Inside Mighty Machines (2019–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Hovercraft - full transcript
A futuristic new mode of transportation, part plane, part boat, and part helicopter, the launch of the hovercraft in 1969 was unlike anything ever seen. After 31 years of service and a collective 2.5 million miles back and forth a...
♪
Zdenek: A giant power plant
That helped drive an
electrical revolution
And power the american dream.
At its heart,
giant-sized technology
That harnessed the raw
energy of coal and steam
To help take
millions of americans
Into the bright lights
of the modern age.
This super-sized piece
of engineering genius was
One of the most advanced
power stations of its time.
An incredible,
electricity-making machine
That has finally reached
the end of its working life.
It's time to tear it to pieces.
(metal clanging)
Now that's how you take
apart a power plant!
And recycle what
we can for cash.
As salvage teams strip back
this huge power station,
I'll get up close and hands-on
To discover the five
engineering innovations
That made this mighty
machine's work possible.
As we break it down,
piece by piece,
We uncover the extraordinary
story of electricity,
How it was generated and
how coal powered america.
Before finally bringing buck
steam station crashing down.
♪
I'm chad zdenek.
I spent seven years building
rocket engines for nasa.
Now, I'm taking things apart,
Breaking down giants of
engineering piece by piece
So I can discover what made
them legends of their time.
♪
Electricity helped start an
industrial revolution in america
And when the economy was
booming in the 1920s,
The pioneers of
electricity raced
To build bigger and
better power plants.
And this is one of them.
Buck power station outside
salisbury, north carolina,
It's a quarter of a mile
long and five stories high.
It's made of 30,000
tons of metal and brick.
In 1925, most of the country
was still lit by kerosene
And powered by steam.
Only a third of
every day americans
Had access to electricity.
But within a year,
it would be available
To the entire country at
the flick of a switch.
Several hydro and fossil-fueled
power plants were built
In the first two
decades of the 1900s,
But special engineering
was pioneered here at buck.
♪
For almost a century,
This place provided
the electrical power
For 15 million
homes and factories.
It transformed this
part of america.
And for all that time,
Buck was completely
dependent on coal,
Burning up to 10,000 tons
of it every single day.
Finally, coal power
is being replaced
By cleaner, greener,
more efficient ways
Of producing electricity.
Now, this is a dinosaur
of the coal age
And its era is truly over.
(horn blaring)
♪
So we're gonna tear it apart.
Here's the plan.
Over the next 12 months,
I'm gonna help a demolition
team gut the place.
As they salvage what they
can to sell for recycling,
We'll set detonators and
implode the whole thing.
Before the boom,
I'll reveal the five
engineering innovations
Inside this plant that first
transformed american life
And then powered it
for nearly a century.
First, the vast boilers
that devoured coal
To make high-pressured steam.
The mammoth turbines whose
fan blades used steam
To create motion.
The enormous generators that
turned motion into electricity.
The giant condensers which
allowed the whole process
To run with maximum efficiency.
And, the towering,
modern precipitators,
Built to battle the pollution
made by burning coal.
♪
Goodman: So actually,
probably the best thing
To do is start at the
beginning of the process.
Zdenek: Ronnie goodman
is the demolition engineer
In charge of making
it all happen.
This is not his first rodeo.
Ronnie's already demolished
half-a-dozen coal power plants
And has agreed to share
his trade secrets with me.
Goodman: The building you
see today,
It will look similar
to that the day
We implode that building.
But you'll take months
and months of preparation
And then all of a sudden,
they'll push the button,
Seconds later, the
whole building's
Reduced to a small pile.
♪
Zdenek: Demo work is a
science and a business.
There's 30,000 tons of
valuable metal here.
It could be worth $10
million if you're willing
To do the hard
work to get it out.
Goodman: We'll come through, all
these windows will get removed
From this building here.
Turbine and generator work,
condenser removal work,
That process will
keep continuin' down
Towards this end
of the building.
Zdenek: They're starting
on the six massive boilers.
Conveniently, those are also
The first engineering
innovation I want to uncover,
Down here in the dark.
♪
Throughout the 19th
century, boilers were used
To create steam power
on a small scale.
Archival: America is at
the height of the steam age.
The steam engine is the
nation's prime mover.
Zdenek: Then, from 1882,
they were used
To run america's
first power plants.
These were small operations
with as few as 500 customers.
The engineers at buck
were thinking much bigger
And revolutionized
a new technology.
They saw a way to use steam
to create electrical power,
Not just for a
single neighborhood,
But for huge,
industrial operations.
♪
Super-sized power plants
with super-sized boilers.
So big, they housed them deep
in the bowels of the building.
Somewhere around here, I can
hear the team working hard
To cut through all that steel.
They're starting at the
bottom of the boiler
And using flame cutters to
slice through the enormous pipes
That supplied the
boilers with water.
But cutting those pipes
free is dangerous work.
(metal crashing)
(chad exclaiming)
Now that's how you take
apart a power plant!
So this used to be a giant pipe,
Like a three-foot diameter pipe.
It's two-and-a-half
inches thick of steel
And it's at the
bottom of the boiler.
They already cut off the
bottom part of the pipe,
Now the guys in the crawl space
are getting rid of the top.
And these pieces have got
To weigh a couple of
thousand pounds each.
(metal crashing)
Wow. (Laughs)
I thought I'd get hit with
slag, not mud! (Laughs)
Man: It's mud on your face.
Zdenek: It's crazy work in here.
It takes 10 days of hard work
And sweat just to
remove the pipe work
And bottom section
of the boiler.
But now, I can look right up
into the combustion chamber.
Once, this huge space
was filled with a giant,
Swirling fireball that
burned all day long.
The space is so big, I can
barely see the top of it,
120-feet above my head.
This boiler was 12 times bigger
than those on the titanic
And it lasted a lot longer.
But while it was big, it
also needed to be efficient.
That depended on something
small, very small.
Early boilers burned coal
in lumps the size of rocks
At an efficiency of just 35%.
Buck engineers were
determined to do better
And discovered they
could produce even
More energy from coal
If they pulverized it.
Goodman: They
pulverized this coal.
And the most important thing
for us is that the coal goes
From that size of
a rock to a powder.
And it's really important
it gets down to a powder,
Because it needs to be
a powder for combustion.
Zdenek: Efficient
combustion, that is.
When coal is powdered,
It means more of the
carbon content is exposed.
So when it's mixed with air
And blasted into the
combustion chamber,
It ignites almost instantly.
This means it burns faster
and with less waste.
I mean, this is like the size
of a small skyscraper in here.
And can you imagine,
1,000-degrees fahrenheit,
1800 psi,
With a giant fireball just
swirling around inside of here.
All that water in the
pipes turning into steam
To power the turbine.
The 26,000-square foot
combustion chamber,
Lined with tens of thousands
of feet of pipework,
All carrying cold water.
As the pulverized coal
burned in the giant chamber,
The enormous heat
generated by the inferno,
Turned the water in
the pipes to steam.
When that happens, steam
increases 1,000 times in volume.
It's a handy rule of physics,
Which means steam leaves the
boiler under enormous pressure,
1800-pounds-per-square-inch.
That's around 20-times higher
than early boiler designs.
♪
Buck's new technique quickly
became the industry standard,
Increasing power production
right across america.
♪
Now, chunk by chunk, the
demolition team is cutting
Out the giant boilers.
Salvaging over 300-tons of steel
That could sell
for up to $90,000.
Finally, after a
century of service
And eight weeks of salvage,
buck's boilers are no more.
♪
They're now taken to the
local scrap yard for sorting.
We started tearing
into the boilers
And this is all that's left.
We separated the metal
into different piles
And now it's all ready to
go to the recycling yard.
In the 1920s, the american
economy was booming.
New wealth and consumer
credit meant new markets
For luxury and household goods.
Archival: Golden america,
welcome to the promised land!
Zdenek: North carolina
was cotton country,
The number one textile
state in the union.
To keep up with demand,
its mills needed power
In bigger quantities
than ever before.
Duke's local hydro-electric
power plant was
Soon struggling to
generate enough juice.
They needed an alternative
and they needed it fast,
Which gave rise to
buck steam station.
Company worker and historian
paul beattie has joined me
To explain just how
quickly they did it.
So you've got almost 40
years with the company,
Plus when you started working,
You were working with
old timers at the time
That had been workin'
since maybe the '40s-'50s.
But you're also a
mechanical engineer,
So I'm hopin' that you
can tell me a little bit
About the historical
part of the plant.
Beattie: They built this
particular plant in nine months.
Zdenek: Nine months?
Beattle: They
self-performed all the work.
They had local folks
that were very talented,
Very knowledgeable,
from that standpoint.
It was a monumental
task at the time
If you think of how quickly
they made it happen.
Zdenek: When buck steam
station was finished,
It could produced
80 times more juice
Than the hydro-electric plant,
Enough to power
the booming mills.
But such a monster machine
required serious manpower,
300 workers per shift.
♪
Duke energy also
had to build a town,
They called it dukeville.
And even started their
own baseball team.
The coal came in by rail,
10,000 tons of the
stuff, every single day.
All delivered from
up to 500 miles away
To keep buck's giant
boilers burning.
But giant boilers and
high-pressure steam were
Only the first step in
providing power to the people.
The next next
engineering innovation
That I want to uncover
is the crucial invention
That turned steam into movement.
It's an invention
that was so efficient
And so effective,
that 100 years later,
It's still being used
in modern power plants.
It's the steam turbine.
♪
Buck had six of them
and they're huge!
Three months in and they're next
On the list for destruction.
The team is preparing to cut
them apart and recycle them.
But it's not gonna be easy,
Each one is underneath a steel
casing, three-inches thick,
Held in place by bolts so big
We need a crane
to lift them out.
The covers are so heavy, we
have to cut each one into pieces
Before we can move it.
After hours of cutting,
We're ready to crane
out the first section.
So, we used one of the
existing bolt holes
And then torched
a hole in the side
So that we have an access point
to attach the shackles to.
Otherwise, there's
no real safe way
To lift up (laughs) 35
tons worth of metal.
To move it, we're using
buck's 100-ton crane.
It was installed in 1926
to assemble the plant.
Nearly a century later,
We're using it to
take the place apart.
The crane's pulleys are
maneuvered inches at a time,
One false move and the
giant cables could snap.
Come on!
Lift!
Come on!
♪
Ah, there it goes!
Well, we finally got the
high-pressure turbine cover off
And it was really heavy,
even the 100-ton crane had
To work to get the thing off.
♪
♪
The turbine casing alone
weighs around 10,000 pounds.
For the salvage team,
that could mean $20,000.
What I'm excited about,
Are the huge circular
elements revealed inside.
They're the turbine blades
And they're really clever
pieces of engineering.
A turbine works on
an ancient principle,
That by moving one large wheel,
Connected to the
other small wheels,
You can covert thermal energy
Into mechanical energy
using moving water
Or air to turn a wheel.
Romans employed the
technique to grind corn
As early as 70 b.C.
And windmills were invented
over 1,000 years ago.
Both are ancestors of
buck's huge turbines
Which use steam,
instead of air or water,
To turn giant fan blades.
These fan blades are
mounted on a central shaft.
The high-pressure steam
from the boiler is pumped
Into the turbine casing.
As it's forced over
the fan blades,
The steam spins the blades
and drives the shaft.
♪
The person behind
this invention was
Irishman, charles parsons.
He built his first steam
turbine design in 1884.
The turbine operated
in a series of stages,
Which drew energy out of
the steam as it expanded,
Making it slower,
more controllable
And less likely to wear out
or break under the strain.
Steam turbines have
replace pistons
For extracting power almost
universally since then.
Within a few decades,
it made cheap
And plentiful
electricity possible
And revolutionized marine
transport and naval warfare.
Parsons' invention
was a breakthrough
In mechanical engineering.
It was later adopted for all
major world power stations.
The earliest turbines produced
Just under eight
kilowatts of power,
But the genius of
that invention was
Its ability to scale
up dramatically.
Here at buck, by
a factor of 10,000!
Those turbines produce 80,000
kilowatts of power each.
♪
Like everything else, these
rotors are super heavy.
Each one is made up of at
least 15,000 pounds of steel
And they were never designed
to be completely dismantled.
Carlos: Okay, take it up.
Zdenek: So this is really just
the nature of the beast,
There's no written manual
On how to deconstruct
those things.
We're relying on carlos and
the guys' decades of experience
In taking these things apart.
There are no shortcuts here,
just blowtorches and sweat.
It takes five weeks
to remove the casings
And cut up each turbine.
♪
I'm back in time to help
with the final unit.
This is the last turbine.
I'm gonna flame
cut the bottom bolt
And then we'll be able
to lift the casing out.
(torches hissing)
♪
I had to get certified to
be able to use one of these.
It burns oxygen
and acetylene gases
At 6,000 degrees fahrenheit.
Enough to melt solid
steel in seconds.
I start by cutting
through the giant bolts
That secure the
thing to the floor.
(metal clanging)
All right, that's
four bolts gone.
With the turbine
itself gone out,
The rest of the team cuts
the bottom casing into pieces
So the crane can lift them out.
We've got the crane
hoisted on each side
And we got to make sure
that it's not too tight.
Because if there's
too much tension,
Right when they snap through
that last part of the steel,
It'll pop up and can cause
an injury or kill somebody.
You can tell it's heavy by how
it's bending that cable, huh.
♪
There goes the last of buck
steam station's six turbines.
Extraordinary pieces of
engineering that started to turn
At a critical time in
the nation's history.
♪
The plant's builders won
their nine month race
To keep up with north
carolina's textile boom.
But just as their hard work was
paying off, disaster struck.
The great depression brought
industry to its knees.
In the crisis, the federal
government stepped in,
Realizing that infrastructure
projects, like buck,
Could power a lot more
than textile mills.
Across the country, armies
of men built new power lines
That connected
everyone to the grid.
Up to 500 miles of
cable went up every day.
First, major textile
mills were connected.
Followed by tobacco
companies and then homes,
Building up the national grid.
♪
♪
Today, we're nearly
half way through
This year-long
demolition process.
The team has removed
buck's six giant boilers
And its huge turbines,
Together, over 500 tons of
steel, copper and brass.
That's up to $1 million of
scrap at today's prices.
Next on the chopping block,
Are the power plants
mighty generators.
They transformed the energy
From the spinning
turbines into electricity.
And like everything else
at buck, they're big.
Without these generators,
America's electrical revolution
might never have happened.
Today, these are big
value pieces of salvage,
Loaded with precious metals
like copper, nickel and brass.
The turbine converts
high-pressure steam
Into mechanical energy.
Now it's this generator
that will convert
That mechanical energy
into electricity.
It sounds like
magic, but actually,
It's the engineering inspiration
Of a british inventor
named michael faraday.
♪
In 1831, he discovered
that moving a coil of wire
Within a magnetic field
produces an electrical current.
When it comes to working
with electricity,
No other metal is
better than copper.
When a high-voltage current
passes through a wire,
There's a constant rise
and fall in temperature.
Not every metal can take such
heat change, but copper can.
It's also very elastic,
which means it's perfect
To wind into a coil around
this generator shaft.
Almost 200 years later,
generators have been made
More efficient and
built to huge specs,
But the concept
remains the same.
♪
This generator has a
copper coil surrounded
By giant magnets.
The coil is mounted
on a shaft connected
To the spinning turbine.
Which is at constant
speed with more steam,
Meaning more load
until it hits the max.
That copper coil's made to spin
Inside of that magnetic field
And that creates an
electrical current ready
To send to the electrical grid.
Now these huge generators are
ready for the recycling yard.
But first, all that
high-price metal has
To be salvaged from inside them.
I've been told that's my job
And to make sure none
of it gets left behind.
All right, this is the rotor
Out of one of the
last generators,
And this thing is
spinning inside the
Generator at 1800 rpm.
It's actually a steel shaft
that's covered in copper.
Now the copper's very expensive
when it comes to recycling,
So we're gonna take this off
And it's gonna go to a
different recycling yard
Than the steel goes to.
♪
(chisel buzzing)
Copper's worth two-and-a-half
times as much as steel
Because it's very flexible
And can withstand big
changes in temperature.
That makes it ideal for
carrying electrical current.
There are thousands of pounds
of copper in these generators.
I've been told to pry it free
And that the only way
to do that is by hand.
But with just a
crowbar, it ain't easy.
Bueno! (Sighs)
It was a lot of hard work,
But it's about 25
pounds of copper.
So this whole thing's
got about 11,000 pounds,
So it's worthwhile
to separate it
So we can send it
to a different yard.
♪
It took a long time to free
just that one, 25-pound strip.
At this rate, it'll
take me about six weeks
To do all of them.
And that's when I
realized the guys were
Just makin' fun of the new kid.
It turns out, the real
pros use mini digger.
All right, these guys were
treating me like rookie,
There's a much
faster way to do it.
We're gonna use some
heavy equipment to do it,
Nothing like a bobcat,
and we should be able
To take out three or
four of them at a time.
♪
Through the 1930s,
'40s and '50s,
Generators like
these were installed
Into at least one new
power station every month.
By 1960, 600 new coal
power plants had opened
And america went from producing
almost no electricity,
To generating four trillion
kilowatt hours every year.
Whether you live in the
city or the country,
Your life was now transformed.
Electricity changed cooking,
Music,
Leisure,
Entertainment
And thanks to some very
clever engineering,
It was something
everyone could afford.
♪
There's a reason this
power station was built
So close to the river.
Coal power plants, they
need huge volumes of water
In order to operate efficiently.
Remember, it's the water in
the pipes lining the boilers
That becomes the pressurized
steam that powers the turbines.
Buck used giant
machines to do that
More efficiently
than ever before.
They are the next innovation
I want to get inside,
the condensers.
There are six in the plant,
Each one is a giant tank,
30-feet tall and 40-feet deep.
Plenty big enough for
me to crawl inside.
When the power
plant was operating,
This would have been sealed off
And filled with water
and thousands of pipes.
The pipes carry cold
water in from the river.
When the spent steam from
the turbine is pumped
Into the tank, the hot
steam hits the cold pipes
And it condenses
back into water.
Which is fed back to the boiler,
So the whole process
can begin again.
This is the ultimate
recycling process
And key to the work of
a power plant like buck.
It made the process of
generating electricity at buck
Even more efficient,
keeping costs down
And electricity as
affordable as possible.
Now taking them apart is
gonna take a lot of work.
♪
They're so big, we have
to start 20-feet up.
The pipes are each made
of stainless steel.
Because that's rust-proof,
It's worth top
dollar as recycling.
And worth the sweat of
salvaging separately
To the rest of the condenser.
Hey, raphael.
Raphael: How you doing?
Zdenek: Good, how are you?
Raphael: Good!
Zdenek: It looks like an
endless job,
And maybe not one I should
have volunteered for.
Man, that's a lot of pipes!
Raphael: There's about
2500 in this space right here.
Zdenek: And you gotta take
every one out, one-by-one.
Raphael: One-by-one, yep.
Zdenek: We have a
custom-built machine to help.
It has jaws that grab the
pipe and then pull it out.
But it's still gonna take a lot
Of heavy and repetitive work.
Each pipe is 20-feet long,
weighs about eight pounds
And is worth around $5 as scrap.
Not much, but when you've
got 15,000 of them,
Removing them one-by-one
begins to make sense.
Once we've pulled each pipe,
We feed it into a guillotine,
Where it's cut into pieces
ready for melt-down.
(guillotine clicking)
♪
With the condensers'
pipes removed,
The steel outer casings
are cut into chunks
And lifted to ground level,
ready for the salvage yard.
Another huge piece of buck
power plant stripped away.
♪
After seven months of work,
The team has salvaged
almost 3,000 tons of metal.
We've removed the six
boilers, turbines,
Generators and condensers.
Together, a mighty machine,
which for 80 years,
Harnessed the power of coal
to generate electricity.
And help drive america's growth
through the 20th century.
By the 1970s, it was clear,
Burning coal came at a cost.
Archival: Wherever fuel
is burned to generate power,
The inevitable, unavoidable
result is pollution.
Zdenek: Dangerous gases
and heavy metals released
Into the atmosphere.
Sulfur dioxide, that
creates acid rain.
Nitrogen oxide,
which causes smog.
Mercury, that contaminates
waterways, killing wildlife.
And soot, which can trigger
asthma and bronchitis.
Buck power plant had
helped changed america,
But the dark side of coal power
could no longer be ignored.
The u.S. Government responded
By introducing
the clean air act,
Designed to reduce pollution
By enforcing new
standards for industry.
♪
In response, duke
energy built these.
They're called
precipitators and inside,
There's some pretty
cool engineering.
The precipitators
stretch 110 feet,
The entire height
of the building.
Inside each one is an
array of metal plates,
Charged with static electricity.
Exhaust gases from
the boilers are pumped
Into the precipitator.
These gases are
laden with particles
Of ash and poisonous metals.
As this mixture passes
between the metal plates,
The static electrical
charge attracts
The dangerous particles, so
that they cling to the metal
While the gases release
into the atmosphere.
Vibration then frees the ash
So that it can be
collected below.
Now, it's time to
tear them down.
Brad: Roberto and ricardo, y'all
are gonna be machine operators,
Supportin' tommy
lean and long arm.
You ready, you're work
trucks full, ready to go?
Man: Yep.
Zdenek: And normally, they might
just blow out the legs
And take the whole
thing down in one piece,
But we can't do that here
Because we have an
active switch yard.
All the transformers and
high-voltage lines over there,
All that's active
and you can see,
It's dangerously close to
where our precipitator is.
So instead, we're
gonna use an excavator,
It's basically this
100-foot arm with shears
On the end that bite down,
And take this structure
down, piece by piece.
It takes a lot longer, but
it's much more controlled,
Because we don't
want anything falling
Into that electrical over there.
It seems almost a bit like
david and goliath. (Laughs)
This monster
precipitator (laughs)
And this guy working this
one machine down here.
(metal clanging)
(excavator creaking)
This is amazing to
see this process.
I mean, you lose perspective.
We're about 200 feet away
and he's literally shearing
Through I-beams to
take this apart.
(metal clanging)
♪
For three whole days,
The excavators huge jaws
tear at the precipitators
Until eventually, the giant
machines are reduced to scrap.
About a month ago, we started
taking apart the precipitators
With the excavator and
this is all that's left.
We've separated all the
metal into different piles
To get it ready for recycling.
♪
98% of this metal will be melted
down, sold and used again.
Inside the building,
I'm helping to clear the very
last pieces of salvaged steel.
Getting these giant chunks
Of scrap offsite
requires heavy haulage.
So how much would
you say these weigh?
Elberson: 20,000.
Zdenek: Each?
Elberson: This one's 20,
that one's about 15.
Zdenek: So we're puttin' the
shackles on, we got four of 'em.
We had to put two
extras on the other side
To help level it out,
'cause we're grabbing a lot
lower end of the piece there
And we got to make it fairly
even for the main lift.
Time for the big crane.
When you're movin' 25,000
pounds worth of steel,
You got to make sure
you do it right.
So you got two
chains on each one?
Elberson: Yep.
Zdenek: And then that's
it, we're good to go?
Elberson: They're good to go.
Zdenek: Now I've designed
jets for spaceships
And built engines for cars,
But one thing I've never done
is ride in an 18-wheeler.
I'm tryin' not to
be too excited here,
This is my first
time in a big rig.
Elberson: Hey, it's exciting.
Zdenek: (laughs) I know it's
probably old hat for you,
But this is pretty damn cool.
Elberson: I've been in
them for 34 years
And it's still exciting.
(chad laughing)
Zdenek: So can you feel
how heavy the load is
Or does it feel the same
regardless of the weight?
Elberson: You can tell
the difference
'cause most of what we do
is oversized and overweight
And so you can really tell.
The heavier it gets, the more
you can feel in the truck.
Zdenek: Really, huh.
(dispatcher muttering)
Zdenek: Every day for
the last year,
Trucks like this have
been leaving buck,
Carrying giant chunks of
scrap down the highway.
We're driving down
the interstate
With about 25,000
pounds of steel,
Heading off to the
recycling yard.
And I'm really excited
to be in this big rig,
Never done it before
and super grateful
For jake takin' me on the ride.
To one of the biggest
salvage yards in the state.
It's where the other side
Of the demolition
business takes place,
Storing and selling the
30,000 tons of metal,
Salvaged from the buck site.
You're talkin' about acres
and acres of land over here,
I don't even know how
big it is, but it's huge.
And they've got it
down to a science
On how they separate
things, weigh it all out
And put it in different piles.
Then, literally
timing the market
For when it's good
to offload it.
It's a pretty impressive
operation for sure.
I recognized some
parts here from buck.
Cavanaugh: Yeah, you've got,
this is one of the main staters.
And then up there, of course,
You got either some of the high
Or low-pressure rotors
that we took out.
Zdenek: So on the pieces that
we're bringin' in today,
We'll unload it right here
And these guys will
start choppin' it up?
Cavanaugh: Yep, they'll unload
it with the crane here.
They'll prepare it,
get it mill ready,
Then they'll load it on
the truck, ship it out.
Zdenek: Wow.
Cavanaugh: Steel prices
fluctuate,
So we wait for a good
time in the market.
We've got a big enough yard
And we're fortunate enough that
we can stockpile some of it.
Zdenek: Most of the scrap metal
will eventually be melted down
And turned into
building materials,
Like steel girders
for construction.
The haul of metal
from buck is enough
To forge 40,000 feet of I-beams,
Or four-and-a-half thousand
sheets of one-inch steel.
In fact, 2/3 of the steel we use
In america has been recycled
from salvaged metal like this.
It's hard to imagine that
this stuff was actually built
Almost 100 years ago, and
here we are a century later,
Taking it all apart
and it, soon enough,
Is going to be reused
for the next century.
♪
Buck steam station was
a marvel of its age.
When it was built, it was a
highly efficient power plant,
Using cutting-edge technology.
Today, it's a dinosaur.
The precipitators stopped
99% of harmful particles
From reaching the atmosphere,
But those pollutants
weren't eradicated.
Instead, they were
collected in the form
Of millions of tons of ash,
Which then had to be
disposed of elsewhere.
Here at buck, that was
done by digging giant pits,
Called ash ponds.
Water was used to move the
ash to a series of these ponds
And then that ash would
settle to the bottom.
But over time, toxins seeped
into the local groundwater.
The pollution caused by
burning coal was not going away
And that's one reason
buck steam station was
Finally decommissioned in 2013.
Newer, cleaner ways of
producing electricity are taking
The place of coal-fired plants.
This is the new
buck power plant.
It doesn't burn coal, instead
it's powered by natural gas.
It produces twice the
power more cheaply
With far fewer pollutants
than its neighbor ever did.
♪
The 620-megawatt natural gas
plant began operating in 2011.
The natural gas is fed through
a pipeline from new mexico.
It's cleaner, cheaper,
twice as powerful
And can be run by a
team of just 20 people.
But the technology
proved at buck lives on.
There are still turbines,
condensers and generators,
Engineering innovations
that continue to evolve
And stand the test of time.
♪
It's a considerable legacy.
One man who's proud of
the role buck played
In powering the modern
age is dean beaver.
Beaver: It's been
a good long career.
Zdenek: He spent his
entire working life here.
Beaver: 35 years spent with the
team makin' this place run
And five years of watchin'
it cut up and torn down.
Zdenek: I think most
people think of demo
And, okay, you get a wrecking
ball, some explosives
And you take the
whole building down.
But something like this,
it's amazing, it takes years.
Beaver: It does and like I
said, we do it safely
And environmentally safe.
I've talked to people
from other plants,
They said the big one will
come when they implode it.
Zdenek: Really?
Beaver: They said that's when
you'll really feel it.
Zdenek: It hits home then.
Well, dean, I think
it's safe to say
That you've earned
that retirement.
Beaver: (sighs) I'm ready for
it, it's been a good career.
Zdenek: We've reached
the end of the road
For the buck steam station.
In just a few days, it will
all come crashing down.
♪
After 12 solid
months of salvage,
The demolition team is now
setting explosive charges
To bring buck steam station's
empty shell crashing down.
This coal power plant's
era is truly over.
For the past several months,
I've been given
an amazing insight
Into the world of demolition.
What stands out, is
the attention to detail
In taking apart such
a giant structure.
The careful planning,
the way the teams extract
Every cents worth of metal from
the building for recycling.
Duke has handed the site
over to steve pettigrew,
The blast engineer in
charge of the operation.
He's been working with
explosives for over 40 years
And he takes his
business seriously.
I'm one of the lucky
few allowed access
Before the big explosion.
So, steve, what does it take
To take down a structural
building of this size?
Pettigrew: Well, being a
structural steel building,
We use linear shape charges,
Which actually target
the steel flanges
And they penetrate
and sever the steel,
Just like a torch would,
only in milliseconds.
Zdenek: So we've got the low
shape charges down here,
Cutting low, and then
the high ones up there?
Pettigrew: Yes, exactly.
Zdenek: And how to you actually
kick this thing out
Once it's cut?
Pettigrew: That severance is
made low and high.
The kick charge goes off,
which is a slower explosive
And it actually
eliminates the column.
Zdenek: So, again, for a
building of this size,
How many charges or
explosives would you need
To take the building down?
Pettigrew: We have 350 charges,
ranging from smaller charges
To medium and some
extra-heavy charges.
Zdenek: So it's really
down to the second
On getting this thing down.
Pettigrew: Well, it's the
precise millisecond.
Zdenek: Millisecond.
Pettigrew: Yes, millisecond.
Zdenek: So it's gotta
be engineered
So that the cuts are made
Where they need to be, and
then the final cut is done
By the shape charge.
Pettigrew: Exactly.
Zdenek: Which will bring
this whole thing down.
Pettigrew: Yeah, over time
and space.
Zdenek: So that's the
traditional big boom explosives
That we think of.
Pettigrew: Right.
Zdenek: So, those will
kick this thing out,
Almost like the leg of a chair,
so that once these are gone,
The weight of the
building brings it down?
Pettigrew: Exactly,
gravity takes over.
Zdenek: This place is rigged
and ready to blow.
We've got 350
explosive charges set
And if all goes
according to plan,
This should drop like a house
of cards and land right here.
So I'm gonna head up
to the command center.
♪
The command center
is a safe zone,
3/4 of a mile away
from the blast site.
(sirens blasting)
All right, we got a lot
of people here. (Laughs)
This is the first command center
With the second command
center back there
And then the viewing
area behind that.
There's a couple
hundred people up there
And we just heard
the three blasts,
Which is the five
minute warning.
This is about to happen.
And some things,
despite technology,
Don't change a whole lot.
We still got a red terminal
and a black terminal
(laughs) and one button to push
And that building's comin' down.
♪
I begged and pleaded,
but supervisor, javier,
Gets to press the button,
Bringing the station
crashing to the ground.
Pettigrew: Six, five,
four, three, two, one, fire.
Zdenek: Wait for it.
(explosions blasting)
First, the shape
charges explode,
Cutting off the top and
bottom of the beams.
Then, the conventional
big boom charges kick
Out the whole beam like
the leg of a chair,
Causing the weight of the
building to come crashing down.
(explosions blasting)
(metal crashing)
After the dust settles, a
mammoth building is reduced
To a pile of rubble, ending
the buck coal-fired era.
The site where the steam
station stood will become
A grassy field
after it's graded.
♪
All that's left of the plant
is the $10 million they made
In recycled metal.
For almost 100 years,
The buck power plant
has provided electricity
And a way of life for
millions of americans.
I know its time has come,
But buck's engineering made
it a legend of its time.
Now, it's demolished and
it's time to say goodbye
To an incredible
piece of history.
♪
Zdenek: A giant power plant
That helped drive an
electrical revolution
And power the american dream.
At its heart,
giant-sized technology
That harnessed the raw
energy of coal and steam
To help take
millions of americans
Into the bright lights
of the modern age.
This super-sized piece
of engineering genius was
One of the most advanced
power stations of its time.
An incredible,
electricity-making machine
That has finally reached
the end of its working life.
It's time to tear it to pieces.
(metal clanging)
Now that's how you take
apart a power plant!
And recycle what
we can for cash.
As salvage teams strip back
this huge power station,
I'll get up close and hands-on
To discover the five
engineering innovations
That made this mighty
machine's work possible.
As we break it down,
piece by piece,
We uncover the extraordinary
story of electricity,
How it was generated and
how coal powered america.
Before finally bringing buck
steam station crashing down.
♪
I'm chad zdenek.
I spent seven years building
rocket engines for nasa.
Now, I'm taking things apart,
Breaking down giants of
engineering piece by piece
So I can discover what made
them legends of their time.
♪
Electricity helped start an
industrial revolution in america
And when the economy was
booming in the 1920s,
The pioneers of
electricity raced
To build bigger and
better power plants.
And this is one of them.
Buck power station outside
salisbury, north carolina,
It's a quarter of a mile
long and five stories high.
It's made of 30,000
tons of metal and brick.
In 1925, most of the country
was still lit by kerosene
And powered by steam.
Only a third of
every day americans
Had access to electricity.
But within a year,
it would be available
To the entire country at
the flick of a switch.
Several hydro and fossil-fueled
power plants were built
In the first two
decades of the 1900s,
But special engineering
was pioneered here at buck.
♪
For almost a century,
This place provided
the electrical power
For 15 million
homes and factories.
It transformed this
part of america.
And for all that time,
Buck was completely
dependent on coal,
Burning up to 10,000 tons
of it every single day.
Finally, coal power
is being replaced
By cleaner, greener,
more efficient ways
Of producing electricity.
Now, this is a dinosaur
of the coal age
And its era is truly over.
(horn blaring)
♪
So we're gonna tear it apart.
Here's the plan.
Over the next 12 months,
I'm gonna help a demolition
team gut the place.
As they salvage what they
can to sell for recycling,
We'll set detonators and
implode the whole thing.
Before the boom,
I'll reveal the five
engineering innovations
Inside this plant that first
transformed american life
And then powered it
for nearly a century.
First, the vast boilers
that devoured coal
To make high-pressured steam.
The mammoth turbines whose
fan blades used steam
To create motion.
The enormous generators that
turned motion into electricity.
The giant condensers which
allowed the whole process
To run with maximum efficiency.
And, the towering,
modern precipitators,
Built to battle the pollution
made by burning coal.
♪
Goodman: So actually,
probably the best thing
To do is start at the
beginning of the process.
Zdenek: Ronnie goodman
is the demolition engineer
In charge of making
it all happen.
This is not his first rodeo.
Ronnie's already demolished
half-a-dozen coal power plants
And has agreed to share
his trade secrets with me.
Goodman: The building you
see today,
It will look similar
to that the day
We implode that building.
But you'll take months
and months of preparation
And then all of a sudden,
they'll push the button,
Seconds later, the
whole building's
Reduced to a small pile.
♪
Zdenek: Demo work is a
science and a business.
There's 30,000 tons of
valuable metal here.
It could be worth $10
million if you're willing
To do the hard
work to get it out.
Goodman: We'll come through, all
these windows will get removed
From this building here.
Turbine and generator work,
condenser removal work,
That process will
keep continuin' down
Towards this end
of the building.
Zdenek: They're starting
on the six massive boilers.
Conveniently, those are also
The first engineering
innovation I want to uncover,
Down here in the dark.
♪
Throughout the 19th
century, boilers were used
To create steam power
on a small scale.
Archival: America is at
the height of the steam age.
The steam engine is the
nation's prime mover.
Zdenek: Then, from 1882,
they were used
To run america's
first power plants.
These were small operations
with as few as 500 customers.
The engineers at buck
were thinking much bigger
And revolutionized
a new technology.
They saw a way to use steam
to create electrical power,
Not just for a
single neighborhood,
But for huge,
industrial operations.
♪
Super-sized power plants
with super-sized boilers.
So big, they housed them deep
in the bowels of the building.
Somewhere around here, I can
hear the team working hard
To cut through all that steel.
They're starting at the
bottom of the boiler
And using flame cutters to
slice through the enormous pipes
That supplied the
boilers with water.
But cutting those pipes
free is dangerous work.
(metal crashing)
(chad exclaiming)
Now that's how you take
apart a power plant!
So this used to be a giant pipe,
Like a three-foot diameter pipe.
It's two-and-a-half
inches thick of steel
And it's at the
bottom of the boiler.
They already cut off the
bottom part of the pipe,
Now the guys in the crawl space
are getting rid of the top.
And these pieces have got
To weigh a couple of
thousand pounds each.
(metal crashing)
Wow. (Laughs)
I thought I'd get hit with
slag, not mud! (Laughs)
Man: It's mud on your face.
Zdenek: It's crazy work in here.
It takes 10 days of hard work
And sweat just to
remove the pipe work
And bottom section
of the boiler.
But now, I can look right up
into the combustion chamber.
Once, this huge space
was filled with a giant,
Swirling fireball that
burned all day long.
The space is so big, I can
barely see the top of it,
120-feet above my head.
This boiler was 12 times bigger
than those on the titanic
And it lasted a lot longer.
But while it was big, it
also needed to be efficient.
That depended on something
small, very small.
Early boilers burned coal
in lumps the size of rocks
At an efficiency of just 35%.
Buck engineers were
determined to do better
And discovered they
could produce even
More energy from coal
If they pulverized it.
Goodman: They
pulverized this coal.
And the most important thing
for us is that the coal goes
From that size of
a rock to a powder.
And it's really important
it gets down to a powder,
Because it needs to be
a powder for combustion.
Zdenek: Efficient
combustion, that is.
When coal is powdered,
It means more of the
carbon content is exposed.
So when it's mixed with air
And blasted into the
combustion chamber,
It ignites almost instantly.
This means it burns faster
and with less waste.
I mean, this is like the size
of a small skyscraper in here.
And can you imagine,
1,000-degrees fahrenheit,
1800 psi,
With a giant fireball just
swirling around inside of here.
All that water in the
pipes turning into steam
To power the turbine.
The 26,000-square foot
combustion chamber,
Lined with tens of thousands
of feet of pipework,
All carrying cold water.
As the pulverized coal
burned in the giant chamber,
The enormous heat
generated by the inferno,
Turned the water in
the pipes to steam.
When that happens, steam
increases 1,000 times in volume.
It's a handy rule of physics,
Which means steam leaves the
boiler under enormous pressure,
1800-pounds-per-square-inch.
That's around 20-times higher
than early boiler designs.
♪
Buck's new technique quickly
became the industry standard,
Increasing power production
right across america.
♪
Now, chunk by chunk, the
demolition team is cutting
Out the giant boilers.
Salvaging over 300-tons of steel
That could sell
for up to $90,000.
Finally, after a
century of service
And eight weeks of salvage,
buck's boilers are no more.
♪
They're now taken to the
local scrap yard for sorting.
We started tearing
into the boilers
And this is all that's left.
We separated the metal
into different piles
And now it's all ready to
go to the recycling yard.
In the 1920s, the american
economy was booming.
New wealth and consumer
credit meant new markets
For luxury and household goods.
Archival: Golden america,
welcome to the promised land!
Zdenek: North carolina
was cotton country,
The number one textile
state in the union.
To keep up with demand,
its mills needed power
In bigger quantities
than ever before.
Duke's local hydro-electric
power plant was
Soon struggling to
generate enough juice.
They needed an alternative
and they needed it fast,
Which gave rise to
buck steam station.
Company worker and historian
paul beattie has joined me
To explain just how
quickly they did it.
So you've got almost 40
years with the company,
Plus when you started working,
You were working with
old timers at the time
That had been workin'
since maybe the '40s-'50s.
But you're also a
mechanical engineer,
So I'm hopin' that you
can tell me a little bit
About the historical
part of the plant.
Beattie: They built this
particular plant in nine months.
Zdenek: Nine months?
Beattle: They
self-performed all the work.
They had local folks
that were very talented,
Very knowledgeable,
from that standpoint.
It was a monumental
task at the time
If you think of how quickly
they made it happen.
Zdenek: When buck steam
station was finished,
It could produced
80 times more juice
Than the hydro-electric plant,
Enough to power
the booming mills.
But such a monster machine
required serious manpower,
300 workers per shift.
♪
Duke energy also
had to build a town,
They called it dukeville.
And even started their
own baseball team.
The coal came in by rail,
10,000 tons of the
stuff, every single day.
All delivered from
up to 500 miles away
To keep buck's giant
boilers burning.
But giant boilers and
high-pressure steam were
Only the first step in
providing power to the people.
The next next
engineering innovation
That I want to uncover
is the crucial invention
That turned steam into movement.
It's an invention
that was so efficient
And so effective,
that 100 years later,
It's still being used
in modern power plants.
It's the steam turbine.
♪
Buck had six of them
and they're huge!
Three months in and they're next
On the list for destruction.
The team is preparing to cut
them apart and recycle them.
But it's not gonna be easy,
Each one is underneath a steel
casing, three-inches thick,
Held in place by bolts so big
We need a crane
to lift them out.
The covers are so heavy, we
have to cut each one into pieces
Before we can move it.
After hours of cutting,
We're ready to crane
out the first section.
So, we used one of the
existing bolt holes
And then torched
a hole in the side
So that we have an access point
to attach the shackles to.
Otherwise, there's
no real safe way
To lift up (laughs) 35
tons worth of metal.
To move it, we're using
buck's 100-ton crane.
It was installed in 1926
to assemble the plant.
Nearly a century later,
We're using it to
take the place apart.
The crane's pulleys are
maneuvered inches at a time,
One false move and the
giant cables could snap.
Come on!
Lift!
Come on!
♪
Ah, there it goes!
Well, we finally got the
high-pressure turbine cover off
And it was really heavy,
even the 100-ton crane had
To work to get the thing off.
♪
♪
The turbine casing alone
weighs around 10,000 pounds.
For the salvage team,
that could mean $20,000.
What I'm excited about,
Are the huge circular
elements revealed inside.
They're the turbine blades
And they're really clever
pieces of engineering.
A turbine works on
an ancient principle,
That by moving one large wheel,
Connected to the
other small wheels,
You can covert thermal energy
Into mechanical energy
using moving water
Or air to turn a wheel.
Romans employed the
technique to grind corn
As early as 70 b.C.
And windmills were invented
over 1,000 years ago.
Both are ancestors of
buck's huge turbines
Which use steam,
instead of air or water,
To turn giant fan blades.
These fan blades are
mounted on a central shaft.
The high-pressure steam
from the boiler is pumped
Into the turbine casing.
As it's forced over
the fan blades,
The steam spins the blades
and drives the shaft.
♪
The person behind
this invention was
Irishman, charles parsons.
He built his first steam
turbine design in 1884.
The turbine operated
in a series of stages,
Which drew energy out of
the steam as it expanded,
Making it slower,
more controllable
And less likely to wear out
or break under the strain.
Steam turbines have
replace pistons
For extracting power almost
universally since then.
Within a few decades,
it made cheap
And plentiful
electricity possible
And revolutionized marine
transport and naval warfare.
Parsons' invention
was a breakthrough
In mechanical engineering.
It was later adopted for all
major world power stations.
The earliest turbines produced
Just under eight
kilowatts of power,
But the genius of
that invention was
Its ability to scale
up dramatically.
Here at buck, by
a factor of 10,000!
Those turbines produce 80,000
kilowatts of power each.
♪
Like everything else, these
rotors are super heavy.
Each one is made up of at
least 15,000 pounds of steel
And they were never designed
to be completely dismantled.
Carlos: Okay, take it up.
Zdenek: So this is really just
the nature of the beast,
There's no written manual
On how to deconstruct
those things.
We're relying on carlos and
the guys' decades of experience
In taking these things apart.
There are no shortcuts here,
just blowtorches and sweat.
It takes five weeks
to remove the casings
And cut up each turbine.
♪
I'm back in time to help
with the final unit.
This is the last turbine.
I'm gonna flame
cut the bottom bolt
And then we'll be able
to lift the casing out.
(torches hissing)
♪
I had to get certified to
be able to use one of these.
It burns oxygen
and acetylene gases
At 6,000 degrees fahrenheit.
Enough to melt solid
steel in seconds.
I start by cutting
through the giant bolts
That secure the
thing to the floor.
(metal clanging)
All right, that's
four bolts gone.
With the turbine
itself gone out,
The rest of the team cuts
the bottom casing into pieces
So the crane can lift them out.
We've got the crane
hoisted on each side
And we got to make sure
that it's not too tight.
Because if there's
too much tension,
Right when they snap through
that last part of the steel,
It'll pop up and can cause
an injury or kill somebody.
You can tell it's heavy by how
it's bending that cable, huh.
♪
There goes the last of buck
steam station's six turbines.
Extraordinary pieces of
engineering that started to turn
At a critical time in
the nation's history.
♪
The plant's builders won
their nine month race
To keep up with north
carolina's textile boom.
But just as their hard work was
paying off, disaster struck.
The great depression brought
industry to its knees.
In the crisis, the federal
government stepped in,
Realizing that infrastructure
projects, like buck,
Could power a lot more
than textile mills.
Across the country, armies
of men built new power lines
That connected
everyone to the grid.
Up to 500 miles of
cable went up every day.
First, major textile
mills were connected.
Followed by tobacco
companies and then homes,
Building up the national grid.
♪
♪
Today, we're nearly
half way through
This year-long
demolition process.
The team has removed
buck's six giant boilers
And its huge turbines,
Together, over 500 tons of
steel, copper and brass.
That's up to $1 million of
scrap at today's prices.
Next on the chopping block,
Are the power plants
mighty generators.
They transformed the energy
From the spinning
turbines into electricity.
And like everything else
at buck, they're big.
Without these generators,
America's electrical revolution
might never have happened.
Today, these are big
value pieces of salvage,
Loaded with precious metals
like copper, nickel and brass.
The turbine converts
high-pressure steam
Into mechanical energy.
Now it's this generator
that will convert
That mechanical energy
into electricity.
It sounds like
magic, but actually,
It's the engineering inspiration
Of a british inventor
named michael faraday.
♪
In 1831, he discovered
that moving a coil of wire
Within a magnetic field
produces an electrical current.
When it comes to working
with electricity,
No other metal is
better than copper.
When a high-voltage current
passes through a wire,
There's a constant rise
and fall in temperature.
Not every metal can take such
heat change, but copper can.
It's also very elastic,
which means it's perfect
To wind into a coil around
this generator shaft.
Almost 200 years later,
generators have been made
More efficient and
built to huge specs,
But the concept
remains the same.
♪
This generator has a
copper coil surrounded
By giant magnets.
The coil is mounted
on a shaft connected
To the spinning turbine.
Which is at constant
speed with more steam,
Meaning more load
until it hits the max.
That copper coil's made to spin
Inside of that magnetic field
And that creates an
electrical current ready
To send to the electrical grid.
Now these huge generators are
ready for the recycling yard.
But first, all that
high-price metal has
To be salvaged from inside them.
I've been told that's my job
And to make sure none
of it gets left behind.
All right, this is the rotor
Out of one of the
last generators,
And this thing is
spinning inside the
Generator at 1800 rpm.
It's actually a steel shaft
that's covered in copper.
Now the copper's very expensive
when it comes to recycling,
So we're gonna take this off
And it's gonna go to a
different recycling yard
Than the steel goes to.
♪
(chisel buzzing)
Copper's worth two-and-a-half
times as much as steel
Because it's very flexible
And can withstand big
changes in temperature.
That makes it ideal for
carrying electrical current.
There are thousands of pounds
of copper in these generators.
I've been told to pry it free
And that the only way
to do that is by hand.
But with just a
crowbar, it ain't easy.
Bueno! (Sighs)
It was a lot of hard work,
But it's about 25
pounds of copper.
So this whole thing's
got about 11,000 pounds,
So it's worthwhile
to separate it
So we can send it
to a different yard.
♪
It took a long time to free
just that one, 25-pound strip.
At this rate, it'll
take me about six weeks
To do all of them.
And that's when I
realized the guys were
Just makin' fun of the new kid.
It turns out, the real
pros use mini digger.
All right, these guys were
treating me like rookie,
There's a much
faster way to do it.
We're gonna use some
heavy equipment to do it,
Nothing like a bobcat,
and we should be able
To take out three or
four of them at a time.
♪
Through the 1930s,
'40s and '50s,
Generators like
these were installed
Into at least one new
power station every month.
By 1960, 600 new coal
power plants had opened
And america went from producing
almost no electricity,
To generating four trillion
kilowatt hours every year.
Whether you live in the
city or the country,
Your life was now transformed.
Electricity changed cooking,
Music,
Leisure,
Entertainment
And thanks to some very
clever engineering,
It was something
everyone could afford.
♪
There's a reason this
power station was built
So close to the river.
Coal power plants, they
need huge volumes of water
In order to operate efficiently.
Remember, it's the water in
the pipes lining the boilers
That becomes the pressurized
steam that powers the turbines.
Buck used giant
machines to do that
More efficiently
than ever before.
They are the next innovation
I want to get inside,
the condensers.
There are six in the plant,
Each one is a giant tank,
30-feet tall and 40-feet deep.
Plenty big enough for
me to crawl inside.
When the power
plant was operating,
This would have been sealed off
And filled with water
and thousands of pipes.
The pipes carry cold
water in from the river.
When the spent steam from
the turbine is pumped
Into the tank, the hot
steam hits the cold pipes
And it condenses
back into water.
Which is fed back to the boiler,
So the whole process
can begin again.
This is the ultimate
recycling process
And key to the work of
a power plant like buck.
It made the process of
generating electricity at buck
Even more efficient,
keeping costs down
And electricity as
affordable as possible.
Now taking them apart is
gonna take a lot of work.
♪
They're so big, we have
to start 20-feet up.
The pipes are each made
of stainless steel.
Because that's rust-proof,
It's worth top
dollar as recycling.
And worth the sweat of
salvaging separately
To the rest of the condenser.
Hey, raphael.
Raphael: How you doing?
Zdenek: Good, how are you?
Raphael: Good!
Zdenek: It looks like an
endless job,
And maybe not one I should
have volunteered for.
Man, that's a lot of pipes!
Raphael: There's about
2500 in this space right here.
Zdenek: And you gotta take
every one out, one-by-one.
Raphael: One-by-one, yep.
Zdenek: We have a
custom-built machine to help.
It has jaws that grab the
pipe and then pull it out.
But it's still gonna take a lot
Of heavy and repetitive work.
Each pipe is 20-feet long,
weighs about eight pounds
And is worth around $5 as scrap.
Not much, but when you've
got 15,000 of them,
Removing them one-by-one
begins to make sense.
Once we've pulled each pipe,
We feed it into a guillotine,
Where it's cut into pieces
ready for melt-down.
(guillotine clicking)
♪
With the condensers'
pipes removed,
The steel outer casings
are cut into chunks
And lifted to ground level,
ready for the salvage yard.
Another huge piece of buck
power plant stripped away.
♪
After seven months of work,
The team has salvaged
almost 3,000 tons of metal.
We've removed the six
boilers, turbines,
Generators and condensers.
Together, a mighty machine,
which for 80 years,
Harnessed the power of coal
to generate electricity.
And help drive america's growth
through the 20th century.
By the 1970s, it was clear,
Burning coal came at a cost.
Archival: Wherever fuel
is burned to generate power,
The inevitable, unavoidable
result is pollution.
Zdenek: Dangerous gases
and heavy metals released
Into the atmosphere.
Sulfur dioxide, that
creates acid rain.
Nitrogen oxide,
which causes smog.
Mercury, that contaminates
waterways, killing wildlife.
And soot, which can trigger
asthma and bronchitis.
Buck power plant had
helped changed america,
But the dark side of coal power
could no longer be ignored.
The u.S. Government responded
By introducing
the clean air act,
Designed to reduce pollution
By enforcing new
standards for industry.
♪
In response, duke
energy built these.
They're called
precipitators and inside,
There's some pretty
cool engineering.
The precipitators
stretch 110 feet,
The entire height
of the building.
Inside each one is an
array of metal plates,
Charged with static electricity.
Exhaust gases from
the boilers are pumped
Into the precipitator.
These gases are
laden with particles
Of ash and poisonous metals.
As this mixture passes
between the metal plates,
The static electrical
charge attracts
The dangerous particles, so
that they cling to the metal
While the gases release
into the atmosphere.
Vibration then frees the ash
So that it can be
collected below.
Now, it's time to
tear them down.
Brad: Roberto and ricardo, y'all
are gonna be machine operators,
Supportin' tommy
lean and long arm.
You ready, you're work
trucks full, ready to go?
Man: Yep.
Zdenek: And normally, they might
just blow out the legs
And take the whole
thing down in one piece,
But we can't do that here
Because we have an
active switch yard.
All the transformers and
high-voltage lines over there,
All that's active
and you can see,
It's dangerously close to
where our precipitator is.
So instead, we're
gonna use an excavator,
It's basically this
100-foot arm with shears
On the end that bite down,
And take this structure
down, piece by piece.
It takes a lot longer, but
it's much more controlled,
Because we don't
want anything falling
Into that electrical over there.
It seems almost a bit like
david and goliath. (Laughs)
This monster
precipitator (laughs)
And this guy working this
one machine down here.
(metal clanging)
(excavator creaking)
This is amazing to
see this process.
I mean, you lose perspective.
We're about 200 feet away
and he's literally shearing
Through I-beams to
take this apart.
(metal clanging)
♪
For three whole days,
The excavators huge jaws
tear at the precipitators
Until eventually, the giant
machines are reduced to scrap.
About a month ago, we started
taking apart the precipitators
With the excavator and
this is all that's left.
We've separated all the
metal into different piles
To get it ready for recycling.
♪
98% of this metal will be melted
down, sold and used again.
Inside the building,
I'm helping to clear the very
last pieces of salvaged steel.
Getting these giant chunks
Of scrap offsite
requires heavy haulage.
So how much would
you say these weigh?
Elberson: 20,000.
Zdenek: Each?
Elberson: This one's 20,
that one's about 15.
Zdenek: So we're puttin' the
shackles on, we got four of 'em.
We had to put two
extras on the other side
To help level it out,
'cause we're grabbing a lot
lower end of the piece there
And we got to make it fairly
even for the main lift.
Time for the big crane.
When you're movin' 25,000
pounds worth of steel,
You got to make sure
you do it right.
So you got two
chains on each one?
Elberson: Yep.
Zdenek: And then that's
it, we're good to go?
Elberson: They're good to go.
Zdenek: Now I've designed
jets for spaceships
And built engines for cars,
But one thing I've never done
is ride in an 18-wheeler.
I'm tryin' not to
be too excited here,
This is my first
time in a big rig.
Elberson: Hey, it's exciting.
Zdenek: (laughs) I know it's
probably old hat for you,
But this is pretty damn cool.
Elberson: I've been in
them for 34 years
And it's still exciting.
(chad laughing)
Zdenek: So can you feel
how heavy the load is
Or does it feel the same
regardless of the weight?
Elberson: You can tell
the difference
'cause most of what we do
is oversized and overweight
And so you can really tell.
The heavier it gets, the more
you can feel in the truck.
Zdenek: Really, huh.
(dispatcher muttering)
Zdenek: Every day for
the last year,
Trucks like this have
been leaving buck,
Carrying giant chunks of
scrap down the highway.
We're driving down
the interstate
With about 25,000
pounds of steel,
Heading off to the
recycling yard.
And I'm really excited
to be in this big rig,
Never done it before
and super grateful
For jake takin' me on the ride.
To one of the biggest
salvage yards in the state.
It's where the other side
Of the demolition
business takes place,
Storing and selling the
30,000 tons of metal,
Salvaged from the buck site.
You're talkin' about acres
and acres of land over here,
I don't even know how
big it is, but it's huge.
And they've got it
down to a science
On how they separate
things, weigh it all out
And put it in different piles.
Then, literally
timing the market
For when it's good
to offload it.
It's a pretty impressive
operation for sure.
I recognized some
parts here from buck.
Cavanaugh: Yeah, you've got,
this is one of the main staters.
And then up there, of course,
You got either some of the high
Or low-pressure rotors
that we took out.
Zdenek: So on the pieces that
we're bringin' in today,
We'll unload it right here
And these guys will
start choppin' it up?
Cavanaugh: Yep, they'll unload
it with the crane here.
They'll prepare it,
get it mill ready,
Then they'll load it on
the truck, ship it out.
Zdenek: Wow.
Cavanaugh: Steel prices
fluctuate,
So we wait for a good
time in the market.
We've got a big enough yard
And we're fortunate enough that
we can stockpile some of it.
Zdenek: Most of the scrap metal
will eventually be melted down
And turned into
building materials,
Like steel girders
for construction.
The haul of metal
from buck is enough
To forge 40,000 feet of I-beams,
Or four-and-a-half thousand
sheets of one-inch steel.
In fact, 2/3 of the steel we use
In america has been recycled
from salvaged metal like this.
It's hard to imagine that
this stuff was actually built
Almost 100 years ago, and
here we are a century later,
Taking it all apart
and it, soon enough,
Is going to be reused
for the next century.
♪
Buck steam station was
a marvel of its age.
When it was built, it was a
highly efficient power plant,
Using cutting-edge technology.
Today, it's a dinosaur.
The precipitators stopped
99% of harmful particles
From reaching the atmosphere,
But those pollutants
weren't eradicated.
Instead, they were
collected in the form
Of millions of tons of ash,
Which then had to be
disposed of elsewhere.
Here at buck, that was
done by digging giant pits,
Called ash ponds.
Water was used to move the
ash to a series of these ponds
And then that ash would
settle to the bottom.
But over time, toxins seeped
into the local groundwater.
The pollution caused by
burning coal was not going away
And that's one reason
buck steam station was
Finally decommissioned in 2013.
Newer, cleaner ways of
producing electricity are taking
The place of coal-fired plants.
This is the new
buck power plant.
It doesn't burn coal, instead
it's powered by natural gas.
It produces twice the
power more cheaply
With far fewer pollutants
than its neighbor ever did.
♪
The 620-megawatt natural gas
plant began operating in 2011.
The natural gas is fed through
a pipeline from new mexico.
It's cleaner, cheaper,
twice as powerful
And can be run by a
team of just 20 people.
But the technology
proved at buck lives on.
There are still turbines,
condensers and generators,
Engineering innovations
that continue to evolve
And stand the test of time.
♪
It's a considerable legacy.
One man who's proud of
the role buck played
In powering the modern
age is dean beaver.
Beaver: It's been
a good long career.
Zdenek: He spent his
entire working life here.
Beaver: 35 years spent with the
team makin' this place run
And five years of watchin'
it cut up and torn down.
Zdenek: I think most
people think of demo
And, okay, you get a wrecking
ball, some explosives
And you take the
whole building down.
But something like this,
it's amazing, it takes years.
Beaver: It does and like I
said, we do it safely
And environmentally safe.
I've talked to people
from other plants,
They said the big one will
come when they implode it.
Zdenek: Really?
Beaver: They said that's when
you'll really feel it.
Zdenek: It hits home then.
Well, dean, I think
it's safe to say
That you've earned
that retirement.
Beaver: (sighs) I'm ready for
it, it's been a good career.
Zdenek: We've reached
the end of the road
For the buck steam station.
In just a few days, it will
all come crashing down.
♪
After 12 solid
months of salvage,
The demolition team is now
setting explosive charges
To bring buck steam station's
empty shell crashing down.
This coal power plant's
era is truly over.
For the past several months,
I've been given
an amazing insight
Into the world of demolition.
What stands out, is
the attention to detail
In taking apart such
a giant structure.
The careful planning,
the way the teams extract
Every cents worth of metal from
the building for recycling.
Duke has handed the site
over to steve pettigrew,
The blast engineer in
charge of the operation.
He's been working with
explosives for over 40 years
And he takes his
business seriously.
I'm one of the lucky
few allowed access
Before the big explosion.
So, steve, what does it take
To take down a structural
building of this size?
Pettigrew: Well, being a
structural steel building,
We use linear shape charges,
Which actually target
the steel flanges
And they penetrate
and sever the steel,
Just like a torch would,
only in milliseconds.
Zdenek: So we've got the low
shape charges down here,
Cutting low, and then
the high ones up there?
Pettigrew: Yes, exactly.
Zdenek: And how to you actually
kick this thing out
Once it's cut?
Pettigrew: That severance is
made low and high.
The kick charge goes off,
which is a slower explosive
And it actually
eliminates the column.
Zdenek: So, again, for a
building of this size,
How many charges or
explosives would you need
To take the building down?
Pettigrew: We have 350 charges,
ranging from smaller charges
To medium and some
extra-heavy charges.
Zdenek: So it's really
down to the second
On getting this thing down.
Pettigrew: Well, it's the
precise millisecond.
Zdenek: Millisecond.
Pettigrew: Yes, millisecond.
Zdenek: So it's gotta
be engineered
So that the cuts are made
Where they need to be, and
then the final cut is done
By the shape charge.
Pettigrew: Exactly.
Zdenek: Which will bring
this whole thing down.
Pettigrew: Yeah, over time
and space.
Zdenek: So that's the
traditional big boom explosives
That we think of.
Pettigrew: Right.
Zdenek: So, those will
kick this thing out,
Almost like the leg of a chair,
so that once these are gone,
The weight of the
building brings it down?
Pettigrew: Exactly,
gravity takes over.
Zdenek: This place is rigged
and ready to blow.
We've got 350
explosive charges set
And if all goes
according to plan,
This should drop like a house
of cards and land right here.
So I'm gonna head up
to the command center.
♪
The command center
is a safe zone,
3/4 of a mile away
from the blast site.
(sirens blasting)
All right, we got a lot
of people here. (Laughs)
This is the first command center
With the second command
center back there
And then the viewing
area behind that.
There's a couple
hundred people up there
And we just heard
the three blasts,
Which is the five
minute warning.
This is about to happen.
And some things,
despite technology,
Don't change a whole lot.
We still got a red terminal
and a black terminal
(laughs) and one button to push
And that building's comin' down.
♪
I begged and pleaded,
but supervisor, javier,
Gets to press the button,
Bringing the station
crashing to the ground.
Pettigrew: Six, five,
four, three, two, one, fire.
Zdenek: Wait for it.
(explosions blasting)
First, the shape
charges explode,
Cutting off the top and
bottom of the beams.
Then, the conventional
big boom charges kick
Out the whole beam like
the leg of a chair,
Causing the weight of the
building to come crashing down.
(explosions blasting)
(metal crashing)
After the dust settles, a
mammoth building is reduced
To a pile of rubble, ending
the buck coal-fired era.
The site where the steam
station stood will become
A grassy field
after it's graded.
♪
All that's left of the plant
is the $10 million they made
In recycled metal.
For almost 100 years,
The buck power plant
has provided electricity
And a way of life for
millions of americans.
I know its time has come,
But buck's engineering made
it a legend of its time.
Now, it's demolished and
it's time to say goodbye
To an incredible
piece of history.
♪