A game, to begin with.
Open Google Earth and search for “Ekibastuz GRES-2”, a power plant of Soviet heritage located in Ekibastuz, Kazakhstan, at the foot of Lake Tuzdysor. If you take a look at the satellite view you will see silos, warehouses, roads… And a gigantic smoking vertical structure that seems stuck like a thumbtack on the map. It is not a Google error, nor a blur. Before you you have the tallest chimney in the world, a titan of 419.7 meters. More than the Eiffel Tower or Al Hamra, in Kuwait.
With its impressive wingspan, the GRES-2 tower is the tallest of its kind. When it was completed in 1987, it took the record for the world’s tallest chimney from the 381-meter Inco Superstack in Ontario, Canada. Its enormous height actually surpasses many of the skyscrapers that mark the skyline city of the planet, such as the Chrysler building or the Bank of America Tower, both located in New York; the Bank of China tower in Hong Kong; or The Shard, in London. It remains, yes, well below the almost 830 m of the Burj Khalifa.
The GRES-2 record is corroborated by the Guinness World Records itself, in which something else is specified about its dimensions: at the base, the diameter of the chimney is 44 meters, but as it gains height it narrows until it reaches the 14.2 from the top.
A heritage from the 80’s
Its height equates it to the fourth tallest office building in the world, the Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai, which measures 421 meters. A consequence of its size is its enormous weight: about 60,000 tons. To give it shape, the engineers used reinforced concrete.
Although the GRES-2 chimney is already around the three and a half decades the plant, which is fueled by coal from the Ekibastuz basin, is still fully operational. On its website, the company specifies that the plant was designed with a capacity of 4,000 MWe with eight units of 500 MW each designed by the Novosibirsk Institute. The works started in 1979 and the first unit was commissioned a decade later, in December 1990. The second arrived three years later, at the end of 1993. The third —according to at least Samruk Energy— was only partially completed .
Although the one from Ekibastuz heads the list, the one from GRES-2 is not the only industrial chimney with a heart-stopping height. In Europe we have the tower of the Trbovlje power station in Slovenia, 360 meters. In 2020, a couple of climbers decided to stand up to him and sign a feat that would close the stomach of ordinary mortals and make their knees tremble: climb it with the only help of a rope. It took more than seven hours to take in the selfie Victory.
In Spain we can also boast of titans —yes; not all of them standing anymore—, like the one at the Sabón power plant, 200 meters high; or that of Endesa Termic, in As Pontes de García Rodríguez, of 356 meters. Although it is not a chimney, the peninsula is home to another great “axis” that surprises those who look at it from afar: the Torreta de Guardamar and its 370 meters.
Images | GRES2, Dutchbelted5 (Wikipedia) and Mountins13 (Wikimedia)
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism