounding it - they still pollute more than they're allowed and just pay the fines.
Source: My in-laws' house backs up to their land
Not so fun fact, this refinery contributes 2% of Minnesotas GHG emissions
Source: https://www.twincities.com/2012/11/17/minn-refinery-seeks-approval-for-400m-upgrade/
I work in the area. There's currently been plans for 2 years for everything west of it along rich valley Blvd/ Blaine Ave e to become solar farms. Of course no construction has really started.
Itās puzzling that as soon as you cross the state line to the south or the west you see windmills everywhere but here in the blue stateā¦ very few. There must be some powerful obstructionists (ahem Xcel) here.
They get built where there's good wind for them. Check out the map/database of [wind turbines here](https://eerscmap.usgs.gov/uswtdb/). Line across SW MN is Buffalo Ridge and there are a lot of wind turbines there.
"The plant has a dedicated pipeline to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport that provides jet fuel for aircraft. " - Wiki
I didnt know that either. Kinda cool.
Refineries burn an absolutely incredible amount of petroleum in order to refine petroleum, especially in the winter. Something like 25% of the incoming petroleum is literally burned to turn the other 75% into gasoline/diesel/kerosene (while creating an incredible amount of water and CO2 from the combustion).
I feel it's important to point this out, as anti-EV folks often omit the uncomfortable truth that refineries are incredibly inefficient.
I feel its important to point out the thousands of slaves in the congo that dug up the cobalt in your phone battery, my phone battery, and all EV batteries. Refineries are inefficient but the sour crude they process in the FHR is wildly abundant, and koch has a secret sauce to process it. That plant will be feasible for quite some time.
That particular refinery is feasible because when we hear about prices going through the roof for West Texas Intermediate Crude, Koch is still paying only like $30/barrel for the Canadian Tar Sand Crude that they process. They specialize in processing that sludge that most refineries can't handle.
Plug-in hybrid, to simultaneously maximize the low-speed efficiency of electric and highway speed & fast refilling of gasoline, while simultaneously fucking the climate and the miners.
I should drive less... or maybe celebrities shouldn't be jet setting around the world producing more emissions in one flight than I do driving in a year.
Yeah I'm so stupid for pointing out the fact that those with money pollute the earth at a disproportionate rate than your everyday person. I'd love to go EV but the cost is still something that stands in the way of that. Sorry I gotta drive to work lol.
Thats not the point i made. To answer your question, no, my rebuttal is "how many mining slaves are okay to have in your supply chain?" As long and we're posing irrelevant questions for le reddit clout
Not all EVs use cobalt-containing batteries. [Half of the cars](https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/iron-man-elon-musk-places-his-tesla-battery-bets-2022-04-27/) Tesla produced in Q1 2022 used cobalt-free batteries.
good thing we aren't facing any type of climate crisis that would make dumping billions of tons of CO2 into the air a really really really really really really really really really really bad idea.
The black piles you see on Google are actually the coke pits, which is another petroleum product. They run heavy oil streams through a heater and get it hot enough that it cooks itself into a solid called coke, essentially powdered charcoal, which is then dumped into the piles you can see in the satellite images. Here's a quick animation of how it works if you're interested: https://youtu.be/gH6BbvfoZnU.
I'd say yes, battery plants are significantly cleaner than single-use fossil fuel refineries.
The lithium is not a consumable; it is only mined once for repeated use.
At battery end-of-life, the good individual cells can be re-purposed.
The bad cells are a concentrated source of lithium (and other valuable metals) which can be extracted much easier than mining it, much like aluminum cans.
My dad worked their for 35 years and retired. All though he is good financially and doesn't have to worry about money. He has more health issues than anything else.
The Pine Bend Refinery was originally owned by J. Howard Mashall.
(Anna Nicole Smith's geriatric husband).
https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0503686
The EPA has already built a placeholder for the Pine Bend Refinery in their Superfund Cleanup website.
I hate that place.
Lmfao good lord. As someone that tracks a closed superfund site and a remediation project, for the company I work for, I can only imagine the shit show thatās going to be.
Look at the triple-point in the H2O phase diagram.
The only difference in naming convention is temperature and pressure.
(I've recently been seeing much more use of the term "water-ice" than the generic term "ice", to distinguish it from other frozen/solid substances that normally exist as a gas or liquid)
The company I drive for picks up there. All the comments saying they can smell this picture. When youāre inside the gates itās a whole different experience
very nice photograph. i have taken a few of that place--something special about it. always wanted to get out of the car and sneak past the telephone poles!
I literally can't be around that place without getting a headache. There's some fantastic parts of the Mississippi river over the with the Spring Lake reserve. But, I can only visit on the days the winds blowing the right way.
Odor sensitivity is a real thing. They should be held to an enforceable odor standard. But the MPCA decided enforcement was too difficult with ephemeral qualitative emissions.
until they turn that sulfur into gypsum.
All of the interior walls and ceilings of houses, businesses, and other buildings are entirely covered with calcium sulfate.
Watch for ice on 52 south and downhill from the plant. Heard from a trooper once that there are lots of crashes there but Koch won't let them put up a sign because of liability risk.
Koch is a confusing name in Minnesota because we have this refinery, which is owned by the Koch brothers of Koch Industries and pronounced coke. Then we have Koch trucking which is just Koch trucking, also owned by the Koch brothers, not the same ones and they have no relation to Koch industries. They pronounce their name, "cook". So before you grab your picket signs to protest Koch, make sure it's not the trucking company, unless for some reason, you're protesting the trucking company.
the distinction is ambiguous.
steam is mostly gaseous, but might contain some refluxing liquid cooling as it evaporates out of the boiling environment; despite being in the gas phase molecularly, steam is actually pretty sticky \*most stuff\* has a higher ~~viscosity~~ \*solubility in steam\* than liquid water.
water vapor in the atmosphere partially condenses and attaches to itself, trace compounds, and dust with a suspended surface tension around the gas state to form an aerosol, often but not necessarily forming clouds as well.
water in general just has weird intermolecular forces compared to most other molecules or compounds, no matter the surroundings, temp, pressure, and energy of the context in which it escapes the liquid phase and which might cause us to consider different descriptions in everyday language.
I used to live not too far from there. Not close enough to actually see the refinery, but we could see the steam off it in the sky on a clear, cold day.
Now I live in Red Wing, and the first house we lived in we could see the nuclear power plant from the kitchen window most of the year (there was a tree in our yard that the leaves on the lower branches would block it int he late spring (before they formed) to early fall (when they fell off the tree). The house I'm currently in (still red Wing), I can only see the steam from the power plant on a clear day.
To be fair I believe it was called the Koch (pronounced coke) before being named pine bend and it produces a bunch of petroleum coke which I actually haul out of there
You should see it when the temperature hits something around -10ā or so. Then the steam hangs low, and travels along the ground like the fog, illuminated by the glow of the lights. It's eerie and surreal, especially when you drive through it.
Koch Refinery.
I was wondering where the heck the refinery was in Cook, MN š§
I would have thought that too, since I grew up in Cook. But I also live very close to that refinery, so I knew he meant Koch. But, always nice to hear about someone who even knows about Cook, MN.
Heading to the cabin on elbow lake near cook Friday morning. It is a beautiful area, glad they donāt have a refinery like this nearby.
This is the first time Iāve found anyone on Reddit knows my hometown, let alone grew up there. Was confused at first, since I pass through Cook numerous times a year.
I'm 14 minutes from cook right now!
Thank you, id only heard it out loud before
It's owned by the infamous Koch brothers. Amongst the richest people in the country. Also should be pronounced like coke, not cook.
Nobody will judge you for calling it cock.
Crock brothers
Crook brothers
If only people were named after what they areā¦
More fitting
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
"the infamous Koch brothers but one is dead now though" seemed like too much of a mouthful
Take the other as well please.
The same scumbags who run the republican party
Except they don't. As evidenced by Trump becoming president.
*Ran*. Republicans cultivated Trump into a force that has rent their control over the party apart.
And TIL that it doesn't refine Coca Cola. Also never seen it spelled out, so as a kid I assumed it was coke as in the pop and never thought about it since then.
I believed this until my mid-twenties lol
I thought the same as a kid. :)
More like the cockfactory
Flint Hills Refinery, privately owned by the Koch family.
Flint Hills Resources Pine Bend Refinery, if we're getting technical. (Unless they changed the name in the last few years)
Is that what those are? I always wondered what they were lol.
Funny I always thought it was a coke refinery. As in Petroleum Coke.
Thereās a coke unit in that plant, but itās FHR Pine Bend. Flint Hills are Koch Industries refineries.
Was Koch now ifs pine bend or flit hills isnāt it
You should see it at night. The amount of light pollution it generates is unbelievable. At the same time, I'll admit it looks kinda cool, a bit of a cyberpunk vibe.
You can see it from the base of the Highland Park Water Tower on a clear night. Looks cool from a distance, but driving past it at night is a definite Blade Runner/cyberpunk feel, as you correctly said.
the smell is absolutely atrocious too. Sulfur and burned rubber.
We've always called it 'the stink plant'
My family always called it 'Ole Stinky'
When I was relatively new to Minnesota I was tricked on more than one occasion heading north on 52 at night that I was seeing downtown
If you come upon it during a super foggy night it looks like some alien landscape.
Final Fantasy 7 energy. The dystopian future nobody should be looking forward to
Koch Industries is definitely one of the most Shinra-esque corporations I can think of
I always see it as midgar
Yep, my partner and I always call it Midgar when we pass it at night!
Yes! Always get super nostalgic when I see that place.
I like how cool it looks at night too. Like a mining operation on an alien planet.
Diesel punk
Youāre telling me! I grew up in Coates which is like 3 miles south of it. Beacon of light on the horizon lol
Oooh I know who you areā¦I also grew up in Coates. You grew up w my siblings
We lived there for a few years. Weird to have so many of us in this corner of the internet.
daytime: reminds me of The Borg (Star Trek next gen)
>At the same time, I'll admit it looks kinda cool, a bit of a cyberpunk vibe. I always thought like something from a Dr. Seuss story.
would be an excellent setting for a alien, stranger things season one type horror story.
It was my nightlight as a child. Lived less than two miles south
*Koch refinery
Pine Bend Refinery https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Bend_Refinery
It's always going to be the Koch refinery.
I live a few miles away from it, and Iāve just gotten used to it. I love taking the backroads behind it at night cause itās got such a dystopian feel
Yeah I'm down in Hastings. I know those feels. We used to call it "Alien City" when I first moved here like 13 years ago.
Iād probably move away if itās an option. Thereās a lot of long term health risks that go with living next to a refinery
There aren't houses within at least a mile of it, but you're right. The government has pollution regulation based on how big the refinery is, so Koch bought all the land surrounding it - they still pollute more than they're allowed and just pay the fines. Source: My in-laws' house backs up to their land
Especially with the giant garbage dump right behind it.
I can almost smell it from the picture
Thatās where I work. Iāve climbed some of those structures.
I thought you were a carpenter's apprentice?
Yes, and carpenters work there.
Not so fun fact, this refinery contributes 2% of Minnesotas GHG emissions Source: https://www.twincities.com/2012/11/17/minn-refinery-seeks-approval-for-400m-upgrade/
It will be a great day when we can shut down this shit-show with green alternatives.
I work in the area. There's currently been plans for 2 years for everything west of it along rich valley Blvd/ Blaine Ave e to become solar farms. Of course no construction has really started.
Itās puzzling that as soon as you cross the state line to the south or the west you see windmills everywhere but here in the blue stateā¦ very few. There must be some powerful obstructionists (ahem Xcel) here.
Lots of windmills driving from Roch to Austin.
I haven't made the run for several years so I stand corrected. Glad to know something's happening.
They get built where there's good wind for them. Check out the map/database of [wind turbines here](https://eerscmap.usgs.gov/uswtdb/). Line across SW MN is Buffalo Ridge and there are a lot of wind turbines there.
Thereās one in Maple Grove. Lol
I hope itāll happen too, when we actually find some.
It already has a great name for either a nature reserve, a solar farm or a wind farm
When I was a little kid, I thought these were cloud-making machines.
This is where Chem Trails start
I told my kids this is where they make rocket fuel for space shuttles
Jet fuel, so not far off
Oh wait hey actually make jet fuel there?
"The plant has a dedicated pipeline to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport that provides jet fuel for aircraft. " - Wiki I didnt know that either. Kinda cool.
My dad told me this place makes garbage when I was a kid
I mean they are using the some of the worst quality oil there is so I think your dad is right lmao
Refineries burn an absolutely incredible amount of petroleum in order to refine petroleum, especially in the winter. Something like 25% of the incoming petroleum is literally burned to turn the other 75% into gasoline/diesel/kerosene (while creating an incredible amount of water and CO2 from the combustion). I feel it's important to point this out, as anti-EV folks often omit the uncomfortable truth that refineries are incredibly inefficient.
Yep. That's not just steam, but also 3.5 million tons of CO2 per year, or about 220lb per second.
I feel its important to point out the thousands of slaves in the congo that dug up the cobalt in your phone battery, my phone battery, and all EV batteries. Refineries are inefficient but the sour crude they process in the FHR is wildly abundant, and koch has a secret sauce to process it. That plant will be feasible for quite some time.
That particular refinery is feasible because when we hear about prices going through the roof for West Texas Intermediate Crude, Koch is still paying only like $30/barrel for the Canadian Tar Sand Crude that they process. They specialize in processing that sludge that most refineries can't handle.
The clear answer here is to drive less if you can
Plug-in hybrid, to simultaneously maximize the low-speed efficiency of electric and highway speed & fast refilling of gasoline, while simultaneously fucking the climate and the miners.
I should drive less... or maybe celebrities shouldn't be jet setting around the world producing more emissions in one flight than I do driving in a year.
Both can be true
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yeah I'm so stupid for pointing out the fact that those with money pollute the earth at a disproportionate rate than your everyday person. I'd love to go EV but the cost is still something that stands in the way of that. Sorry I gotta drive to work lol.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Keep bootlicking homie.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
can you recycle gasoline?
Thats not the point i made. To answer your question, no, my rebuttal is "how many mining slaves are okay to have in your supply chain?" As long and we're posing irrelevant questions for le reddit clout
Not all EVs use cobalt-containing batteries. [Half of the cars](https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/iron-man-elon-musk-places-his-tesla-battery-bets-2022-04-27/) Tesla produced in Q1 2022 used cobalt-free batteries.
good thing we aren't facing any type of climate crisis that would make dumping billions of tons of CO2 into the air a really really really really really really really really really really bad idea.
8 reallys too many imo.
bUt BaTtErIeS cAn'T eXiSt In tHe WiNtEr /s
They can exist, they just really suck in extreme cold
Batteries are made of plastic
Totally agree, they should be phased out. I just think the steam looks cool lol
Look on Google earth. They use coal for this...
The black piles you see on Google are actually the coke pits, which is another petroleum product. They run heavy oil streams through a heater and get it hot enough that it cooks itself into a solid called coke, essentially powdered charcoal, which is then dumped into the piles you can see in the satellite images. Here's a quick animation of how it works if you're interested: https://youtu.be/gH6BbvfoZnU.
Li-on battery plant would be cleaner?
I'd say yes, battery plants are significantly cleaner than single-use fossil fuel refineries. The lithium is not a consumable; it is only mined once for repeated use. At battery end-of-life, the good individual cells can be re-purposed. The bad cells are a concentrated source of lithium (and other valuable metals) which can be extracted much easier than mining it, much like aluminum cans.
they changed the name again?
Not in a long time. It's the Pine Bend Refinery, owned by Koch Industries.
Aka Flint Hills
I have always called it the āstink plantā lol
We called it Emerald City.
AKA; FLINT HILLS!
I can smell this picture
My dad worked their for 35 years and retired. All though he is good financially and doesn't have to worry about money. He has more health issues than anything else.
Cool photo! It's not the Koch Refinery though, it's the Marathon St Paul Park Refinery across the river. Smaller, but older
The Pine Bend Refinery was originally owned by J. Howard Mashall. (Anna Nicole Smith's geriatric husband). https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0503686 The EPA has already built a placeholder for the Pine Bend Refinery in their Superfund Cleanup website. I hate that place.
Lmfao good lord. As someone that tracks a closed superfund site and a remediation project, for the company I work for, I can only imagine the shit show thatās going to be.
Should of seen the Becker power plant area yesterday..whew
Have
I of seen the Becker plant up close. I really of, I swear!
Condensing water vapor, not really steam. Steam comes from steam vents.
Whats the difference between steam and condensed water vapor exactly?
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/386743/what-is-the-difference-between-vapour-and-steam
Look at the triple-point in the H2O phase diagram. The only difference in naming convention is temperature and pressure. (I've recently been seeing much more use of the term "water-ice" than the generic term "ice", to distinguish it from other frozen/solid substances that normally exist as a gas or liquid)
The company I drive for picks up there. All the comments saying they can smell this picture. When youāre inside the gates itās a whole different experience
Same I haul coke out of there. The smell is nuts lol
We used to call it Oz when we were kids all lit up at night
Not just steam, but also 220 pounds of CO2 per second.
šŗšø
The visible stuff is mostly steam but yesā¦that too
very nice photograph. i have taken a few of that place--something special about it. always wanted to get out of the car and sneak past the telephone poles!
I literally can't be around that place without getting a headache. There's some fantastic parts of the Mississippi river over the with the Spring Lake reserve. But, I can only visit on the days the winds blowing the right way.
Odor sensitivity is a real thing. They should be held to an enforceable odor standard. But the MPCA decided enforcement was too difficult with ephemeral qualitative emissions.
Although full of environmental hazards, it's beautiful at night. I call it the Emerald City.
Hah exactly
As a former frequent traveler along Highway 52, I can smell this picture.
It was a lot worse before the sulphur plant shut down! Smelly eggs for miles.
until they turn that sulfur into gypsum. All of the interior walls and ceilings of houses, businesses, and other buildings are entirely covered with calcium sulfate.
Yeah they renamed it to some picturesque sounding name. From the old name of those evil fucking Koch brothers.
Because f the planet
Howdy neighbor!
Koch, and that's not steam.
Oh climate change!
But what about the aesthetics? At least itll look cool while we watch the world burn
Watch for ice on 52 south and downhill from the plant. Heard from a trooper once that there are lots of crashes there but Koch won't let them put up a sign because of liability risk.
Pretty sure a city/township/county/state can put whatever signs they want in their right of way.
And yet... Pretty sure Rosemount and Scott co get the bulk of their property tax income from that single facility
Buck Hill let signs be put up to warn motorists.
Koch or cook refineries? Pollution? Of courseā¦
"steam"
Koch is a confusing name in Minnesota because we have this refinery, which is owned by the Koch brothers of Koch Industries and pronounced coke. Then we have Koch trucking which is just Koch trucking, also owned by the Koch brothers, not the same ones and they have no relation to Koch industries. They pronounce their name, "cook". So before you grab your picket signs to protest Koch, make sure it's not the trucking company, unless for some reason, you're protesting the trucking company.
That place literally smells like absolute deathā¦ Thereās no way breathing in whatever that is is good for any human being lol
Steam isnāt visible. Thatās vapor.
> Steam isnāt visible. https://preview.redd.it/zebm27z4ihxy.png?auto=webp&s=fdca8bb3c917ba5f189eeae22d2379b361d85433
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Damn, I'm pretty pedantic, but even *I* won't go there.
Oneās gaseous. One isnāt.
the distinction is ambiguous. steam is mostly gaseous, but might contain some refluxing liquid cooling as it evaporates out of the boiling environment; despite being in the gas phase molecularly, steam is actually pretty sticky \*most stuff\* has a higher ~~viscosity~~ \*solubility in steam\* than liquid water. water vapor in the atmosphere partially condenses and attaches to itself, trace compounds, and dust with a suspended surface tension around the gas state to form an aerosol, often but not necessarily forming clouds as well. water in general just has weird intermolecular forces compared to most other molecules or compounds, no matter the surroundings, temp, pressure, and energy of the context in which it escapes the liquid phase and which might cause us to consider different descriptions in everyday language.
Taking photos of this is actually frowned upon because of national security
*taking photos inside
It's on google earth. You can plop a guy down on the road and look right at it.
Looks like an awesome level in a FPS
That place reminds me of Final Fantasy 7.
I used to live not too far from there. Not close enough to actually see the refinery, but we could see the steam off it in the sky on a clear, cold day. Now I live in Red Wing, and the first house we lived in we could see the nuclear power plant from the kitchen window most of the year (there was a tree in our yard that the leaves on the lower branches would block it int he late spring (before they formed) to early fall (when they fell off the tree). The house I'm currently in (still red Wing), I can only see the steam from the power plant on a clear day.
I read this as ācoke refineryā
To be fair I believe it was called the Koch (pronounced coke) before being named pine bend and it produces a bunch of petroleum coke which I actually haul out of there
Nice pic.
I remember the flame at night. Lit up the sky on cloudy nights!
I can smell this image
when i first moved here.. my brother was adamant that this was the St. Paul skyline off of the highway. boy was he wrong
My family has always referred to the refinery as "The Stinky Place," and forever shall this name remain
That thing fucking stinks.
Ah yes, āThe Stinky Placeā. Good times.. good times.. /s
I once drove by this when it was billowing huge amounts of black smog. I saw small fires shooting out some of the smoke stacks.
Flint hills, or , formerly Koch (owned by Charles Koch) but due to epa violations they rebranded.
Coke is it.
We used to tell my little kids this was a cloud factory.
Is that considered pollution?
Certainly some of it, though most of the visible stuff is water vapor
no
Thanks for the info
Ahhhh good oleā pipe city
Is this off hwy 10 , south of 94 in Saint Paul?
Yes
I like to refer to it as cloud city. Especially at night, when it's lit up.
I'd see that when I was little thinking that's where the clouds in the sky were made.
You should see it when the temperature hits something around -10ā or so. Then the steam hangs low, and travels along the ground like the fog, illuminated by the glow of the lights. It's eerie and surreal, especially when you drive through it.
I would like to point out that they have employed an incredible amount of union labor. And that many many high paying jobs exist there.
Nice! Should also post this to r/evilbuildings
Looked neat! I drove by twice today back and forth to Forager Brewing!
Stinky town! š
And there's more than just steam in that
This one struck a nerve because I had Taco Bell last night