Gray clouds cover the entire sky, and beneath them three concrete chimneys stand in a row. Construction seams remain as horizontal lines on their surfaces, and ladders and platforms are attached to the railings at the top. No smoke comes from any of the chimneys. Dense trees hide the lower half, and a building with scaffolding stands at the right edge.
A chimney was originally a sign that a plant was alive. There was a time when people gauged the operating rate from the color and volume of the smoke, and now that the sign is gone, only the bulk of the concrete remains. The point of this photograph is that the concrete stands as it was even after the smoke stops.
This is where the cost of the transition divides. Cutting emissions begins with shutting off the chimney, but even after the shutdown the asset remains on the books, and dismantling costs money again. While the decision to leave it standing or tear it down is put off, the trees keep growing and cover the structure from the bottom up.
The shade of the trees below the chimneys is a black mass that light barely reaches. In that darkness the outlines of a low wall and wire mesh are just visible, and some angular shape, hidden by leaves, is attached to the base of a chimney. It may be a trace of a blocked entrance, or a piece of auxiliary equipment left for a long time. Before weighing the heights against one another, it is the ground level, which is not caught by the eye, that holds the longer record of deferred disposal.
The scaffolding on the building at the right is a sign that something is under way. Whether it is being built or taken apart cannot be told from the photograph alone. The heights of the chimneys, the scaffolding and the trees are worth weighing against one another once more.
